Obama's poor judgment. Richardson my choice.

Until recently, Barack Obama seemed to me like an attractive new face on the political scene. Until his winning a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2004, the vast majority of Americans had probably never heard of him. He came across to me as intelligent, articulate, and possessed of a sharp wit. In short, a man with a lot of potential for his future career.

But, lately, he seems less attractive to me. For one thing, I heard that he supported state legislatures passing laws requiring large corporations to spend a certain percentage of their payroll costs on health care for their employees (such as the law passed in Maryland in 2005). The targets of these types of legislation are companies like Wal-Mart. An argument can be made that legislation has long regulated employment practices as to child labor, workers’ compensation, unemployment compensation, minimum wages, and others; so why not health care? A simple answer is that trying to solve our national health care crisis by loading more of the cost onto employers is not the way to go–instead, there is going to have to be a larger umbrella–at the national level–to deal with the problem, perhaps some form of "socialized medicine."

But more of a reason to feel that he lacks the stature of a serious candidate for the presidency is his questionable judgment. It seems that he has succumbed to the blandishments of his backers that he is, indeed, presidential material–which I believe will hurt his future opportunities. Had he decided to serve his term(s) in the Senate with distinction and/or serve an appointment to a high-level post in the Federal government, he might in ten or twelve years have earned such a stature. But, right now, his experience and background, with just two years in the Senate, doesn’t measure up as a serious candidate for the presidency.

The quip that Abraham Lincoln had only served two years in the U.S House of Representatives before coming president in 1860 (which I have heard a time or two from talking heads) has little merit as an analogy. A U.S. president today needs far greater capacity than one did 147 years ago, even considering Lincoln’s having the Civil War to deal with.

My favorite for the Democratic nomination to run for the presidency in 2008 is Bill Richardson. His resumé is very attractive: 15 years service in the U.S House of Representatives, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Secretary of Energy, and Governor of New Mexico. Additionally, his masters degree from the prestigious Tuft’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, his having grown up in Mexico City and his fluency in Spanish, his activities on the world scene in dealing with North Korea and the Darfur situation in Sudan, and his attractive personality make him an admirable candidate. However, I fear that he lacks a large enough financial war chest to come up with the 2008 nomination.