Barack Obama, Jay Cutler and the problem with talented rookies
Last night, I got an email alerting me to draftobama.org. The site states:
Draft Obama is a recently formed grassroots organization of ordinary voters who believe strongly that Senator Barack Obama is uniquely gifted and qualified to lead our country back to greatness. As the most compelling public figure in America today, Senator Obama offers our country unmatched hope, thoughtfulness and leadership.
Yick.
It's not that I don't [heart] Obama. How could I not? He's a anti-war progressive with an eerie ability to bridge the red-blue divide.
He's also a newbie. Eight years in the Illinois state senate. Two in the U.S. Senate. No executive experience.
The world is a scary place. And it isn't likely to be any better after two more years of W. The next President will have to right a nonsensical foreign policy, astronomical budget deficits, a broken healthcare system, and a military stretched thin because of W.'s fondness for knocking over secular dictatorships that posed no threat to the United States. When Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rattle their sabers, I'm not sure how a President Barack Obama would respond.
Which brings me to Jay Cutler. Great arm, NFL body, seems smart enough. But in the grasp of the Seahawk defense last night, he did what rookies always do. He threw the ball straight up.
A must-win game against the defending NFC champs in freezing temperatures on national television is no place for the quarterback of the future to make his debut.
The next President will immediately face a similar situation with much, much (did I mention "much"?) higher stakes. America doesn't have the luxury of electing the President of the future.
You can view Sen. Barack Obama's wiki page here. Hat-tip to TalkLeft for the Times link.
Draft Obama is a recently formed grassroots organization of ordinary voters who believe strongly that Senator Barack Obama is uniquely gifted and qualified to lead our country back to greatness. As the most compelling public figure in America today, Senator Obama offers our country unmatched hope, thoughtfulness and leadership.
Yick.
It's not that I don't [heart] Obama. How could I not? He's a anti-war progressive with an eerie ability to bridge the red-blue divide.
He's also a newbie. Eight years in the Illinois state senate. Two in the U.S. Senate. No executive experience.
The world is a scary place. And it isn't likely to be any better after two more years of W. The next President will have to right a nonsensical foreign policy, astronomical budget deficits, a broken healthcare system, and a military stretched thin because of W.'s fondness for knocking over secular dictatorships that posed no threat to the United States. When Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rattle their sabers, I'm not sure how a President Barack Obama would respond.
Which brings me to Jay Cutler. Great arm, NFL body, seems smart enough. But in the grasp of the Seahawk defense last night, he did what rookies always do. He threw the ball straight up.
A must-win game against the defending NFC champs in freezing temperatures on national television is no place for the quarterback of the future to make his debut.
The next President will immediately face a similar situation with much, much (did I mention "much"?) higher stakes. America doesn't have the luxury of electing the President of the future.
You can view Sen. Barack Obama's wiki page here. Hat-tip to TalkLeft for the Times link.
9 Comments:
As JFK said, there are no schools for Presidents. Obama, would have more experience in foreign policy than the past two Presidents prior experience to taking office as a US Senator. Neither Clinton nor Bush had a strong resume in foreign policy going into office. While Barack may lack the physical experience of holding an executive office, his intellect and understanding of American principles and interntational relations may very prove to be what we need at this time in history over an accumulated time of title. I put my hope his intelligence over the rank and file.
The US is salvageable after the severe injury Bush has caused but it won't be easy. For this reason it's too risky to entrust the job to someone without a long or bredth enough track record of experience. Obama may be able to pull it off and seems certainly better than many but for me, I would feel more comfortable with some of the others who will be stepping up including Hillary. Have to agree with you on this one. Obama, maybe next season.
Executive experience, or the lack of it, is not a real issue. George Bush was Governor of Texas before taking his present job, and look where his executive experience has gotten us. My hesitation with Barack Obama is that he's only been on the national scene for two years as a member of the U.S. Senate. Kennedy was in the Congress for 14 years, in the House and Senate before he ran for President in 1960. Frankly, I'd like to see both Obama and Clinton remain in the Senate for a couple more terms. We need them there, and I would think they'd want to give themselves time to build a record to run on.
Obama is no doubt worrying that he'll build up too much of a Senate record. The more votes he casts, the more chances he'll cast one that his opponents can use to trip him up. That's the problem with being a Senator. And its one reason Bush, Clinton, Reagan and Carter were all governors.
I suppose then, that Obama will have to "man up" and continue to vote his conscience and in the interests of his constituents. If those are his motivations, he won't need to worry about whether his opponents will trip him up on something. I don't want anyone who does worry about that sort of thing as my president anyway (Hillary Clinton). My point about executive experience is that having it as governor (or mayor) does not necessarily make one a good president. To illustrate that point, all one has to do is look at the names you listed and think about their administrations.
I agree that Obama is a bit too shiny new. Also Governor's are far and away the best bet to make President. As for Hillary, she is a northeastern senator, a hawk who will have to tap dance around Iraq AND has really high negatives. All of that creates VERY long odds in a general, forget about the first woman factor.
We will be best off if a great moderate western or midwestern Governor emerges and picks Obama as VP. Don't know much about Vilsack but Montana's Gov. Schweitzer is capable of reaching out to all the same indie and moderate voters that helped us turn Colorado blue. Brilliant on energy and environmental issues, knows how to sell energy independence as the key to a new economy to return prosperity to the middle, worked in the agricultural sector(not oil)in Saudi Arabia so must have contacts with educated western leaning Saudis AND speaks ARABIC. He also speaks fluent, good ol'boy, straightforward middle American English.
Think of the fresh, new excitement of a Denver convention, show-casing the moderate Dems who are winning the west, a western Gov. for President and the first black candidate for VP. Talk about a 50 state strategy. I can't think of a single state where this self-described God-fearing, red-meat-eating, gun rights advocating, energy progressive guy wouldn't get at least a serious look. And how excited would the under-voting minorities be by the prospect of voting for a team including a VP who isn't just another white guy and could run for pres in 2016?
The best thing for Obama would be to get out of the Senate before he gets to be as unelectable as most Senators wind up. He can do it as VP. That's my idea of a dream ticket. Don't know what party politics and money issues will yield.
Great post on Obama at TalkLeft.
More on Obama's "triagulation" at My DD. Hat-tip to Square State.
Thanks,300 spartan's gym, for link to excellent talkleft post on Obama. It's fine and positive that Obama wants Dems to reach out more to people of faith, but, in doing so, let's never implicitly accept the right's straw dog views of Dem's as anti-faith in the first place!
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