Moreover consider the "experienced" presidents who have served the Republic in the last couple of decades. Lyndon Johnson was as skilled a politician as one could want. Yet he made the terrible mistake of escalating the Vietnam War and presided over a failed presidency. Richard Nixon, a man with a tremendous amount of "experience," continued the war, spent much of his time in the Executive Office Building writing paranoid memos on legal size yellow sheets and was forced out of office by the Watergate scandal. Jimmy Carter was a successful governor but did not succeed in Washington despite a large congressional majority because he never learned that you can treat Congress like you treated the Georgia legislature. Bill Clinton was an "experienced" governor but he did not realize that you can't engage in escapades in the Oval Office. The present incumbent had the experience of presiding over the baseball franchise and governing Texas, got us into the Iraq war and cannot admit mistakes.
Honor, intelligence, integrity and self-deprecating humor are superior to "experience" any time.
A second reason for not running is that the political rhetoric in this country is toxic. Attack ads, negative campaigns, personal assaults are an essential part of American politics. Bloggers, radio talk show hosts (like the poisonous Rush Limbaugh who calls the senator Osama Obama), columnists, mean-spirited editorial writers (especially at the Wall Street Journal), Republican operatives, spin doctors, publicity seekers, ambitious small-time politicians, fundamentalist preachers and rich businessmen will seek to destroy the candidate as soon as he announces. Like the Swift Boat crowd in the last election, they will stop at nothing in their efforts to turn him into political toast. Who needs it?
Finally, it is foolish happy talk to say that the United States is ready for an African-American (or perhaps a Kenyan-American) president. Racism is alive and well in the United States and is still as American as cherry pie. Obama starts out with the South solidly against him. Crazy white supremacists will fall over one another in their attempts to derail the campaign even before the primaries. If he decides to run, the senator is a very brave man. He should invest in flak jackets and helmets -- emotional and physical.
