Perfect President
Special to The Times
"We pick a president every four years," Adlai Stevenson once said, "and then we pick him apart for the next four years." But Stevenson said that several decades ago. Nowadays, we pick would-be presidents apart a year before elections.
Each of today's presidential candidates wants our support, but what do we want from them? The U.S. Constitution requires only that a president be 35 years old, have lived in the United States for 14 years and be a natural born citizen. Yet American voters appear to have a tough unwritten set of job requirements for anyone presumptuous and driven enough to want to be president.
We are often disappointed in the quality of our candidates because we invariably measure them against an idealized composite of what our greatest presidents and world leaders did, rather than against what our past presidents looked like prior to their becoming presidents. We remember past presidents primarily for their victories and on their best days.
Of course we should ask a lot of our presidential candidates. An election year is a splendid time to ask ourselves not only who should serve in the White House, but what kind of leadership we want from our government, what kind of leadership role our country should play in the world, and how much all of us should accept our own civic responsibilities if we want our constitutional democracy to succeed.
Most of us yearn for so many talents and qualities in our presidents that it comes close to wanting "God--on a good day." We want vision, character, competence, intelligence, stamina, inspiration, judgement, wisdom--and we want someone who shares our political beliefs.
When looking for a new president, we also want a leader who can bring us together and bring out the best in us. But this is a tough assignment in a nation shaped by stalwart individualism and irreverence for government and centralized leadership institutions.
We justifiably look at candidates with a close and unforgiving eye, but perhaps we are unfair with pop quizzes, trick questions and denunciation of candidates for doing things we ourselves might have done. It seems we simultaneously want a candidate to be like us and better than us.
My ideal candidate, in addition to sharing my dreams and policy values, of course, would have the following attributes:
Courage. The willingness to take risks and try to serve all the people and not just those who bankrolled his or her candidacy. The intellectual courage to do what is right even when it is not popular of easy. And the guts not to give up after legislative or political defeats.
Experience and competence in bringing people together in teams to solve major policy problems; great skills as a negotiator and builder of policy agreements.
Political savvy. An understanding of the necessity for politics and the ability to be an effective politician working regularly with people of all political views who recognizes that coalition building is a central as well as constant part of the job.
An understanding of history and constitutionalism. A solid grasp of how governments and markets work and how trade and diplomacy operate, and a respect for the U.S. Constitution and the constraints it puts on leadership and government. Helpful, too, would be a sophisticated understanding and respect for the diverse political culture in the United States.
The ability and judgement to recruit wise advisors and effective administrators, and the wisdom to delegate to teams of colleagues. This requires, too, an understanding of the strategic tools for governing and an ability to empower public servants and volunteers at all levels of government.
Listening, learning and teaching skills. A leader has to both listen to us and lead us. We want leaders who give us a sense not only of who they are, but more importantly, of who we are, and what we as a nation might become.
Programmatic ideas and wisdom, and the ability to define plans, clarify options and help set the nation's policy agenda. A president has to be preoccupied with the large, compelling issues of our day (economic opportunity for everyone, freedom, trade, nuclear proliferation, racism, equality, etc.)--a forest person, not overwhelmed by the trees or leaves. More hedgehog than fox, more wholesaler than retailer, more leader than manager. An ability to establish priorities and stick to them.
Communication and motivational skills. Ideas and wisdom are of little use if a president cannot rally the public and empower teams and constituencies to enact new plans. Having speaking and media conference skills and the ability to inspire and build new political coalitions are crucial.Tenacity and discipline balanced with humility. Self-confidence and self-esteem are also essential. A thick skin helps in this generally thankless job just as the ability to laugh at oneself and to admit flaws and mistakes. Not wanted are persons who are defensive, rigid, torn by self-doubt or self-pity, or who blame their problems on "enemies" and are likely to punish people on personal "enemies lists."
Intellectual honesty. We want presidents we can trust, who have a basic respect for others and a commitment to serve the public interest. A sense of decency, integrity and fair play. Honest, ethical leaders motivate us to higher levels of compassion and justice.
Morale-building and community-building skills. The presidency is far more than just a political or constitutional job; it is also an institution and office that has to help us through crises and transitions, and help unify us when we experience national setbacks and tragedy. Presidents at the best help remind us of our mutual obligations, shared beliefs, and the trust and caring that can hold us together in traditions and duty. Most Americans yearn for national leaders who can bring us together and challenge us--and our country--to be better.
Do we ask too much of our presidential candidates? Sure we do. History conditions different cultures to expect different things of their leaders. In the United States we exaggerate the capacity for what even heroic presidents can do to change the course of events. But we aren't likely to lower our expectations.
Talented politicians are indispensable to making our constitutional democracy work. Two cheers for those who run and for all their helpers and advisors who provide us choices.
Americans will never be satisfied with our candidates, nor perhaps should we be. The ideal presidential candidate is probably a fictional entity, for the dream candidate would be able to please everyone and make conflict disappear. Such a person could exist only in an extremely small community in which liberty and rights (as we understand them) probably wouldn't exist.
But the love of liberty invites diversity and therefore disagreements of ideology and values. Politicians and presidential candidates as well as the people they represent have different ideas about what is best for the nation.
That's why we have politics, candidates, debates and elections. Let's be thankful we do. And while we are at it, we should celebrate that this is our 54th presidential election. We have never postponed one because of wars, depressions, scandals or emergencies. Let's celebrate, too, that on 19 occasions we have peacefully transferred power from one party to a different party in our presidential elections. That's no small achievement.
Thomas E. Cronin is author or co-author of several books on American politics, including The Paradoxes of the American Pesidency (1998) and Government By The People (2000). He is president of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.
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