Obama's Experience

Well hello again.

All too often the Right-nuts preach(off their index cards):
"Obama has too little experience to become president!"
Oh wait, sorry, that's not accurate. Usually, it will sound more like:
"LOLZ EXPERIENCE!!!!!11"

Sources for most of this are available here:
http://www.obamapedia.org/page/Does+Barack+Obama+have+enough+experience+to+be+president%3F
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama

Here's a quick overview of Obama's Experience:


---Constitutional Law and US liberties.
Obama got a Law Degree at Harvard University. He became the editor of The Harvard Law Review, a prestigious position in the college.
He then began working at a civil rights firm and went on to teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago.

He also, in 1993, joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a twelve attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004, with his law license becoming inactive in 2002.

Obama was a founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies in 1992.

He also served on the board of directors of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center.

---Time in government/politics.
He has ten years experience in public office: 2 in the US senate, and 8 in the Illinois Senate.
Compare this to:
Hillary Clinton (six-plus years as Senator from New York)
John Edwards (six years as Senator from North Carolina)
George W. Bush(six years as the Governor of Texas)
Abraham Lincoln (two years in the U.S.House)

During Obama's Time in the senate, he has done extensive work, and been an extremely active participant in the Senate. Here's a list of bills he's sponsored:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bills...d_States_Senate

---Economics.
He worked for a year at the Business International Corporation and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.

---Foreign Policy.
Obama majored in Political science at Columbia, with a specialization in international relationships. He graduated with a BA.
n the U.S. Senate Obama is unique among Senators in that he serves on three of the four Senate Committees dealing with foreign policy issues including the Foreign Relations; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and Veterans' Affairs committees and is the Chair of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Relations which is responsible fore U.S. relations with European countries, the European Union, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (i.e., NATO).

Obama service on the Foreign Relations committee has placed him in an unique position in that he is the Chair of the Subcommittee on European Relations and serves on the Subcommittees on African Affairs; East Asia and Pacific Affairs; and International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, and International Environmental Protection. This cross-section of subcommittees places Obama in a unique position of having knowledge about Asian, African and European issues.

Obama has also traveled extensively in his capacity as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and has visited Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan in Asia; Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, and the Palestinian Territories in the Middle East; and Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa in Africa. He has also visited and even campaigned in Europe, which would be a joke to McCain, who is widely laughed at abroad.

Obama has also co-sponsored the "Lugar-Obama Act" with Republican Senator Richard Lugar who was Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations at the time. This act was a bi-partisan effort to increase U.S. security in terms of the elimination of conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction. This legislation came out of Obama's trip with Senator Richard Lugar to Russia, the Ukraine and Azerbaijan.

Obama has also sponsored legislation such as the "Democratic Republic of Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act" which was signed into law by President Bush on December 22, 2006. Obama has co-sponsored immigration related bills related to his service on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee including the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act. His extensive foreign policy experience exceeds that of every other Presidential candidate including his trips abroad in the performance of his official duties as a member of committees dealing with foreign relation issues.

---Work with common voters and citizens.
Obama moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer for three years from June 1985 to May 1988 as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side. During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from one to thirteen and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.

Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.

Obama directed Illinois' Project Vote from April to October 1992, a voter registration drive with a staff of ten and seven hundred volunteers; it achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African-Americans in the state, and led to Crain's Chicago Business naming Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.

---Anything else you would wish to add.
Obama has won 2 Grammy awards, and written two bestselling books.

Cheers,
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