Illinois Senator, Barack Obama let it be known this weekend that he may consider running for the White House in 2008…and a collective sigh goes up across America. Obama a relatively inexperienced Democrat from Illinois was only recently elected to the US Senate in 2004, but has been urged to consider a run.
Of all the prospective Democrats running for office, however, Obama seems far more palatable than Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and worst of all John Kerry. Obama, appears to have a more pragmatic style to governing, rather than the slash and burn political style of his Democratic contemporaries.
There are some certainties that we can expect with the next presidential election. The next president, barring some extreme political misfire, WILL be a Democrat. The question thus remains to be seen as to how leftist that individual will be.
For decades the left has taught many Americans that they should rely on government to solve their problems, a strategy which over time has become so implanted in the American psyche that it is now assumed that government was created to save us from ourselves, while personal responsibility is to be shirked at all costs. Meanwhile the political right in this country has worked overtime to drop every political ball they are handed from government spending, to social security, to a seemingly insatiable desire to legislate morality, while destroying the very principles of federalism they claim to cherish.
For these reasons the next presidential election is one for the Democrats to lose, better it be a seemingly pragmatic Obama than a demagogue like Gore or a socialist in moderate clothing like Hillary Clinton. Obama does have some huge liabilities and the most significant of those is apparent when you notice him. As Black member of Congress, Barack Obama is already an anomaly, as president it would be unheard of. For all the talk among many Americans of tolerance and openness, quite a few Americans (including many leftists in particular) will have a difficult time voting for a Black man as president, though they will make other excuses to veil their bias.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-22-obama-president_x.htm
