The Chorus on Obama

I am pretty sure that Barack Obama was prepared for all of the questions that he would face as he announced his decision to run for President. The chorus of questions and doubters has grown steadily over the past two weeks. To quickly sumamrize, here is what I am seeing and hearing the most:

* So far most of the press has been about the very blank resume that Barack has. People seem to be a little leary about his lack of experience. To be fair, Barack is pretty green and he has not yet done a great job of announcing where he stands on many issues. His website is one of only a handful of candidate websites that does not feature a section on issues. I imagine the website will be relaunched when he officially announces and hopefully he will have some detailed information as to where he stands on various issues. From reading his book I can get a pretty good grasp on where he stands broadly on most issues, but I would still like to hear some more specifics...but that is true of all of the candidates so far.

* There is an article on MSNBC today asking if Barack can really win the black vote. Currently black voters favor Hillary 3 to1 and John Edwards will also make a strong case for their votes as well. If Al Sharpton were to enter the race then he further splinters the votes. The article talks about how many blacks are impressed with Obama's ability to appeal to white voters (which they see as being crucial to actually electing a black president), but they are unsure who he is and who he represents. The article seems to argue that in order to win Barack can't be "black enough" as to endear himself to the black voting base without losing the important white support. I think that much like other voters, black voters are waiting to see what Obama stands for and is all about before they throw all of their support behind him.

* We have also already seen the negative attacks that Obama will face. So far these have centered around his name and his past history of attending a Muslim school when he was very young. There is really nothing but bigotry behind these types of attacks, but we all know that they are effective for some segments of voters out there.

I really hope to start seeing some more substance out of all of these campaigns soon, but for now they are in fundraising mode to see if they can even become competitive. With California, Michigan, Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois all looking to move up their primaries it may force the campaigns to rewrite strategies and think on the fly. That should result in some solid information coming soon.

For my part, I hope to start evaluating candidates on the issues on this website soon. I have set a target date of June 1st to select the candidate I will be working for. However, this could change based on dynamics, revelations, and my overall disposition at the time. Stay tuned.