Obama takes the big leap

People always say this about Bush, and then fail to point out that the Texas governorship is one of the least powerful in the country.

And the idea that Obama would be more electable in 2012 has been debunked numerous times here, but I will quickly rehash it once again.

Let's say Obama sits out. In 2012, he's either running against an incumbent Democrat or an incumbent Republican. If it's a Democrat, he/she has either made the situation in Iraq better, or at best, maintained the status quo, which is really making it worse simply with the passage of time. So either people don't want to vote for a Democrat because the war is going worse, or they're going to vote for the incumbent because it's going better. The idea that the Democratic party would oust a sitting president in the primary anyway simply to clear the way for Obama is laughable.

If a Republican wins, he faces the same challenge. Running against an incumbant. He also will have to face all kinds of difficult votes on the war, which will be used against him (if he even wins the primary) by a party that is looking for every possible scrap of evidence to paint him as a lightweight.

The time for Obama to take his shot is now, otherwise he might as well wait until 2016. There is a good chance he won't even get the nomination this go round, but he's obviously the most interesting, compelling character in the race. People have been bitching for years that "if Democrats would just nominate someone who didn't have the personality of a two-by-four, they'd win easily." So now we have a candidate with the best personality, and the same people say, "He should wait. He's too green."

I think part of the reason people are saying that is because they're afraid he might actually connect with people and win. Funny how little we heard about Perot's experience when he was leading the polls in 1992.

Obama is the perfect contrast to Bush. He's articulate, he's been against the war from the beginning, he's actually good at bi-partisanship instead of just paying lip service, and doesn't try to make the opposition party out to be all that's evil and wrong with the world. I like the whole Purple America message, because I'm a liberal who grew up in a red state, and I know that we're not as different as Karl Rove and James Dobson would like you to believe. Most people don't hate the other guy. They just disagree. And that, right now, is Obama's message, and he just so happens to be as good at expressing it as anyone to come along in years.

He should throw his hat in. Because a lot of people want to hear what he has to say.

 

Amen, double down!

 

If he wins ONE state he'll do better than the past two Democratic candidates.

And since he can't do any worse than the past two, that's really a non-issue.

And a word or two on "experience":

Bush had experience "running things". Wastoid the first 40 years of his life. Failed businessman. Lousy baseball owner. A governor who spent an average of 15 minutes on clemency cases (most governors spend a day or more per case).

What good is experience running things if you run them badly? How exactly did Bush's experience as governor translate to someone who was a better president because of said experience.

And finally . . .

. . . the greatest heart surgeon in the world at one time had a first patient.

Being president is like no other job. The only "experience" you can get being president is . . . by being president.

Obama is smart, thoughtful, curious, knows how to work with people, will listen to the opinions of experts.

Our current Commander in Chief is 0 for 5 in the preceding qualifications.

 

The name thing is not about us thinking he'd be a bad president, it's about the small portion of morons out there who fall into that "undecided" margin. Those are the people who actually get to make the decisions in this country and many of them are dumb enough or racist enough to reject him out of hand. It's a question of electibility, which is totally different from qualifications.

 

Second that. I know who I want to earn the Democratic nod, now that he's officially in the race.

 

By 2008, Obama will have had more experience at the national level of office than Abraham Lincoln did in 1860. Don't tell me today's problems are harder than the ones on Lincoln's plate.
Voters cheat themselves when they worry about "electability." That's not our job, man. We should vote for the candidate we like best. Democratic primary voters picked John Kerry because he was "electable." Turned out he wasn't.

 

Print that and put it on a T-shirt. I agree 100 percent.

 

Yeah, because the most important thing about that election won't be the future of the country, but the possibility of another reason to rip the South, right?

 

Obama has a better chance of winning a southern state than he does of winning, say, Utah or Kansas or Idaho or North Dakota or South Dakota.

I like his chances in Montana, which seems to have finally seen the light.

 

Mark Rolfing?

 

Maybe America is ready for a young, brash politician who hasn't been corrupted by the partisan political system that runs this country.

That's the angle I'm looking at. Whether Obama wins or not, it's going to be fun to see how his campaign turns out, especially with a black guy and a woman running. He got several fortunate breaks to get to the Senate, but there's no question that he's becoming a household name and gaining popularity. "Audacity of Hope" was a great read, and while it didn't buy my vote, it certainly made me like the guy enough to watch him and consider it.

I just think Obama is smart enough to be the President, and I'd like to think that his naivete may be a good thing. If he's serious about following through on what he wrote in his book, he'd be great for this country. But will the rest of Washington embrace a man who claims to believe in so much bipartisanship? I don't know.