It’s TIME: Run Obama Run!

Ever since he wowed American voters with his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Barack Obama has been teasing them with his political ambitions. Therefore, when he finally inserted himself into the wide open 2008 presidential race on Sunday, it seems the entire nation shuddered with political excitement.

I, on the other hand, was always relatively frigid about Obama’s presidential overtures. After all, I had already pledged my support for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (in articles here and here), in what I expected would be her race against Senator Hillary Clinton for this most coveted political office in the world.

But an Obama candidacy would undoubtedly throw a monkey wrench into the carefully laid plans of Bill and Hillary Clinton to become the first husband and wife to serve as president of the United States. (And, thereby, surpass the father and son presidential legacies to which George H.W. and George W. belong.) Of course, nothing would make me prouder than to see a black man and a black woman at the top of the Democratic and Republican presidential tickets, respectively, in 2008.

And if you think this is too fanciful to contemplate, consider that it would have been no less fanciful two years ago to suggest that Obama would be catapulted to national prominence like he has before serving a single term as a U.S. Senator….

For the record, however, in a race between Condi and Obama, I would be obliged to vote for Obama. But this is only because I fear that Condi’s political credibility and moral authority to lead have been severely comprised by her role in planning and defending this ill-advised and poorly-executed war in Iraq.

By contrast, it shall redound to Obama’s eternal credit that, unlike putative Democratic challengers including Hillary, John Kerry and John Edwards, he’s on the record categorically opposing this war before it was launched in 2003.

Nonetheless, like all love affairs, America’s infatuation with Obama could wear thin very quickly; especially as it may only be skin deep – in more ways than one:

For example, his critics (i.e. fellow Democrats) are already planting stories about his inexperience. Although Obama could easily counter this argument by citing the fact that Americans elected an equally inexperienced Bill Clinton in 1992 over a man who was perhaps more qualified than any other to be president of the United States – the then incumbent President George H.W. Bush!

And as for the purported need to have “a man” with military experience serving as president in this time of war, Obama could counter this specious argument by citing the fact that his fellow Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, had no military experience before serving so heroicly as commander in chief during the Civil War. He might also note that flying sorties over Texas seems to have done nothing to prepare George W. for his self-declared war on terror. Besides, since it’s generally agreed that America will never defeat Osama militarily, perhaps it can defeat him psychologically by electing a man called Obama!

Then there’s his race – ethnic that is. Indeed, I have a well-founded suspicion that where many white Americans (Democrats and Republicans) might enjoy a political affair with a black man, they would not want to marry their political loyalties to one to make him president. Never mind the fact that – by all other electability criteria – Obama would be the best in his class of presidential candidates in 2008 (with his highly-touted charisma and telegenic looks, to say nothing of his truly compelling personal story and the fact that he has already set an historic precedent by becoming the first black editor in chief of the Harvard Law Review).

Yet Obama stands the best chance of any black, including Condi – especially in this respect, of being elected for the simple reason that he’s at least half-white (being the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas).

(Indeed, I suspect his almost-white complexion is what makes Harold Ford of Tennessee so attractive to whites in that state. But it will be instructive for Obama to see how many whites actually vote for Ford two weeks from today in his race to join Obama in the U.S. Senate….)

That said, I look forward to the formal announcement of his campaign to become the 44th president of the United States.

Run Obama run!

NOTE: The only person who probably resents Obama’s rise as the ‘Deus ex machina’ (saviour) for Democrats in 2008 more than Bill & Hillary is John Kerry.

After all, it looms as an ironic fate that Obama may be the one to frustrate Kerry’s last chance to fulfill his ambition to go down in history as a president of the United States. Because now, Kerry will probably be remembered only as the man who plucked Obama from obscurity in the summer of 2004 and placed him center stage at that fateful Democratic convention.

Of course, Obama then rode a rock-star wave of popularity from that platform right into the U.S. Senate later that fall. And the rest – we may all say some day, is history….

Barak Obama