Subtitle: What Exactly Qualifies You to Be President?
Other than being 35 and a natural born citizen, there are very few qualifications for being President of the United States. At a tutoring session this spring we asked our middle school students what you had to do to become president, what type of experience you need and they replied that you had to have a college degree. And kids (how else are you going to deal with teen pregnancy?) You don’t need lots of money, they said, but you do need a rich daddy.
One girl quipped: “You need some acting experience too so you can keep a straight face when you’re giving your speeches.”
No doubt my young students are jaded, but neither are they far off.
Barack Obama–The Inexperienced One
Obama is a first term Senator. Critics have already pointed out that while he does have experience in public service, he doesn’t have enough foreign policy experience. What we love about him is the promise of change. However, if he doesn’t deliver, I suspect he will quickly find his poll ratings dropped.
What we want to know is does he have enough experience to run this country. Personally, the question I would want to ask is who are his advisors and what is their experience.
Senator McCain–The Other Inexperienced One
However, Clark, a military advisor for the Obama camp, pointed out that he doesn’t believe that McCain has enough experience.
What? A decorated war veteran, he has been in politics since 1982 serving in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. But as Clark pointed out, “he hasn’t held executive responsibility.”
So let me get this straight. . .in order to be President you have to:
*be 35 years or older
*be a natural born citizen
*have written a book (seems to be an unwritten requirement)
*have loads of money (again, when have you seen regular average Joe running for President?)
And now, you have to have held executive office before you actually get elected to the executive office. Interesting comment coming from the Obama camp, especially considering that Obama hasn’t done any of that either. Was it insightful of Mr. Clark? Or a misstep?
Valorie Delp is a freelance writer and can be found at Families.com offering thoughts on politics, the occassional movie review and most often in her kitchen trying out recipes to share with Families.com readers! To read more of her work, click here.