I'm happy for Barack Obama that he has a good shot at becoming a benevolent King of the World, but does he really have what it takes to change the world, or is he just a good campaigner?

If Obama's campaign does succeed, and he really wants to make a fundamental, long-term change to government, this is what he should do: He should legislate a series of job/life experience requirements for aspiring politicians. After all, there is much more skill required to be a world leader than just being a good campaigner.

Here's the list:

First, as a kid, you have to be a morning newspaper carrier for at least two different publications, which will help you develop an early awareness of time and money management. And you'd be expected to read the papers, too, in order to acquire better reading skills and a more well-rounded world view than the television junkie kids.

Second, as a teenager fresh out of high school, you have to be a tree planter, and you have to plant a minimum of 500,000 trees, which will provide you with a hands-on understanding of environmentalism, as well as a good strong back and a deep appreciation of manual labour.

Third, after going to college or university for whatever degree you like, you have to be a long-haul truck driver, plying the highways and byways of the land, gaining a sense of what it takes to handle a big rig, learning how to self-navigate and to get where you're going on time and intact.

Fourth, whether you have another job or not, you have to spend some time behind a bar, dealing with the realities of society's search for good times. You have to experience the world-weary wisdom of the drunks, the laughter of the looney tunes, and the dancing of the demons in the night.

Fifth, with a smile and a sigh, you have to give up everything you own and hit the road as a stand-up comedian, laying yourself on the line night after night, staying in cheap motels, starving for your art, and honing a deep and abiding connection with the odd, brilliant irony of life.

Finally, you must detach from your search for the amusing, and plunge deeply into the deadly serious work of being a foreign aid and disaster worker, and in so doing, completely devote your life to helping others who are desperately in need. Then you would be ready to lead.

Now, actually, you could substitute a variety of jobs for the ones I've presented. The point is that you need a truly diversified, non-money and non-political approach to life in order to understand how to make this a better world. And if your job as a leader is to make laws, then I think it's a crime not to ensure that future leaders shouldn't have to pull their pants up a little, so to speak.

Of course, if everybody with any leadership ambition was obligated to learn how to enjoy not being a politician and campaigner for awhile, politics might just become extinct. Now, wouldn't that be a useful piece of legislation?

John Scoles is president and janitor of the Times Change(d) High & Lonesome Club.