Talk about resume padding! He compares his experience running a campaign (which, btw should come as a surprise to his campaign manager) with her experience as mayor and totally ignores her experience as governor and Cooper lets him get away with it.

COOPER: And, Senator Obama, my final question — your — some of your Republican critics have said you don’t have the experience to handle a situation like this. They in fact have said that Governor Palin has more executive experience, as mayor of a small town and as governor of a big state of Alaska.

What’s your response?
OBAMA: Well, you know, my understanding is, is that Governor Palin’s town of Wasilla has, I think, 50 employees. We have got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year.
You know, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month.
So, I think that our ability to manage large systems and to execute, I think, has been made clear over the last couple of years. And, certainly, in terms of the legislation that I passed just dealing with this issue post-Katrina of how we handle emergency management, the fact that many of my recommendations were adopted and are being put in place as we speak, I think, indicates the degree to which we can provide the
kinds of support and good service that the American people expect.

Maybe he should practice this response a little more before he plants it with another reporter.
BTW, Hot Air has the unedited transcript if you are interested in how he really sounded when he answered the question. He is quite liberal in his use of “uh.” For someone with a reputation of being articulate, he sure uses a lot of them.

Update: Here’s the McCain campaign’s response:

“For Barack Obama to argue that he’s experienced enough to be president because he’s running for president is desperate circular logic and it’s laughable. It is a testament to Barack Obama’s inexperience and failing qualifications that he would stoop to passing off his candidacy as comparable to Governor Sarah Palin’s executive experience managing a budget of over 10 billion dollar dollars, and more than 24,000 employees.” –Tucker Bounds, spokesman John McCain 2008

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