A half-term governor has more claim to leadership and experience than does a one-third-term U.S. senator who has risen through a big-city political machine. ~Lisa Schiffren
Mind you, this comes from the same person who thought that a ten and a half-year governor of Arkansas was beyond the pale and unspeakably foul because he sometimes raised taxes to pay for road improvements (oh, yes, and he also believed in God, which is very undesirable). I’m not sure that a VP choice that satisfies Ms. Schiffren is necessarily politically savvy. This is what the GOP hacktivists* are reduced to arguing. It really is, as I have guessed it would be, a race to the bottom: which ticket will prove itself to be more absurd and unfit before November 4? The slightly less absurd pair wins.
It’s not clear to me that Republicans should want to brag about a nominee whose only experience in statewide elected government has lasted just about as long as the current presidential campaign, much less should they want to remind voters that her experience prior to that was governing a small town with fewer inhabitants than the average Chicago ward. It also doesn’t make much sense to stress that Obama did rise through a big-city political machine and managed to catapult himself to the political heights in less time than it took Palin to reach Juneau as governor, unless the goal is to remind people that he is, in fact, an impressive political talent. As for Biden, it’s fair to note that he has often been wrong on foreign policy. Together with John McCain, he fully backed the attack on Yugoslavia, whose after-effects are now being felt in Georgia, and together with George Bush he supported the invasion of Iraq. Strange that Schiffren doesn’t mention that.
* Hacktivist here is the combination of a hack and an activist; no hacker references intended.
LMaggitti 
Experience can be a good thing, and it’s more institutionalized in a parliamentary system, where people tend to have to spend time climbing up the greasy pole. However, experience tends to favor a relatively narrow group, in the U.S., graduates of the Ivies and especially Harvard and Yale Law Schools. I’m a lawyer, and I can tell you that studying law tends to promote a certain narrowness of view. I’m not convinced the dominant views at Columbia are superior to those at the University of Idaho,
The experience of belonging to a political class that has been consistently wrong for decades may not be such a good thing. Biden may know where Qatar and Albania are, but does he know what to do about them? Does he have a strategic vision of the world that will help us out of our current box? I rather doubt it.
What we don’t know about Palin is whether she has studied or has any thoughts about history. If she hasn’t, she could be putty in the hands of the Scheunemanns of the world. As a politician, no doubt she’s pretty skilled. There are, however, many unknowns, especially in how she understands world politics–if she purports to do so at all, at this stage.