obamamania: part 3

I know I have made my thoughts on Barack Obama abudantly clear already, but I have left out one major reason for my political crush on Senator Obama.  It’s actually one of the arguments that some people use against him:  his “lack of experience,” or “slim Washington portfolio,” if you are feeling poetic.

Tuesday night, Dick Cheney had an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity, and when asked about the 2008 election, and specifically about my boyfriend, oops, I mean Senator Obama, he said:

“Barack Obama? Attractive guy — don’t know him well. Met him a few times. I think, at this stage, my initial take on it was he’s been here two years as a senator. I think people might want a little more experience than that, given the nature of the times that we live in.”

First of all, this is the first thing, to my knowledge, that Dick Cheney and I can agree on – Barack Obama Is Attractive.  Can a person’s appeal get any broader than that?  But I digress.

The point is, the only possible downside to Obama’s candidacy is his lack of experience in Washington.  But there are several reasons that this shouldn’t be held against him, and here they are:

It hasn’t stopped us before.  The current President served 6 years as Governor of TX.  Fine.  His curriculum vitae up to that point included: running for Congress and losing, buying an oil company and selling all his stock just before it went bankrupt, and buying a baseball team (he did not bankrupt it, just traded Sammy Sosa to Chicago).  Now, I’m not saying that President Bush is a good example of who to elect to the highest office in the land, I’m just pointing out his inexperience, and the fact that nobody was talking about his lack of Washington Experience in the 2000 election.   There is a major difference between Bush’s pre-White House experience and Obama’s, which leads me to my next point:

He actually isn’t that inexperienced.  Before being elected to the US Senate, Obama served 7 years in the Illinois State Legislature.  By 2008 he will have served in the US Senate for 4 years.   Before the state legislature he went to law school, was first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review, and worked for years as a community organizer.  He’s no stranger to the world of politics and policy.  It’s not like the man’s a sophomore in high school, for pete’s sake.  But sure, he is less of a Washington Insider than the other possible candidates, which brings me to my next point:

Look what happens when politicians do amass decades of Washington Experience.  Let’s take a look at Hilary Clinton, for starters (really do take a look at that link – it’s a great article from Salon.com about the evolution of HC).  I love 1992 Hilary.  I loved the Hilary who made the (gutsy and politically dangerous) comment that she wasn’t “just some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette” .  Early Hilary worked for farm worker’s rights, championed universal health coverage, worked on behalf of underprivileged kids.  Over the years, as she gained crucial Washington Experience and got progressively more expensive haircuts, her politics evolved as well, and now they are almost unrecognizable.  Is the woman who I thought was a shining example of progressivism and feminism really now sponsoring anti-flag-burning legislation?  Did she really vote for the Iraq War twice?  Did that serious lawyer and champion of working women really write a book compiling the letters that children sent to the First Pets Sox and Buddy?  She did.  And you’ll have to excuse me if I liked her a lot better before her years of Washingon Experience sucked the idealism and liberalism right out of her. 

While we’re on the topic, I would also like to point out that as of 2006, President Bush has 6 years of not just Washington Experience, but actual White House experience, and it doesn’t seem to be doing any of us any good.

So get on the Barack Bandwagon.  He’s seasoned enough to know what he’s doing, he’s just inexperienced enough to not yet be jaded and compromised.  And Dick Cheney and I both think he’s cute.