The US Presidency is not the kind of job you can really train for. Sure, some basic level of administrative and executive competence is required, but history has shown little correlation between presidential success and prior experience. More important I think is intelligence, education, communication skills, a coherent view of the world and of history, and instincts. Unfortunately, the instincts developed in business, the legislature and state executive office, are of little applicability in this job. In fact, they may even be somewhat of a hindrance. The Presidency is the one job where you can't move up to a better one. It is the end of the line, not a stepping stone to anything else, and that changes everything. I see the career dynamic of the job as being similar to that of of a young man joining the military. In the first year you've pretty much learned all you're going to learn. After that, you may improve your technical skills, but you're not going to add much to your maturity or instincts. You either brought what you needed with you, or you didn't. And remember, the Presidency is the one job where you don't need any skills at all, you already have immediate access to the best experts in the world.

As far as the fact that Obama's black, I would not let that guide my decision. To begin with, I don't believe that we in the 21st century owe the blacks anything, no American alive today was ever a slave or owned slaves. All America owes its minoritites is that they be treated just like everyone else. Paybacks are not necessary. Too many Americans are descended from immigrants who came here after the Civil War for us to prolong this liberal guilt trip any further. Besides, Obama's black ancestors came from East Africa, American slaves came from West Africa. The cultural and historical differences are vast, it would be racist to lump them together as simply "black".

There are two advantages to his race though, although I don't think this alone is reason to vote for him. A black American President will send a message to the black community that they have arrived, that they are now fully integrated in American society. From that symbolic point on, the excuses of white oppression and racism simply will not do any more to explain away their own failures and shortcomings. Sure, racism and oppression still exist, but they did for the Jews and the Irish and the Italians and the Chinese, too. Blacks are going to have to face the fact that they are now THE MAN, too. Personally, I think they'll rise to the occasion.

The other advantage is the moral authority this will give us in the world.
For half a century Europe has flaunted its moral superiority over the US, using our treatment of blacks as evidence of our barbarity and moral shortcomings. But over the last half century this nation has waged a war on racism like no other nation has ever done, and our history with civil rights is something we can be fiercely proud of, and which no other country in the world can match. I have seen it happen in my lifetime, from a minority child growing up in the rural Deep South, where black people could not use the bathroom or order a cup of coffee without threat of violence, to a land where black men have risen to the highest councils of government, command our armies, sit on our high courts, and now perhaps, become a national leader. THIS is why Obama made such a hit in Europe. They hadn't been paying attention, and suddenly they had a mirror to reflect on their own problems with discrimination and racism. America can still be a beacon of hope to the world, and perhaps once again, after half a century, pictures of an American President will once again start appearing on the walls of Third World huts.