Obama for President

I have noticed recently that there seems to be a divide in how people think about the merits of Barak Obama’s candidacy for President. I don’t think this is exactly the case, but I have noticed many middle-aged people who feel that Obama isn’t experienced enough yet to be President. I get the feeling though that many people in my generation are so excited by his presence and message that we are willing to overlook his inexperience.

I definitely fall into that latter group. Barak Obama’s inexperience doesn’t really bother me. In some ways, I think he is similar to John F. Kennedy, who also was young and lacked experience. (Although Kennedy had served one full term in the Senate, where Obama only has two years under his belt and will only have four by the time he would take office as president.) In Kennedy’s case, the country was ready for a change – for someone with youth and a different message. He also showed that the country was ready for an Irish-Catholic to be president.

But to me, it isn’t that the message is more important than the inexperience, I don’t actually think experience is as important as people make it out to be. The two factors I look to when selecting a presidential candidate are character and intellect (I find that our current president lacks both). Intellect is important for obvious reasons. A president has to understand complex problems and make the best decision possible. Character of course can be a vague term, but there are certain things I look for. The most important is humility – a president has to have the ability to know when they made a mistake, accept it, and make changes accordingly and they have to do it quickly. As a comparison, our current president has waited until overwhelming evidence has shown that he made a mistake before attempting plotting a new course.

I am reading Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, and I find that he has both of these characteristics. He is obviously very smart. As important though, he shows that he understands the complexity of decisions and has the humility to know that he won’t always make the right ones. He believes in dialogue and his message of bipartisanship comes across as sincere.

In the end, I want someone in our nation’s highest office that wants to hear what the other side is saying with the understanding that they might have valid points. For eight years we have seen what someone who is resolute and unbending can do to our country. Now, lets see what the opposite will bring us.