Small-Town Mayor Versus Community Organizer

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: (Oops, they don’t belong here.)

The Sarah Palin Experience:

In 1984, Palin won the Miss Wasilla Pageant, then finished second in the Miss Alaska pageant, at which she won a college scholarship and the "Miss Congeniality" award. Palin admits to smoking marijuana as a youth, during the time Alaska had decriminalized possession, though she says she did not enjoy it.

Palin spent her first college semester at Hawaii Pacific College, transferring in 1983 to North Idaho College and then to the University of Idaho. She attended Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska for one term, returning to the University of Idaho to complete her Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism, graduating in 1987.

In 1988, she worked as a sports reporter for KTUU-TV in Anchorage, Alaska. She also helped in her husband’s family commercial fishing business.

Palin served two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska city council from 1992 to 1996, then won two terms as mayor of Wasilla from 1996 to 2002. After an unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor of Alaska in 2002, she chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004 while also serving as Ethics Supervisor of the commission.

In November 2006, Palin was elected the governor of Alaska, becoming the first woman and youngest person to hold the office.

The Barack Obama Experience:

A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama worked as a community organizer and practiced as a civil rights attorney before serving in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate in January 2003. After a primary victory in March 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He was elected to the Senate in November 2004 with 70% of the vote.

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, he helped create legislation to control conventional weapons and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. During the 110th Congress, he helped create legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for returned U.S. military personnel.

Obama held assignments on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works and Veterans' Affairs through December 2006. In January 2007, he left the Environment and Public Works committee and took additional assignments with Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. He also became Chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama has made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.

Obama was an early opponent of the Bush administration's policies on Iraq.

Obama is also a published author. Does that count for anything or does that just make him more of an elitist?

If your answer is that it makes him more of an elitist, perhaps we should remember that “regular guy” who you could have a beer with (but not really because he doesn’t drink) that was also a published author before he was elected president.

Can I vote for The Jimi Hendrix Experience?