Totem, you're disappointing me.Follow

It's pretty much a given that Obama will make his grand announcement in Springfield, IL, against the backdrop of Abraham Lincoln who (on the federal level) served a single term in the House before becoming president.

I'd be curious to know exactly what people fear he's inexperienced about. He spent ten years as a Constitutional professor, eight years as state senator, a couple years now as a US senator including serving on the Foreign Relations and Homeland Security committees... I guess I just don't see what he's expected to learn in another six years. Compared to Bush (who I only mentioned because I don't remember "inexperience" being a key criticism of him) who only had a single term as governor, I'd say that Obama is qualified. I know that governor is an executive position, but it's not as though I'd trust most state governors to negotiate with Syria or anything.

I'm sure that solidified his decision, but he had made the statement that he would not run for President before then. His wife was adamantly opposed, possibly because of the possibility of assassination.

He's the anti-christ! It's the END TIMES! This is your 4 minute warning!

Don't mind me. Just making a correction here...


I think when people talk about Obama's lack of experience, they're talking about both federal level in general, and "executive experience" in particular.

It's not just his short time in Congress. He has minimal experience operating at a federal level *at all*. Even working in a senior staff position at that level would count. He's got none. To my knowledge, he's done *nothing* at a federal level before being elected to Congress. That's a big deal. Most significant presidential candidates either have *long* stints in Congress, or have served at a high state level (governor for example, where you do work with the federal executive level quite a bit), or have served in senior positions in past administrations (cabinet level stuff typically). Obama has none of those.

He's also got no executive experience. There's a reason why the second two catagories I listed are far more common sources for successful presidential bids. Governors and senior presidential administration staff tend to do very well historically. In both cases, they've got experience running in an executive style capacity, which is radically different from legistlative offices.

Obama's in the worst of all catagories. No executive experience *and* short term in Congress *and* no other direct work with/in the federal level. I just think that makes him really questionable as a lead candidate. He might work as a Vice President, but even that's questionable. VP's are typically chosen for two reasons: They can bring in more districts to the ticket (which he *might*) *and* they bring some experience and/or contacts that are useful at the executive level. Obaman kinda meets the first criteria, but not the second. Obviously, those criteria aren't set in stone, and there are lots of VPs who didn't meet them, but I suspect he'd be pretty ineffective as vice president (a Dan Quayle if you will). I suppose if all you care about is winning the White House for Democrats, then this doesn't matter, but I would hope that voters would look beyond that when voting (sadly, my hopes in this manner are often proven wrong).

I don't know if Clinton can win either. In her case, she's got the necessary experience. In spades in fact. Being First Lady to a previous administration is about the best experience builder for learning how to be an effective president as I can think of. Her problem is the opposite of Obama's. Where he is charismatic and likable, she is mostly effective at making people dislike her. The word "shrill" comes to mind when thinking of her. She has an amazing ability to frame her positions in a way designed to maximize the number of people who dislike her for her position, even among people who might otherwise support her. That's a bad tendency for a presidential hopeful.


I'm honestly thinking that someone like Edwards would have a better chance at actually winning the whole thing. Not sure if the Dem primary process will give him the chance though. We'll see...

It's really too bad GWB can't run again. He is so awesome. We can always hold out for Jeb though! Yeeeeehaaaaw!

Maybe I should run this year. i mean, come on, it seems like the Dems are letting anyone run.

They don't call it the white house for nothing - House.

I know I should ask if she's ok, but I think what everyone wants to know is: Do they feel real?

Personally I don't find him all that interesting. I like the idea of having a black dude in the White house if for no other reason than they can finally say "We did it!" and be done with it. Sure, I suppose it's a big deal for racial equality and all that happy ********* but a man is a man and the color of his skin doesn't mean a damn thing when it comes to running a country. Honestly, the only reason I stop to watch him while flipping through the channels is because I keep waiting for him to bust out singing Mambo #5.

Best wishes to Mrs. Totem. She's obviously a woman of steel if she's put up with you for 20+ years, so I'm sure she'll be fine.

Which black agenda? It's not as though there were a united front in what we loosely refer to as the black community.

Apparently, there is. The NAACP gives each Congress a report card of sorts on its opinion of the Congress' treatment of "civil rights issues". Included in the definition are topics like the minimum wage, health care, budget issues, education, gun control, voting rights, low income energy assistance, community development, criminal justice and trade.

National Black Agenda 2004 was a forum held for blacks to evaluate the 2004 presidential candidates.

I wonder how many black people / politicians actually care about the NAACP report card.

Or how many people think civil rights are confined to issues of racial minorities, much less ONE racial minority.