March 10, 2008

On The Issue of Qualifications

/'I support Barack Obama's candidacy. I am not a kool aid drinker about it. Obama is not the savior. He has no magical powers. He is indeed not a magical negro. In point of fact, he is a very liberal democrat, probably further left than anyone with the exception of Kucinich perhaps, who is not so much left as nutty.

But there are reasons to question his readiness. The brevity of his senate career for one. His experience in leadership or executive roles for another. A reasonable question to ask about someone wanting to be the president is "whats the biggest thing they have ever run?". It stands to reason if you want to run the government, it would help if you had experience running some other large enterprise. This is what Romney did often in his campaign, pointing out that he had run very successful businesses.

But, I would submit that the question of executive management skill has now received a very strong and definitive answer. Obama the rookie has raised $230 million dollars and he will be well over a quarter of a billion dollars before this is through. He has run a nationwide campaign, competing in every state, deploying and managing a well disciplined army of thousands of volunteers and staff, against a virtual incumbent with universal name ID, years of political experience, networks and favors to draw onl. He is beating this established and once seemingly inevitable competitor in the popular vote, the delegate count and in the number of states won.

Thats executive experience.