Obama Enters the Fray
By Chad A. B. Wilson
Published January 17, 2007, 6:41 pm in Voting & Partisanship.
Sure, everyone's talking about Iraq these days, and the same goes for my columns on this site. In today's column, however, I want to forge ahead and discuss the exploratory committee. If you're interested, Ron Elving has a great article featured on my second-favorite source of news and information--NPR. Here, he explains what he calls the "dance of the seven veils," or the seven steps to announcing that one is a candidate for president. These are the veils, according to Elving:
Testing the waters and seeing what people think about you
Leaking that you will be forming an exploratory committee
Actually forming an exploratory committe
Dropping the word exploratory and running for President
Offhandedly announcing your candidacy on Larry King
Formally announcing your candidacy in a staged setting
Stating that you aren't interested in the vice presidential spot
Barack Obama is in the third veil right now. He can raise money and campaign while still "testing the waters." I for one am glad to see he has entered the fray.
The problems with Obama are many. I already discussed him in an earlier column, but that was back in November, before I thought the guy would actually consider running. I knew people were excited about him, but now it appears that he's the candidate of choice. Some are still saying that Hilary Clinton is the true frontrunner, but Obama can't be far behind. How strange that the two most important Democratic candidates are a black male and a white female. Could they go for the President/Vice President deal? I'm not sure who would take the lead, though. I doubt Clinton would let anyone lead her, and I sure don't want to try. But a woman for President and a man for Vice President? Would the country support that?
Maybe so, but that's another matter, and it sounds like something to be discussed over poker on Saturday night or during college drinking games in the early AM. Or maybe cooking groups. Can you imagine the different conservations you would have? Imagine a group of female liberal sex-in-the-city types discussing whether a woman could be president and a man vice president. Then imagine a group of conservative housewives discussing the same thing. Sheesh.
But let's get back to Obama. A friend called me the other day and left a message taht said "Chad, I have two questions for you. One, do you wanna play poker on Saturday night? And two, did you know Barack Obama was a Muslim?"
My response was probably the same as yours. "What? No, he's not."
Then he called back a half an hour later and left another message: "Sorry, Obama is not a Muslim. I misunderstood."
Yeah, he sure did. But that doesn't keep people from thinking it. See this article if you want an example. Who knows what the truth is, but I guess we have to take Obama's word for it, and he says he is a Christian who came to faith as an adult. But again, that doesn't keep one person I know from calling him "Barack bin Laden." What's the implication there, though? Is this guy trying to say that Obama is a Muslim who supports al Qaeda? Where in the world does that come from? Is he like Azzam the American, the American bin Laden? Is he just claiming to be a Christian until he can get to be president and then turn the U.S. into a theocracy? Wait, I mean a Muslim theocracy?
Yeah, I don't buy that. Sure it could be another plot to infiltrate us, but I'm willing to take that chance. Who cares if his father had a Muslim background? Should that matter to me? My Dad's an athiest, but that doesn't mean anything for my belief in the Christian God.
The one thing that I don't like about Obama is that he's so inexperienced. I fear that. One person told me, "Yeah, but Bush didn't have the experience, either. But he got some good advisors."
My response to that was, "Yeah, and where did that get us?" No experience plus "good" advisors" and you end up in Iraq. I mean the country ends up stuck in Iraq. Aw, screw it, John Kerry said what he meant. Bush got us stuck in Iraq, dang it.
But you know, a lot of presidents didn't have that kind of foreign policy experience. Heck, they're usually governors, and unless they're Jimmy Carter, they're not that invovled in international politics.
Speaking of which, why can't Jimmy Carter run for President again? The guy's only 82. That's not far off Reagan, who was 69 when he was elected. Alright, it makes a difference, but Carter is a guy I would vote for. And we know what he'll do in most of these situations. He's either been through them before, or he's written about them in one of his minions of library tomes. Sure, the circumstances were against him when he was President, but the guy sure did try to do things right.
If you can't tell, I like Carter. I'm in the middle of his new book--Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid--and I plan on devoting a column to it in the near future.
Maybe that's why I like Obama, too. I'm afraid of him because I feel as if we don't really know him, but I still like him. People get really fired up about him, in ways that I have never seen before. They feel as if he is the ideal, the pure one. That's definitely a stretch, but to read some of the blogs and such written about Obama is like reading something about Martin Luther King, Jr. or Gandhi.
Me, I think he's capable, and I like his views on religion. The guy isn't a "religion on the sleeve" Christian. He's willing to discuss faith, and I believe he is probably a true believer. But he struggles, too, and he admits that. That's like me, then. Can you imagine G. W. Bush struggling with anything? Nope, not really. God tells him what to do and he does it. But Obama admits that things aren't always that way. And that seems more like the reality I know.
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