TheMary, the truth is that in the past Americans elected men with more experience and did that necessarily turn out well?
Although Americans might take this badly, I will say it anyway: the president of the US is really a figurehead. He has more actual "power" than, say, the Queen of England, but in fact he does not really "govern", he is the chief and must bear the responsibility, but no one man can actually run the US, no matter how brilliant or experienced he might be.
In that case, it seems to me, that any actual "experience" is neither here nor there. What you want is a man of character, who is firmly grounded in reality, not a "ruler". A "leader" is not one who does everything himself, nor who micromanages, a leader is one who knows how to delegate and who then trusts the men he delegates to.
The actual president, not the men who surround him, is the one upon whose shoulders the burden of office falls. He must be a man who can make up his own mind, judge the characters of other men, listen to advice. Better yet, he ought to be a man who does NOT want to hear only what he wants to hear, or what marches with his preformed opinions.
I wonder if Obama is such a man. George Bush sure as hell isn't. He's had his head up his fundament all his life and being in office for 7 years seems to have taught him nothing.
But then, he's not really the president anyway.
Vison - I am going to correct you just a little bit. Even though our governmental framework makes our "president" actually the "president of the Congress" and nothing much else, over history that role has changed, and changed drastically. Its worst components have come out with GWB, who has exploited his office and claimed he was acting under duress as a "commander in chief" of something supposed to be used in wartime, which GWB almost fell into by happy circumstance when 9/11/01 occurred, the perfect excuse for him and everyone else in his regime to take on issues which had NOTHING to do with OBL or AQ, but long standing sour grapes over the Gulf War and the oil issues. I know that you also figured out that lst little bit, but it is alarming how many Americans have not, or think we still have some sort of "manifest destiny" sort of thing that we need to apply to the rest of the world which does not always welcome us.
I have tried to calm this thread down by addressing the questions, it seems this is too touchy of a subject for even rational responses to those on the part of some, but, it is getting better. Can we all address the topics at hand and not the posters themselves? Heck, for those who are NOT Americans, you can all see that this is a VERY touchy subject with most of us who are, more so than I have ever seen in my lifetime, for whatever that is worth.
How ironic that the topic was started by a non-American with good and valid intent, and that those that seem to be inflaming it for the most part have missed HIS point entirely.
For the record, can we say that if a candidate BRINGS his/her personal faith or religious background into his/her campaign, it should be fair grounds for criticism? If it is a "background" sort of issue or one that is merely expressed for clarity's sake (as in Romney and his Mormon beliefs) then I can see them being sort of off tangent as to the discussions here. However, flip-flopping on issues or changing one's stance should certainly NOT be exempt from scrutiny as far as candidates go..