Oprah and Obama
Sep 10 2007
I just finished reading a wonderful re-cap of the fundraiser thrown by Oprah for Barack Obama posted by PamelaW on Silicon Valley Moms Blog.
Oh man, I hope to meet Oprah one day. I admire her on so many levels. I don’t get to watch her show often (but most of the ones I’ve seen are great!) because I’m too busy working, hanging out with the kids, or trying to get some sleep. 🙂
Here’s the comment I left on the SVMs Blog:
Thanks for the great re-cap! I find it wonderful to be part of a very diverse crowd because diversity is our future. Plus, I personally find it more interesting than being in a sea of White.
I am still unsure of who I will vote for but I wouldn’t say inexperience is a reason not to vote for someone. I am an entrepreneur and by definition many young entrepreneurs are inexperienced…they are helping to create a new future. If experience is the main factor then I’m sure George Washington wouldn’t have been elected today.
Bush was a governor and I’m not sure that really helped America or him do the best job.
To me the questions to answer are: Are they smart AND intelligent? Are they trustworthy? Do they listen? Can they learn quickly? Are they willing to acknowledge mistakes, make course corrections, and move on? Are they a good family man or woman? Are they genuine? Etc.
I hope to get the opportunity to meet Oprah in my lifetime!
I don’t know enough politically to offer an educated opinion on all of the candidates, and I will refrain from doing so here on this blog because everyone has the right to their own opinion. I mainly wanted to bring up for discussion the subject of being experienced or not when it comes to being judged on whether someone is the ‘right’ person for a particular job, to start a company, to run for election, etc. What do you think?
Author: Aruni | Filed under: Just For Fun, success | 7 Comments »
Aruni-
I love your questions to ask on how you would choose whom to vote for. I too have no idea who to vote for. With over 16 candidates in the two main parties, can any of get 100% right answer to all your questions (“right” being subjective!)? Probably not, which means whomever we pick involves compromise.
I used to love presidential politics. But for the past 14 years I have learned to hate it. May the best man or woman win….or atlease someone who wont stink too much in the overall big picture.
I give them 6 months top. I think he’s after her for her money…
Money and recognition, that’s what any candidate is after.
I do think that discussion of a candidates “experience” is an odd one. We’ve put candidates with experience into office time and time again, and look at all the problems it’s created.
Seems to me that the more experience you have with holding political office, the more strings are attached to the decisions you have to make while in office…no matter how hard you try, I can’t imagine it’s easy to separate your decision making process from a consideration of what the power people/corporations that put you into power want.
Perhaps someone with less “experience” but a demonstrated ability to reason, articulate a governing philosophy, and to make changes when things aren’t going well would be a better leader than those with decades in office.
Well said Wes!
Well, venture capitalists do look at experience — ironically, they like to see an entrepreneur who’s fallen on his/her face a few times.
In politics, the value of experience is in being able to navigate all of the people with their hands out, I think. The less experience, the more likely someone might be to end up “bullied” (too strong of a word, but I can’t think of a better one).
But, like you, I don’t think that, alone, is enough to dissuade my vote.
@Thom – I guess we will have to compromise as no one is perfect!
@Thomas – I think he’s also after her for her fame. 🙂
@Staci – I think experience is important but it shouldn’t be the deciding factor as you also said. Interestingly, many of most well known entrepreneurs today (Gates, Dell, Jobs) all started out very young and inexperienced because they surrounded themselves with experienced people. I have heard that the less political experiene you have, the harder it is to build consensus and get your bills pushed to law but I think it all really depends on what’s going on. Thanks for visiting and commenting! I appreciate it.
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