The long-awaited announcement was made today that Barrack Obama has filed a presidential exploratory committee. According to the Tribune article, this means that Obama can start raising funds even before formally announcing his candidacy. I’m not exactly sure how the political process works in declaring your candidacy and actually running for president, but Obama is definitely a candidate I look forward to hearing more about in the news.
I still wonder if Obama is getting a little ahead of himself. Despite his stellar academic background, he is only a freshman senator. Is that enough experience to handle the fragile international political climate we find ourselves in now? I suppose only time will tell.
I wonder too. I got the announcement via e-mail from his offices, since I am on their e-mail list or whatever, and i didn’t know whether to be excited or worried. I think he would be an excellent candidate - in 2012. In 2008, I’m just not sure. Does he have enough experience? And, is the country ready to vote in a black man? If a woman or a black man were to run in this upcoming presidential election, and lose, it might make it easier for the next guy. So yeah, I don’t know. But I do know that I LOVE Obama, so I’m just going to wait and see.
“…Obama is definitely a candidate…”
Actually, filing papers with the FEC to form an Exploratory Committee does not mean he’s yet a candidate. It is a way of allowing yourself to begin to raise money and hire staff, but be still “testing the waters” as it were. Of course, in reality, everything indicates that he will actually declare and make himself a candidate on February 10, the day he said he would announce his intentions. Here’s why: for all the talk about his inexperience, he is a skilled politician. This was all perfectly timed. This announcement re: the FEC filing on the video on his website was shortly after MLK day. For all the implicit comparisons that people may dream up about that one, Jesse Jackson made the parallels explicit in a speech yesterday. Also, his February 10 announcement will be in Springfield, the hometown of arguably the greatest President we’ve had. The parallels are two-fold there. 1) The parallel about Lincoln fighting to free slaves, paving the way for a minority, one day, to become President, are obvious. 2) This one is less obvious. When Lincoln became President, he had spent several terms in the Illinois State Assembly and 2 years in Congress (1856-1858 in the House). I’ll be damned if that doesn’t look very similar to someone else’s resume at present time. As for Obama’s purported lack of experience being a hindrance to his ability to discharge the duties of the office, that’s bull. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had been in politics for over 30 years each. I’ll leave the implications of that one to you. Where the inexperience may be a hindrance is not in the Oval Office, but on the campaign trail, long before he ever gets to occupy the office. However, another young and uncharacteristically charismatic President (to whom Sen. Obama is constantly compared) had also only spent about 8 years in politics before he ran and won in 1960.
@Brad: You’re giving away the playbook!
I’ve had people (mostly Molly) saying at me that, re: the experience question, if he has smart, experienced advisors who he listens to (and it appears that he does), then any strikes against him for his personal inexperience are lessened to pretty much irrelevant. ::shrugs::