© 2008 by Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
On the homestretch of this presidential election each candidate is campaigning frantically 20 hours a day. The media have exhausted all logical questions and now we are learning of their favorite songs and how many teeth each has.
These final two know that only one will win and the other will spend years sleeping like a baby — that is, waking every few hours crying. Each is trying to out-promise the other: “If elected I will give you, my friend, everything you want, just vote for me.”
So there is no mistake, I am talking about both candidates. Each is spending every second making all sorts of promises and campaigning like a water rat in heat.
What should we be looking for with these two who would be president? There is the past, the present and the future to consider. Their past is an amalgam of political deals to get where they are now. There is no promise from the past since those were deals to get to the U.S. Senate.
The present has no bearing since they will say and do anything to make that last final step. The great movie, “Swing Vote,” portrays accurately the political drive of both candidates in the movie and in real life. Real candidates and the candidates in the movie are essentially nice people. A little flawed here and there. But only one can win.
How shall we, as thinking voters, make our choice for president? One way is to look to the future and see how each candidate fits in. I keep thinking of the very insightful remark made by British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan when asked what represented the greatest challenge for a statesman. He responded, “Events, my dear boy, events.”
Unfortunately, we cannot know what the events of the next four years will be. And that is the rub for us as voters. We cannot select the president who will best fit the events if we do not know which events will be happening.
So, we have to vote for potential. Which candidate has the best potential to grow into a good president, giving the events that we do not know are coming?
No one is ready for the job
Let us dispel one notion. No one is ready to be president. Each crawls into the Oval Office overwhelmed with the responsibility that has been placed upon them.
Each must grow into the job of being the president. Each must bring their own personal traits, habits, skills and knowledge to that task. At the same time each has personal demons that must be controlled such as temper, paranoia, drinking or sex drive.
When mere men have been thrust into the role of president, some have become greater men for the challenge and others have been consumed by their own personal demons. No one will ever know how good a president Bill Clinton could have been if faced with different events and if he could have kept his own sexual demons in check.
Some presidents, like Teddy Roosevelt, confounded friends and enemies alike and went from mediocre to great in months. It was the same for Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman. And then there were the flawed presidents in the final judgment of history such as Jefferson, Harding, Kennedy, Nixon and Clinton. Jimmy Carter holds a singular place for being very ethical, very smart and yet a person who could not delegate authority, so he ended up one of the least effective presidents ever.
The imperial mindset
One last concern involves the “imperial” presidential mindset. In the 19th century Lord Acton observed, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” As we look at the candidates we are aware that the presidency may change them for the worse. Some go insane with the God-like powers.
What is presidential life like? It is a life the work-a-day citizen can never know. The president is the one person in our nation to never go through the metal detectors. People stand and salute when the president enters a room or is in their proximity. The president has a fleet of planes; each is named Air Force One when the president boards to command at any whim. Want to talk to someone in the free world? “Please hold for the president.” Want to golf? The course is emptied at your convenience so you can play. In any restaurant, at any time the best table is available.
Every thing you and I do is done for the president by legions of messengers, attendants and followers. Tell a joke and the room will laugh, even if it is a joke like I tell: dog limps into a bar and announces, “I’m looking for the varmint that shot my paw.”
The power of the presidency does change our presidents. We have to wonder which presidential candidate is most immune from the seduction of power. We are all flawed humans who have our egos and demons. How will being treated as a deity make them worse?
Would John McCain or Barack Obama grow into the job, or would the job consume them? That is for you, the voter to decide. Which candidate will best handle his own demons, and which will best handle “events, my dear boy, events?”
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.