And He's Off!

Yesterday the junior senator from Illinois officially announced his intent to run for the Democratic nomination and the formation of an exploratory committee. Of course, the media swooned, as they have for the last several months. The media and the American public are generally enamored with the idea of the first legitimate black contender. Up to this point the only ones have been Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun, neither of which were inspirational or qualified candidates.

But how qualified is Barak? When Americans rationalize their votes, most will realize that although the man is brilliant (president Harvard Law Review, professor Univ. of Chicago), he lacks experience, particularly in areas where experience matters most, such as foreign policy. Obama has served as a senator for two years, and prior to that he spent six years as an Illinois state senator. We have already elected one president with no qualifications. Why make the same mistake again? Plus, his general attitude appears to be very "kumbaya". A president has to know when to hold hands and when to just be tough and this candidate has failed to prove himself capable of the latter.

Another reason is his name. Barak Hussein Obama. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue does it? But that's not where the problem lies. "Hussein" is a fairly common muslim name, and one brought to great prominence in this country by a dead Iraqi dictator. Now, Obama is not a muslim, but whether you want to believe it or not, there is a stigma in this country against islam and muslims and anything that sounds like it is related to the two. Republicans and his Democratic opponents will be sure to stress his name, if only to play with the correlation between islam and Americans' fears. This all may seem silly until you start thinking about Americans:

At one point roughly 40% of Americans thought it would be okay for the government to require mulsims to carry id. That was five months ago.

Keith Ellison and his election to Congress (D-MN) in November as the first mulsim garnered wide attention, especially when he decided to use a Quran for his unofficial swearing in.

In August last year, a protestor outside the home of a candidate for the Maryland House of Delegates held a sign that read "Islam Sucks".

Again, Barak is not a muslim and this may all seem very silly, but I firmly believe that some Americans, albeit a small minority, are so simple as to be skeptical of him based solely on his name. At this point, who's in the lead to be the next president? A small minority could carry some swing. In my opinion, he has no chance in 2008. His primary flaw is his inexperience. This is a warm-up for serious contention in 2012.