Considering the 2008 Candidates

Choosing A President

No Oprah, No Jesus, No Joe: Just Informed Voter 

          In Iowa, prospective Republican voters appear to be making their choices based on sycophancy and fealty to evangelical religion. Demo-cratic candidates accuse each other of failures based on whimsical rea-sons. Most play gotcha based on this action or inaction or another.
          None of this has to do with making the proper choice for presi-dent. Following is another way to look at the candidates, considering far different, yet common-sense criteria based on the reality the chosen candidate will face.

Burke to voters:
"We do not sufficiently distinguish,
         in our observations upon language,        
              between a clear expression                                                   and a strong expression."                                       

          The list of criteria is topped by intellect, followed by national ex-perience, ability to get the job done, willingness to compromise, ability to lead the country, devotion to the common weal, and the guts and hon-esty to practice Edmund Burke's philosophy.
          The ideal candidate would possess all of those qualities, but no one should ever expect to get the entire package. We are lucky enough in this day and age of mediocre thinkers to get someone who possesses even one of the qualities.
          You will not see any ranking of candidates based on poll results, an idiotic measurement method made the more apparent by its constant back-and-forth fluctuation. These candidates are what they are: if any-thing about them changes because of various campaigning and polling pressures, that should speak only to their weaknesses, not their strengths.
          The criteria used here, if followed, then need to be massaged by the individual voters' own ranking of the matters of most importance to them--from the rich to protect their riches to the poor to be given a chance simply to survive.

Intellect:
          This election year being 2008, coupled with the ability to look back at the previous eight years, suggests the importance of choosing a president with a high intellectual level has never been more apparent.
There is just too much that needs to be known about the world, the country and the gifts and problems of both to allow those who would be our leader to slide into the presidency without a proper grounding in na-tional and world matters. The learning curve is simply too large.
          The intellect should be deeply grounded, as was that of the Founding Fathers, in the principles of this country as guided by the phil-osophies of two of England's bright minds of the times, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. They locked horns on many issues, but the Founding Fathers based a fantastic democratic system largely based on the best of their individual philosophies.
          If your candidate cannot at least identify who Hobbes and Locke were relative to the creation of world's longest-longing democracy, you might want to consider someone else to back if you want to base your decision on intellect.
          The criteria used here, if followed, then need to be massaged by the individual voters' own rankings of the matters of most importance to them--from the rich to protect their riches to the poor to be given a chance simply to ssurvive.
          We judge John McCain as the most intelligent Republican candi-date and Joe Biden, John Edwards and Barack Obama possibly in a tie for the Democratic title. But a caution: judgments about Obama are only that, because he has not been around long enough to be properly judged by any of the criteria.
          Particularly in the wake of eight years of buffoonery and shame   caused by a president with the intellect of a gnat, the next president is going to have to draw on plenty of smarts to straighten out the mess he will be leaving.
          To be sure, there is more to the presidency than intellect, but let us begin with that as criterion No. 1.

    Burke to Giuliani, Huckabee,                  Romney and Obama:

Experience:
          One can be the most intelligent person in the world, but if he or she does not understand "how Washington works," that intelligence can be worthless.
          You will hear on the campaign trail at all election levels a lam-basting of that great whipping horse, "Washington." This is a cheap cop-out, a generalization by people who do not know what the national scene is about and worse, do not care to learn. It is not you against Washing-ton; like it or not, Washington is you.
          Everyone who pronounces "Washington" as if spitting should be reminded that what Washington is, is what they sent to Congress and elected as president. The career people in Washington are there to do a job by closely following federal rules successfully designed to make our the least-corrupt government in the world.
          But, as best exemplified by the current Bush administration, they are subject to pressure by the "schedule Cs," the appointed staff not subject to civil service, appointed to serve the administration's views and designs. Those who resist succumb, resign or become the federal gov-ernment "whistleblowers." That is "Washington" and those experienced in Washington understand that.
          Without that background, a new administration will spend much of its time spinning wheels, trying to throw around weight consisting of far fewer pounds than that of those it is trying to persuade. President Jimmy Carter is the prime example of a president who brought in a staff of Georgians not wise in "Washington ways" with a promise to remake it. His administration, better than any others, proved the theorem, "the president does not make Washington, Washington makes the president."
          Jimmy Carter arguably was more intelligent than Bill Clinton, but his administration was an abject failure primarily because it did not un-derstand how Washington works. He did not understand because he had no experience in Washington. Thus, criterion No. 2.

       Burke to Bush:
       "It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what          humanity, reason and justice tell me I ought to do." Getting the Job Done:
        Criterion No. 3 has to do with considering that given the intellect and experience, does a candidate have the abilility to draw on those cri-teria to be effective with his or her presidency. That has to do with the candidate's ability to get the job done. Can he or she work with the real "Washington" that he or she will not be able to change in order to bring about the changes the candidate promised during the campaign.
          Much of the judgment herein about who is best or least able to "get the job done" is admittedly largely judgmental. It is based on per-sonal knowledge of the candidates, having covered them, met them or knowledge of their issues that would or would not resonate in official "Washington."

Compromise:
          As George W. Bush, and others to a lesser degree, should have learned, but never did during his eight years, our federal government re-lies on compromise. The U.S. Constitution was drawn up by Founding Fathers far more intellectual than "leaders" we have today. They created a largely balanced system that leads inevitably to a need to compromise one's principles in order to get things done--I know I cannot get every-thing I want, so I will compromise my principles to the extent that I can get the most of what I want.
          Our democracy is built and survived as the world's longest-last-ing, on the principle no one person or a group of people is omniscient. If one cannot compromise, one cannot govern under this system. Probably the greatest mistake George W. Bush made was to think he and his ad-ministration were omniscient, that they did not have to compromise. Strike that off to his cowboy macho attitude.
          Our next president must be able to compromise.

          Burke to Hunter:

          "The public is the theatre for                                         mountebanks and imposters."          

Leadership:
          It is one thing for a president to take a position; it is quite some-thing else for a president to be able to get the American people behind that action. A presidency can fool the people for a while, as it was able to do to an amazingly degree about the foolhardy Iraq invasion, but that followership cannot last without some correction by the citizenry.
          The American people, increasingly lacking an awareness of cur-rent events, is increasingly a patsy for the rantings and ravings of a luna-tic fringe and is increasingly weak in its ability to distinguish between snake oil and true cures, but even in its naivete, it has its limits.
          As we learned with the war in Vietnam, and should have known as we slogged through the Iraq fiasco, an action cannot be sustained without the backing of the people.
          Whether one has the ability to do lead depends again on largely subjective measurements, including a conception of a president and his or her actions as possessing credible solutions. The voter should look at what the candidatges say and measure those statements against one's own common sense.

Zeal for the common weal:
          The gap between the richest and the poorest in America has nev-er been greater, and without a shift, the gap is destined to be grow even greater. Does the candidate profess and adhere to a philosophy de-signed to narrow that gap? Know that it is not enough to mouth the words, the proof is in who is likely to "walk the walk" that is behind "talk-ing the talk."
          How can a country be democratic if it's government is geared to-ward making the rich richer and the poor poorer, or is it geared toward ending the cycle of poverty (affirmative action) and giving the lesser edu-cated and advantaged among us a leg up towards benefitting from our democratic system.
          Finally, that most rare of qualities for a president: Does the candi-date tell you what he believes in and asks for your support or rejection, or does the candidate take constant polls and decide what he or she thinks based upon the results?

Emulator of Edmund Burke:

"Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

          In today's vernacular, Burke's quote means: here is what I think and what I think your representative should be doing. If you agree with me, vote for me. Instead of following that credo, most candidates tend to pander to what they believe the voter wants, based on the polls.
          Many who disagreed with Barry Goldwater had great respect for him as a 1964 candidate because he had the guts to go to retiree-heavy St. Petersburg, Fla., and denounce Social Security because that is what he believed. He did not pander for votes.
          We are suggesting the listed traits are what the voter should look for in a candidate, and get away from celebrity endorsements, religion, pecadillos that have nothing to do with governing and all those things that should be irrelevant in the voting booth.
          Only after weighing the candidate against the traits should one then consider the views he or she espouses, whether you can accept their personal life and other lesser matters.

          "Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for ob-jects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure--but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a part-nership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobac-co, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence because it is not a partner-ship in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue and in all perfec-tion. As the ends of such a parntership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead and those who are to be born."                     --Edmund Burke, 1790