There are a great many reasons, of course, not to elect Barack Obama president. One of them is that the guy hasn't spent much time actually governing. The same left-wingers who love to point out Sarah Palin's inexperience conveniently ignore the amount of time that Obama has spent not doing the job(s) he was elected to do. He'd rather be writing books about himself. Or voting "present" in the legislature in order to avoid making a commitment that might haunt him later. Or simply not voting at all.

To be honest, I hadn't thought about the amount of time Obama has spent on the stump until the National Review pointed it out. The emphasis below is mine:

By Election Day, Obama will have spent 59 of the preceding 112 months campaigning for higher office. That total excludes any perfunctory campaigning to retain his seat in the Illinois legislature, but includes seven months of a failed bid for Bobby Rush’s House seat, an astounding 29 months running for the U.S. Senate, and his current marathon for the presidency. Put another way, Obama spent more of the past decade asking voters to promote him than did any other American—even more than John Edwards, who has invested 48 months in a Senate race and two presidential bids since 1997.

That 59 months of campaigning doesn’t include any hours spent stumping in 2005 or 2006, even though some of his biggest time commitments those years could easily be mistaken for a presidential campaign. He completed a two-week, 20-city book tour, made dozens of appearances for House and Senate candidates, raised $6 million for the party, spoke to New Hampshire Democrats, and appeared at Sen. Tom Harkin’s steak fry in Iowa.

We do not have a deep sense of how a President Obama would govern—because he hasn’t governed much at all. One thing is certain, however. If elected, he would begin his 2012 re-election campaign very, very early.

Wow. I knew Obama was driven entirely by personal ambition, but I'd have never guessed that he was worse about it than John Friggin' Edwards.

John McCain's recent bounce in the polls not withstanding, I still think that Senator McCheese is probably going to be elected PotUS in November. But, hey ... the previous generation needed Jimmy Carter in order to learn it's lesson. Maybe my generation needs this guy.

Labels: News, Obama Watch, Politics