Senator Hillary Clinton claims "35 years of experience" which is the entire length of time since her graduation from Yale Law School in 1973. But what kind of experience? For 9 of those 35 years she worked as a lawyer, for 11 years she was the spouse of the Governor of Arkansas, and for 8 years she served as the First Lady of the United States. Only during the past 7 years since her election to the US Senate in November 2000 in her adopted state of New York has Hillary Clinton in her own right actually been an elected official accountable to voters rather than the spouse of an elected official.
Barack Obama's experience has been different. Since graduating from Harvard Law School in 1991 he returned to his home in Chicago to direct a voter registration drive and work as an attorney representing community organizers, working on voting rights cases and on civil rights cases. In 1993 he became a lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School and in 1996 was elected to the Illinois State Senate where he served 8 years prior to his election to the US Senate in November 2004. With his combined service as an Illinois State Senator and US Senator Barack Obama has been an elected official accountable to voters for the past 11 years.
Previous presidential candidates have been charged with not having enough experience. Senator John Kennedy during the 1960 Democratic primary elections was told he was too inexperienced to be president by such notable members of the "old guard" at the time as Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson, and Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy was told to wait his turn! But, of course JFK became the Democratic nominee for president in 1960 and went on to defeat Richard Nixon in the general election despite Nixon's protest that "Kennedy is too inexperienced to be President." It wasn't true then about John F. Kennedy and it isn't true now about Barack Obama.
Abraham Lincoln was not an old hand in Washington prior to his being elected America's 16th President in 1860. Abe Lincoln had previously served 8 years in the Illinois State Legislature from 1834-1842 during which time he taught himself law and was admitted to the bar. In 1847 he was elected to US House of Representatives serving a single term from 1847-1849 before returning to private law practice in Illinois. On October 16, 1854 a 45 year old Abraham Lincoln delivered a powerful speech against Slavery in Peoria, Illinois and in 1858 was elected to the US Senate, just 2 years before being elected President of the United States. Not much prior "Washington Experience" for "Honest Abe" but he sure made a great American President.
Could it be that the amount of one's prior "Washington Experience" is far less important to being a great president than is having sound judgment, courage, and strong character? Barack Obama had the good judgment to be against the U.S. initiating war in Iraq and had the courage to forcefully say so October 2, 2002, while later that same month both Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain voted in favor of President Bush's request for funds authorizing the beginning of the Iraq war.
Senator Barack Obama has served in Washington long enough to understand that changes are needed and unlike his opponents he has already made a significant change. By refusing to accept money from lobbyists and political action committees Barack Obama is proving that one can become elected President of the United States without being beholden to money peddlers in Washington. Barack Obama raises the money necessary for his campaign directly from the people to whom he is accountable, people like you and me.

The centerpiece of Obama's campaign is CHANGE. That goes two ways. Voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas can also effect CHANGE. These three states are in a unique position to make a CHANGE that will slow down Obama's momentum just long enough to give Democrats time to find out more information about Obama. If the voting in these states results in Obama becoming the nominee, the Republicans will be the ones who will find out what Democrat voters should have known before casting their vote.

1. What is behind the Obamas' original decision to keep voters from reading Michelle's college senior thesis by temporarily withdrawing it from all viewing or duplication until the day after the general election? Princeton reported that this restriction is scheduled to be lifted no later than Nov. 5, 2008.

The Obama campaign recently released a copy of the thesis to politico.com who posted it in a Feb. 22 article titled, Michelle Obama thesis was on racial divide. The link is: www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8642.html Her thesis gives the results of a study that she did at Princeton, using replies from questionnaires that she sent to black Princeton graduates.

2. Oprah said she is for Obama because he is brilliant. Voters should read an article in the Los Angeles times about some of his oops votes in the Illinois senate. The link is: www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obamavotes24jan24,1,7079399.story

3. Obama lets supporters believe that in 2002 he voted against the Iraq war. He was in the Illinois senate in 2002. When a reporter asked him how he would have voted, he said he didn't know. Why didn't he just say he would have voted no?

4. He spoke out against the IRAN resolution, but he stayed on the campaign trail and dodged the vote. When a reporter asked him why he missed that important vote, he said he apologizes for that.

5. When he was questioned about buying a piece of property next to his house from Tony Rezko's wife, he calmly said that was a bonehead mistake. He also downplayed his association with Rezko. Maybe there's more to his association with Rezko and maybe there's not. However, voters should be able to find out one way or another.

6. With Obama's oops votes in the Illinois senate, his letting people who are supporting him think he voted against the war, his tendency to worry about what his official voting record shows, and his dodging the vote on the Iran resolution are issues that voters should think about.

7. If Obama wins the presidency, he will run for a second term in four years. He missed the Iran resolution vote because he wanted to make sure that his voting record didn't show any vote. That way, his opponents would not be able to use a no vote against him in case that wasn't the right way to vote...and his opponents won't be able to beat on him like he has been beating on Hillary. Obama supporters can only hope that if he is elected president, his decisions will be geared toward what is best for our country and not what is best for getting re-elected in four years.

Please take the time to go to the links referred to above.

Because Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has risen so far, so fast many voters are not as familiar with his background as they would like to be.
In his books Barack Obama has told the story of the family into which he was born, about a father from Kenya whom he barely knew, who left when Barack was age 2, and about his white American mother from Kansas who along with his father was a college student at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. By age 6 young Barack was already living in Jakarta with his mother and his Indonesian step father before moving back to Hawaii at age 10 to be raised by his maternal grandparents when his mother and her second husband divorced. His "birthright," says Barack Obama, was that he was given love, a good education, and hope.
Over the years Barack Obama had bonding experiences with white and black relatives and with Asian family members amidst an understandable struggle to find his own identity. Through it all he developed a keen ability to understand and to resonate with people of various ethnic backgrounds. Barack Obama worked his way through the racial complexities into which he was born to graduate Magna *** Laude from Harvard Law School and become president of the Harvard Law Review. He worked as a community organizer, a lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, and a civil rights attorney prior to serving in the Illinois State Senate from 1996-2004 which ended with his 70% landslide election victory to the US Senate in 2004.
On a personal level Barack Obama has had 46 years of experiencing and understanding how perceptions of ethnicity and judgments about race can sometimes divide people, and he is uniquely qualified and committed to develop a sense of unity and common purpose and higher purpose in America and its people. He has the background, the ability to communicate, and the intelligence necessary to reintroduce the world's only superpower to the rest of the world. As President of the United States he would be emblematic of our great country's two simple yet very profound ideals of personal freedom and equality of opportunity.
In 1963 when Obama was just 2 years old Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. that included the familiar phrase of "not being judged by the color of one's skin but by the content of one's character." That speech, of course, helped prompt passage of the 1964 US Civil rights Act and the next year, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. If the people of America elect Barack Obama their 44th President in November of this year King's dream will have become much more than just a dream.

Barack Obama's opponents insist that he is too young and inexperienced to be President of the United States and that he must first spend more time learning the ways of Washington. They seem to forget the fact that Theodore Roosevelt became America's President at age 42, JFK at 43, and Bill Clinton at 46, and that on January 20, 2009 when our next president is sworn in Barack Obama will be 47 years old.
Senator Obama's Democratic opponent claims to have had "35 years of political experience," but it turns out that most of that experience was not as an elected official but rather as the wife of the Governor of Arkansas and as the wife of the President of the United States. Actually she has had 7 years experience as an elected official having been elected to the US Senate from her adopted state of New York in November 2000.
Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996 where he served 8 years prior to his election to the US Senate in November 2004. As an elected official accountable to voters his combined experience as an Illinois State Senator and US Senator is 11 years.
During the 1960 Democratic primary elections then Senator John Kennedy was also told he was too young and inexperienced to become president, and by such notable members of the "old guard" at the time as Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson, and Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy was told to wait his turn! But, of course JFK won the 1960 Democratic primary and went on to defeat Richard Nixon in the general election despite Nixon's protest that "Kennedy is too young and inexperienced to be President." It wasn't true then about John F. Kennedy and it isn't true now about Barack Obama.
Senator Obama has not served for a long time as a US Senator in our nation's capital, but he has been in Washington long enough to recognize the extreme severity of its problems and what needs to be changed. Unlike his opponent he has already begun making changes by refusing to accept money from lobbyists and political action committees. He is proving that being beholden to such money peddlers is not necessary. He raises money for his campaign directly from the people to whom he is accountable, people like you and me.