To say that Sen. Barack Obama cannot be president based on a lack of experience is ludicrous.

Let’s get real. Yes, experience is important, but that is not all that matters. John F. Kennedy, 35th U.S. president, had six years of experience in the U.S. House of Representatives and then six years in the Senate before defeating Vice President Richard Nixon.

People saw more in Kennedy than experience. Ronald Reagan was an actor and governor of California before he became president. Jimmy Carter was a senator and governor of Georgia before his presidency. Zachary Taylor, the 12th U.S. president, was a general before he became president. From these examples, it seems to me that the experience argument is a weak one.

Not many people can outshine Arizona Sen. John McCain’s resume. He absolutely has a longer career in politics than Obama because he is older. He has been around longer and has even run for president before.

Nonetheless, Obama has more to offer than experience.

The best argument I have heard so far is from my anthropology professor. The professor was teaching our class how to write well. In his lecture he went over many points on how to form a thesis statement and other things that make a paper into a paper. He summed it all up with this, “To communicate well, you have to know what you are talking about.”

How true. Just like any professor can tell when a student has not read the material before writing a paper, people can tell if a candidate knows what the issues are that people care about and what the solution to the issue may be.

While Barack Obama does have significantly less experience than his Republican competition, he sure does know how to speak to people.

Obama knows what people want to hear and how to communicate to them. He is making up for his lack of experience by figuring out what will make a great president.

If the Democrats wanted a candidate with more experience then how could Obama have made it this far?

Many people say in a countless number of political blogs and interviews from this past year, however, that Obama just doesn’t have the experience.

This excerpt from johnmccain.com says, “In his short-time in office, Obama has accumulated the most liberal voting record in the Senate.” The GOP Web site has a commercial criticizing Barack Obama’s resume, saying it is thin and weak and calling him a junior senator. Another commercial says Obama has no economic experience.

It seems like many people are trying to throw the argument out that Obama doesn’t have experience. When you look at the way arguments against Obama are worded, it would be easy to agree.

Since 1997, Obama has been a member of the Illinois Senate. This amounts to more experience than George W. Bush or Bill Clinton when they took office.

Both Bush and Clinton served as governor, which means they did not have foreign policy experience. Many argue, including myself, that a president needs to have good foreign policy experience, but I would argue that many people do not have foreign policy experience before becoming president. There are not many jobs that offer it.

It is a viable argument to say that Obama does not have enough experience to be the next commander in chief, but experience is obviously not all the American people care about. As history has shown, the candidate has to appeal to the people and convince them that they know what they are talking about. While Obama does not have as much experience as McCain, it’s not like he came out of nowhere.

Like many other presidents in the past, Obama has the quality of good leadership that has brought him this far – not the quality of an overly impressive resume.

Michelle Anderson is a senior broadcast journalism major from Tyler.