I thought the front page of the Local section of the Sunday Herald should contain news, not a column by Jerry Cornfield. (“Is Palin up to the job? Ask a mayor.”) The clincher of this column masquerading as a news article is the subtle remark about Mayor Margaret Larson saying she is too old to run for vice president, this being an obvious comparison to Sen. John McCain’s age. Hopefully The Herald doesn’t become like the New York Times, which has opinion articles throughout the whole newspaper.

The column belittles Palin’s background to run for the vice presidency on the Republican ticket. It would have been interesting if Cornfield had compared Sen. Barack Obama’s background for the higher, presidential position on the Democratic ticket. It would be a good comparison to look at being a mayor for six years setting budgets and making decisions for the whole community in addition to “battling barking dogs and bloated budgets” to that of Sen. Obama being a community organizer for the Democratic Party.

Another good comparison is between being a state governor who actually did make a positive difference with corruption in the state of Alaska versus Sen. Obama spending about three years as a senator who started to run for the presidency during his first year.

Sen. McCain selected Sarah Palin, who has talked the talk and walked the walk. Sen. Obama has talked the talk but he hasn’t walked the walk. He stated he “wants to change Washington and get rid of the old style politics.” Who does he select for his vice presidential running mate but Sen. Joe Biden, who has been a senator for 35 years and who has been part of the “old style political” problem for many years.

Ed Masar