Yes, Sen. Obama has
said he would not run in '08 (in what I consider to be a Modified Limited Sherman Statement). Yes, a lot of you on this site think he's far too young to run. And surely a lot of you think I'm beating a dead horse here. It's just that I firmly believe that the Dems should, I dunno, run their best possible candidate the next time around.
The most common argument I hear against Obama's potential candidacy is that he's too young for the gig. I think this argument is nullified by what's going on around the globe...
In the UK,
David Cameron, 39, has just recently taken over the leadership of the Conservative Party. He could very well be the next Prime Minister elected after Tony Blair steps down.
Stephen Harper, 46, is the new Prime Minister of Canada. (It also looks like the favorite to replace Paul Martin as leader of the Canadian Liberals will be a relatively young guy:
Frank McKenna, 48.) The leaders of Belgium, Georgia, Greece, and New Zealand are all of similar ages as well.
Putin was 47 when he took over, but perhaps that is not such a fantastic example.
Obama will be 47 on Election Day, 2008. He's our most likable candidate, and one of our strongest generally. He could raise gobs of cash, no question. I think he could get suburbanites who have been voting Republican to take another look at the Dems. I wish he'd reconsider.
(By the way, I just checked Obama's Wikipedia entry. His middle name is Hussein? Believe that every Republican will call him by his full name from now till Doomsday.)
Besides this age argument, I acknowledge that one possible reason he's said he isn't running is that his family is quite young. Perhaps he and his wife have absolutely ruled this sort of thing out until the kids are teens. If that is true then that's ok. I just have this feeling that isn't really the case; that he's getting advice not to run yet from the same people who advised Presidents Muskie, Biden, and Cuomo. IMHO you strike when the iron's hot, or else you will run into tomorrow's wunderkinder.