It’s caucus time in Iowa again, or at least that’s what the media has been saying for the past 18 months. And since I know my many loyal readers see this blog as a beacon of political wisdom, or, at the very least, good for a chuckle, I think it’s time for me to dismantle and/or dismember the candidates currently running for their respective party’s nomination to be President of the United States.
Let me start out by saying this: the fact that every one of these candidates feels that the best way to accomplish this goal is by calling my house several times a day with recorded messages and endorsements does NOT bode well for the future of our country.
That being said, what, besides effective push-polling, should one look for in a prospective President? Toughness and confidence? Absolutely, if for no other reason than the brutality of the campaign trail, having your every move, past and present, dissected by the 24-hour media whores horde. And that’s BEFORE you get elected. Afterwards, you face daily threats to your safety, tirades from opposing leaders filled with violent personal attacks, questions about your ability govern, to lead, to spell – and THAT’S just from members of the opposing party. A strong spine and thick skin are important.
A good President also needs a good moral compass – they should know what they believe, why the believe it, and be able to communicate this to others. A weakness of our current president is that he fails at the latter. His predecessor consistently failed at the other two. I maintain that being unable to communicate your deeply held convictions is less of a sin than sticking your thumb to the wind, and then serving up a heap of sugar about why, even though you are a liberal, you now suddenly think that welfare reform and NAFTA are great ideas. But, hey, pick your poison. Not to romanticize Reagan, but he fearlessly communicated his deeply held ideas about the evils of communism, and look how that turned out.
Finally, to be a good President, one must be a good leader, and therefore, must be able to delegate. The jobs of President, CEO, and Head Coach have never been more similar. The ability to do is irrelevant; the ability to get others to do for you is what is important. This is why we so consistently elect Governors, as opposed to Senators, to the Executive office. A Senator picks an issue that is important to him, writes a bill, lobbies and negotiates with colleagues, makes necessary compromises, all with the end goal of reaching a strong enough consensus to make the bill a law. A Governor (President/CEO/etc) says, “Here is the outline of my energy policy. Flesh it out, write it down, make it better, and have it back to me by Wednesday. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to make sure that tax and foreign policies are ready to go, and then give a speech to rally the public behind my ideas.” Letting go to this extent is not an easy thing to do for an ego-maniacal control-freak, and since anyone who actually WANTS to be President must, by default, fit that description to some degree, I think that this trait, often overlooked, is probably one of the most important.
Over the next several days, I’ll examine each candidate, both Democrat and Republican, and then tell you who you should vote/caucus for. Here’s a little suspense: I bet not one of you can guess correctly.
Duncan Hunter.
Duncan Hunter was my first guess too. But then I got to thinking and figured you are a dead lock for Ron Paul.
Can you write someone in at a caucus?
Jesus Christ?
Good assessment of a president, Pat. I agree with all of it (which is a rarity between you and me
).