Don’t Negotiate, Mister President

My neighbor (we both live in the Richmond Metropolitan Area) and majority leader in the House of Representatives, Eric Cantor, appeared as a guest columnist this week in the Richmond Times-Dispatch and lambasted the President of the United States for his unwillingness to negotiate with the Congress on issues relating to the federal budget and the national debt. 1 That’s what Mr. Cantor says, but if you read his opinion carefully you will see that his real complaint is that the president has not negotiated on its terms with one political party in one chamber of the Congress. But, let us not quibble. There have been a goodly number of people out there who have adequately criticized Mr. Cantor’s guest column. That is not what this maven wants to talk about.

In his column, Mr. Cantor asserts that many of this republic’s presidents have been faced with a Congress controlled by an opposition party and that all of them have been successful leaders because they have negotiated with that opposition. Only President Obama refuses to negotiate and is therefore a bad leader. I could do an exhaustive study to check on Mr. Cantor’s accuracy. After all, this country has been blessed with lots of mediocre and bad presidents and many of them did not lead successfully at all. But it is not for this maven to challenge this historical conclusion uttered by the product of one of Richmond’s finest private schools. And again that is not what I want to talk about. 

What I do want to talk about is this sentence from Mr. Cantor’s guest column: “The president not only has refused to negotiate on issues of debt and spending but also has mocked the very idea of engaging with Congress.” Again, I will agree with Mr. Cantor’s assessment, although as a life-long and loyal Democrat I could argue. What concerns me is Mr. Cantor’s belief that this president, or any other president, has a constitutional or any other responsibility to negotiate with congressional leaders of the opposition party. I certainly cannot find such a responsibility in the Constitution.

What I find surprising is that the drafters of the Constitution said so little about the legislative process. Although there is lots of space in the Constitution dedicated to setting forth the extent of the powers of the Congress, this is all the Constitution says about how legislation is to be enacted:  

“All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

“Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it.”

Article I, section 7.

Nowhere is there mention of the actual legislative process—that one chamber enacts a bill and sends it to the other chamber; that the other chamber can agree with the bill, can reject the bill, can substitute its own bill; that if the chambers are not in agreement they will meet in conference, and that only when each chamber passes the bill in identical language is it sent to the president for his approval or veto. (I suppose the drafters assumed that the process was implicit in the language they used and didn’t need to be specified.)

But, Mr. Cantor, nowhere in this description of the legislative process does the Constitution state that a president has any roll other than approving or rejecting a bill sent to him by the Congress. There is no mention of him or her being required to negotiate with leaders of the opposition party. However, maybe we have to look elsewhere in the Constitution to support Mr. Cantor’s belief. Let’s look at the article dealing with the powers of the executive branch.

The Constitution says:

“He [the president] shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper…”

Article II, Section 3.

So, the president shall report to the Congress on the “State of the Union”, may recommend legislation to them, may “on extraordinary Occasions” call them into special session, and if they cannot agree he can adjourn them. But, again, there is no mention of negotiation.

I am unable to tell when the practice of the president negotiating with members of the Congress began. Mr. Cantor says that as recently as 1995 President Clinton and Speaker of the House Gingrich worked overtime to reach a bipartisan agreement that ended a debt/government shut down crisis at that time. But he does not say “as early as”, so we don’t know who was the first president to do so.

The idea that a president should participate in legislative negotiations as the head of his party is not in the system that the drafters of the Constitution designed for our republic. In fact, it is more like the British system in which the Prime Minister is both head of government and head of his or her party. The drafters, instead, based our system on separation of the legislative, executive and judicial functions. Article I, section 1 of the Constitution says “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”  Article II, section 1 says “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Article III, section 1 states “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”

The Constitution provides for three separate branches of government that interact only in the few instances that the Constitution specifies. Therefore, for a president to negotiate over legislation with congressional leaders changes the delegate balance of power that the drafters so carefully structured. 

But, Maven. Why mess with something that is working. What is the downside with the president and the Congress getting together to work out the terms of legislation? 

First, looking at recent history, especially the last several weeks, demonstrates that the negotiation process is not working.  

Second, allowing the president to participate in the legislative process gives him or her greater power than the Constitution envisioned. Making the president a kind of super legislator contradicts the Article I language quoted above that all legislative powers should reside in the Congress. The careful structure of separation of powers allows the president to propose legislation at the beginning of the process and to approve of or veto legislation passed by the Congress at the end, but not to participate in the deliberations involved in its enactment.

Third, there is only one President of the United States. She or he is elected by voters in all of the states. Each member of the House of Representatives is elected by only one four hundred thirty fifth of the American electorate. Each Senator is elected by the voters in only one of fifty states. The party leaders in each chamber, including the Speaker of the House, are chosen only by the members of their own party, usually for having survived longer than the other party members. Negotiations between a president and congressional leaders therefore are necessarily between people of unequal power.

Fourth, in the present historical context, we have a president who is personally detested by a significant minority of the population. That minority has managed to elect members of the Congress both in the House and the Senate. These members seem to be more concerned with weakening this president and in depriving him of any historical legacy than in governing. In this context, having the president participate in negotiations makes it less likely that they will succeed, because the motivation of some of the negotiators will be to embarrass the president rather than to reach a reasonable compromise. 

So, this maven recommends that the president return to the constitutionally described process and refrain from negotiating with members of Congress on the content or language of legislation. On the other side, the Congress should move back to the constitutional process and stop pulling the president into the legislative process. In each chamber, if there is disagreement on legislation, the leaders of each party should negotiate with each other to try to reach agreement. If the two chambers disagree on legislation, their differences should be ironed out in a conference. This process has worked for centuries and can work again if implemented.

 

 

Fear And Loathing In The Extreme

I was behind a pickup truck as I turned from Huguenot Road onto Buford Road last week. The truck stopped at a traffic light and I pulled up behind it. On the back window was a large sign that read “Be Afraid” at the top. Then there was a drawing of Barack Obama in an angry pose. Below that were even bigger letters reading “Be Very Afraid.” I was impressed by the deep level of hate expressed by whoever designed and marketed that sign.

Last night the maveness called my attention to an anti-Obama ad she saw on the tube. Tonight I saw the same ad. The ad was sponsored by the ultra-conservative group, Let Freedom Ring. It was entitled “Never Find Out” and it basically painted the disaster to the world that would ensue if Barack Obama is elected president. It’s filled with some pretty outrageous and unsubstantiated claims. Or course, it is not the purpose of Let Freedom Ring to tell the truth. Rather, its purpose is obviously to scare people out of voting for Senator Obama. This, remember is the same Let Freedom Ring that thinks that George W is the greatest president ever, wants to undo Roe v. Wade, favors going back to the original intent of the Constitution, wants to limit the power of the judiciary, encourages the family as the basic building block of society (so long as the family centers on a heterosexual couple), and wants to restore prayer to our schools. Considering its agenda it is not surprising that Let Freedom Ring is afraid of Barack Obama.

Now, the maven has seen lots of election campaigns. (No, I am not old enough to remember the dirtiest of all elections—the 1800 contest between the Federalists and the Jeffersonians). And maybe my memory plays tricks with me. However, I get the feeling it is getting unusually nasty out there. I mean I remember the “mushroom cloud” ad that the Dems ran in 1964 to scare people out of voting for Barry Goldwater. It was pretty devastating. But, this year there seems to be a concerted effort by those on the right, including the Republican National Committee (whose ads are clearly the best in terms of effectiveness) and the McCain-Palin campaign, to personally attack Senator Obama and portray him as outside the spectrum of political acceptability. The supporters of McCain-Palin don’t have any real issues to talk about, so they are trying real hard to scare everybody. Their message—“electing Obama is unthinkable.”

Is there any way that we the voters can affect the level at which our political campaigns are run? How do we get candidates for public office to concentrate on the issues rather than character attacks? Well, campaigns run these fear and loathing ads because they think they work. The only way we can raise the level of the public debates in this country is to demonstrate to the candidates that we will not be fooled by their slime campaigns. We need to send a message to the Republican National Committee and to the McCain-Palin campaign, and of course to Let Freedom Ring on Election Day by voting for Barack Obama for president. And, if you happen to be one of those people who is exit-polled, tell them that you refuse to vote for a hate-monger or a candidate supported by hate-mongers.

Citizens of Virginia! On November 4 the choice is yours. Will you vote based on fear and loathing? Or will you look at the issues and vote for the man most qualified to be president? I urge you to vote for Obama because he is the real instrument of change. Voting for McCain is asking for four more years of Republic misrule.

Reverend Wright Conspiracy?

I am not one of those conspiracy freaks. I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy. I believe that United States astronauts actually walked on the moon. I believe that it was al Qaeda, not the CIA, that attacked the World Trade Center in 2001. However, there is something about this Reverend Wright thing that gives me bad vibes.

Can it be just a coincidence that the videos of Reverend Wright’s preaching surfaced when Senator Clinton’s campaign was at rock bottom? And, what about those photos of the reverend with Bill Clinton in the White House? Isn’t it possible that the videos were actually released by the Clinton campaign? Can it be that Reverend Wright is a secret agent in the Clinton campaign and staged his preaching trip to make sure that his views would remain as a cloud over the Obama campaign? In the last debate, wasn’t Senator Clinton particularly gleeful when she repeatedly found Senator Obama guilty by association? Is it just a coincidence…

Maven, cut it out. You sound like one of those conspiracy crazy.

Thank you, precious reader, for stopping my ranting. Bill and Hillary Clinton couldn’t be that devious. Could they?

Hail to McCain

John McCain took one giant step toward being the next tenant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue yesterday. And that step had nothing to do with the four primary wins that guaranteed him the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. No, Senator McCain got much closer to the White House because Barack Obama did not finish off Hillary Clinton in the Democratic contests. This means that the fratricidal (I include sisters as well as brothers in “fratricide”) war between senators Clinton and Obama will continue for at least another month. It also means that the eventual loser of the Democratic nomination fight will spend at least another month working daily to help Senator McCain win the November election.

In its wisdom, and in the expressed desire to make the process more democratic, the Democracy has rejected the winner-take-all primary in favor of proportional representation. This means that although Senator Clinton has won the primaries in almost all the big states so far, she has only captured a few more delegates than Senator Obama in those states. (For example, in the large state primaries that she won yesterday, Senator Clinton only earned fourteen more delegates than Senator Obama in Ohio and four more than Obama in Texas). Senator Obama, on the other hand, has won most of the small states by margins large enough to earn him most of their delegates. The proportional representation system means that although Hillary beat Barack in three of the primaries yesterday she only won twenty delegates more than he did and still trails him by about one hundred pledged delegates. (Including the unpledged “Super Delegates” that have indicated their preference shrinks Barack’s lead to about fifty).

If you have paid attention to the Democratic race since Senator Obama won all three of the middle Atlantic primaries a few weeks ago you surely noticed that the campaign has turned very negative. The Democrats have no such thing as the “Reagan Rule” (thou shalt not attack another Republican), and so both sides have been firing broadsides asserting that the other is not fit to be president. The era of good feeling, in which Barack and Hillary each went out of their way to publicly praise the other, is over. This is no longer a campaign of “We’re both good, but I’m better.” Now, it’s “Vote for the other guy and Western Civilization will crumble.” And, since negative campaigning seems to have been effective in Senator Clinton reversing Senator Obama’s momentum in the race, you can be sure that she will continue to use it in the future. I’m sure Senator Obama will respond in kind. All these negative ads will undoubtedly aid Senator McCain’s campaign in the fall against whoever wins for the Democrats.

Those who have participated in the Democratic Party nominating process this year are almost equally divided between supporters of Hillary and supporters of Barack. And because of the historic nature of the contest (first woman against first African American) there are many people who are extremely committed to the candidate of their choice. There are those in the Clinton camp who will support nobody for president other than Hillary. Likewise, there are people in the Obama camp who will only support Barack. Further, the direction that the campaign has taken is going to make many people very bitter should their candidate lose. (This will be especially so if the loss results from the votes of Super Delegates). Many Hillary supporters will not work to get Obama elected and many Barack supporters will not work to get Clinton elected. This fact will make it difficult for the winner of the nomination to unite the party behind her/him for the race in the fall.

So, it is not unreasonable for Senator McCain to start humming “Hail to the Chief.” The Democrats are engaged in another one of their self-destruct rituals, which will most likely cripple the nominee for the fall race. Unless Senator McCain chooses a running mate who will scare away moderate voters, he will be taking the presidential oath next January.

Ti-ime Is On Her Side

If you’re coaching basketball and your team is looking winded and the other side has just run off ten or twelve unanswered points and clearly has all the momentum, it is time to make the “T” sign and call time-out. For Hillary Clinton, the time-out was built into the primary schedule and it came none too soon. With his string of wins, Barack Obama clearly had Clinton on the ropes, and if there were a bunch of primaries next week, his momentum may have overwhelmed her. But, because of the genius of various states in moving their primaries as far forward as possible, for the rest of this month the only delegates up for grab will be from Wisconsin, Hawaii, Guam and the Virgin Islands. (When, exactly, did we give Guam and the Virgin Islands any votes for president?)

So, now that she has been saved by the bell, what exactly can Senator Clinton do to take back the momentum? Of course she will pour all her energy and borrowed money into the big March prizes, Texas and Ohio. Hillary’s success this year has been mainly in the big states and she has reason to hope that that trend will continue. In Texas she expects to score high with Latinos, who until this past weekend were not particularly captivated by Barack Obama. In Ohio, she’s hoping that her Clinton name will bring back memories of the ‘90s and she’ll get the kind of support that Bill Clinton received in the Buckeye State.

But, I’m not sure that Hillary is only relying on recapturing the heart of the voters. Her strategy must include continued strong-arm tactics to gain the support of the “Super Delegates.” No, dear reader, these are not superheroes. Super delegates are elected officials and party bigwigs to whom the Democratic Party gives free passes to and votes at their quadrennial convention. Super delegates were introduced into the Democratic Party nominating process after the party’s defeat in the 1980 election. The theory was that super delegates were necessary to protect the party from the voters choosing a candidate who political pros thought was unelectable. It is clear that in the past the super delegates have saved the party from the folly of the electorate. In 1984, for example, the super delegates threw their support to Walter Mondale to avoid the party nominating the unelectable Gary Hart. So, even if Hillary doesn’t win big in Texas and Ohio, the fellow aspiring to be the country’s first “First Man” can continue to twist arms to get the supers to reject the will of the people.

That the party that was once called “The Democracy” should have such an undemocratic feature as super delegates seems rather strange to me. Do the voters really want elected and unelected party bigwigs dictating who the party’s nominee is? I fear that should Senator Obama win a significant number of the remaining primaries but be denied the nomination by the party’s super delegates the voters may rebel in November. Even though I’m not sure that the voters have done a better job in picking party nominees than did the old smoke-filled room method, I think it is too late to go back to a system in which party insiders choose the nominee regardless of the will of the voters.

Having said this, I think it is interesting to look at the numbers. As of today, Senator Obama has won 1112 delegates in primaries and caucuses compared to 978 won by Senator Clinton, giving him a lead of 134. However, among those super delegates who have expressed their preference, Clinton leads Obama 233 to 147, cutting Obama’s total lead to only 48. These numbers seem small, but in a nomination contest this close every delegate is important. So, both the Clinton and Obama campaigns will be working hard to convince the 337 super delegates that have not yet chosen to side with their candidate.

And then there is the question of Florida and Michigan. As you know the Democratic National Committee has “punished” these two states for violating party rules in moving up their primary dates by denying both states any delegates at the convention. I will not discuss the wisdom or fairness of disenfranchising Democratic voters in those states. The fact is that the DNC made this decision and it affected the decisions of the candidates to contest those state’s primaries. Obama campaigned in neither state and even had his name removed from the ballot in Michigan. The Democratic voters in those states who bothered voting gave Senator Clinton significant victories in what were meaningless elections. Or were they?

The DNC has been showing signs of backing down. Maybe it is worried about the image of nobody standing up at the convention when Florida and Michigan are called on a roll call. So, it has offered Democrats in those states the chance to regain their delegates by holding caucuses to choose them. As far as I know, neither state party has shown any interest in the DNC solution.

So, what happens now? Senator Clinton, who won both “meaningless” primaries, is urging that the Florida and Michigan delegates, most pledged to her, be seated. Senator Obama and his supporters object that this is unfair because he did not contest those states because of the DNC decision. Undoubtedly, unless some other solution is found, this dispute will have to be decided at the convention. The delegates that Senator Clinton “won” in the Michigan and Florida primaries will show up and demand to be seated. Whether or not those delegates are seated may ultimately be decided by a vote of the already seated delegates.

And, what about the courts? Undoubtedly, some voters in either or both Michigan and Florida are going to march up to their local United States District Court and ask that the judge order that delegates from their state be seated at the Democratic National Convention. (A United States District Court in Florida has already dismissed a suit by Florida Senator Bill Nelson to force the Democratic National Committee to seat delegates to be elected in Florida’s primary. Nelson v. Dean, No. 4:07cv427-RH/WCS (N.D. Fla. Dec. 14, 2007)). The precedents may favor the right of the party to control the method of selecting its nominees but a lawsuit would sure be messy.

I see no fair way of settling this dispute. If the decision of the DNC is upheld, the Democratic voters of Florida and Michigan are deprived of representation at the convention. If, on the other hand, the decision is reversed, Senator Clinton will derive an unfair advantage because the delegates in Florida and Michigan were not won in contested elections.

So, dear reader, there is certainly reason for Senator Clinton to be optimistic. She can fight the election battle for delegates in Texas and Ohio without being overwhelmed by Senator Obama’s momentum. She can win over a significant majority of the 337 uncommitted super delegates. And, she can find some way to get those Florida and Michigan delegates seated. For political junkies like this maven, this year is turning out to be a real blast.

Oh Bama

I know all of you are waiting with baited breath for the maven’s endorsement in the Democratic Party race for the presidential nomination. Well, you better restart the old inhale-exhale routine, ‘cause I ain’t gonna change my previous endorsement of Bill Richardson. Now that the Governor is out of the race, I will endorse nobody. (My endorsement seems to be the kiss of death, so I’m not sure either of the remaining candidates really wants it.) However, I will continue my on-line debate with myself over who will make the best president.

I spend some of my spare time tutoring in Richmond Public Schools as part of the Micah Initiative. Somehow, I got into a political discussion Monday with some fifth graders, all of whom were African Americans. They each urged me to vote for Senator Barack Obama so that we could have our first black president. I tried to explain to them, without much success, that I would vote for the best qualified person, and that I didn’t care whether that person was black or white, male or female. Paraphrasing Martin Luther King, Jr., I urged them to judge people by their character not by the color of their skin. As I said in my piece about Hillary Clinton Monday, I will not vote for or against her because she is a woman. Likewise, I will not vote for or against Senator Obama because of the color of his skin.

So, let’s not beat around the bush (no pun intended). Let’s get straight to the experience issue because that is the one that concerns me. As I indicated Monday, I don’t buy this argument by Senator Clinton that she has “thirty five years” experience and that therefore she will “hit the ground running” on January 20 of next year. However, I am a bit concerned that up until the Democratic convention in 2004 I had never even heard of Barack Obama. His government experience before then was in the Illinois Senate. In 2005, only about three years ago, he began his term in the United States Senate. So, how much government experience is necessary before a person is qualified to be president?

When the media and some of Barack’s opponents raised the experience issue earlier in the campaign, I immediately thought of Abraham Lincoln. Under the standards being applied to Senator Obama, Lincoln was not qualified to be president. Before running for president in 1860, Lincoln had held only two government positions—four terms in the Illinois legislature and a single term in the United States House of Representatives. And, I am sure that most of the country had never heard of him before the 1860 Republican Convention. Each of Lincoln’s opponents in the election—Stephen Douglas, John Breckenridge and John Bell—had more experience in the Federal Government than did Lincoln. Yet Abraham Lincoln is consistently judged as one of our best presidents.*

(I wrote the stuff above before I knew the results of the primary elections in the Commonwealth, Maryland and the District of Columbia).

Those of you with a phenomenal memory are aware that last summer I opined that being a member of a legislature, whether state or federal, does not provide a person with the type of experience that prepare him/her for being president. (http://jamesrivermaven.blogspot.com/2007/08/choosing-next-prez-part-ii.html) I stated then that being a legislator does not develop the executive and managerial skills that a president needs.

It is apparent to me, however, that, unless Mike Huckabee pulls off a miracle of biblical proportions, our next president will be a person with only legislative—not executive or managerial—experience. This year, for only the third time since the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, we will be electing an incumbent United States Senator to be our President.

I have been thinking long and hard on this issue of experience. Perhaps the truth is that there is no amount or type of previous experience that will adequately prepare someone to be President of the United States. When the inauguration parties are over next January and the next president sits down alone in the Oval Office, I imagine that s/he will be swept by a feeling of inadequacy. This job is so big and so difficult that even I would feel inadequate, and I am a trained maven. I don’t think that anyone watching presidents from the Capitol across town or even close up as a spouse or White House staffer can ever know what it is like to be president (except, of course, for those of us who watched “The West Wing” for years.) I think that even a vice president isn’t necessarily better qualified to be president for having served in the number two position. It is hard to say, for example, that either Harry Truman or Lyndon Johnson was a better president because he served as vice president before fate elevated him to the White House. (I think that the voters know that too. Since 1960, only one of four vice presidents who sought to succeed to the presidency won the election).

So, does Hillary Clinton’s seven years in the Senate make her more qualified to be president than Barack Obama’s three years in the Senate? This maven is not ready to say so. I think that either of them will have to spend a great deal of time learning should s/he be elected. Nobody is going to “hit the ground running.” Hopefully, history will be kind to whoever is elected our next president and the mistakes s/he makes during those first few months in office will be minor ones.

But wait, maven. You didn’t say who you voted for on Tuesday.

Dear reader, in this country we have a secret ballot. Who I, or any other person, vote for is nobody else’s business. That’s why there is a curtain you can close when you walk into the voting booth (or at least there used to be). But, I will say that I did not vote for Bill Richardson.

* This judgment is one of hindsight. We know that the North won the Civil War and we give Lincoln credit for preserving the Union. However, Lincoln was not so popular during his presidency. In fact, the public’s opinion of Lincoln’s performance during the first year and a half of his presidency was so low that had he run for reelection in May or June of 1863, rather than in November 1864, there is a strong chance that he would have been defeated.

Something About Hillary

Tomorrow is the presidential primary here in the Old Dominion, and it’s put up or shut up time for this maven. You may remember that when Bill Richardson dropped out of the race several weeks ago I promised to vote for him anyway as the most qualified candidate. At the time, I expected that by the second week in February the nomination would already be wrapped up and I could cast my vote for Richardson as a protest. Well, to the delight of the Times-Dispatch editors, the way Virginia votes tomorrow could really affect the outcome of the nomination fight (at least for the Democrats) and so I have to decide who to vote for.

The maveness has been a devoted follower of Hillary Clinton’s run for the White House for more than a year. She has told me that before she dies (which I pray will be many years in the future) she wants to see a woman elected as President of the United States. I can understand how she and many other women feel. In our country’s two hundred thirty years there have been many women who could have provided great leadership but were denied the opportunity to run for president. And, clearly, many of the men we have elected to be numero uno have been pretty mediocre. So, I do agree with my wife that it’s about time for a woman to be president.

However, just as I wouldn’t vote against a candidate because she is a woman, I will not vote for one on those grounds either. I will evaluate a candidate’s experience and policies and leadership ability and will vote for that candidate regardless of his/her sex.

Senator Clinton’s campaign has focused on her experience. I must have heard her brag about her “thirty five years” of experience at least twenty times. So what exactly was Hillary doing during those thirty five years? Thirty five years ago was 1973. In 1973, Hillary Clinton graduated from Yale Law School. According to her bio on the Washington Post’s website (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/hillary-clinton/), Hillary’s first job was as a staffer for the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives where she worked for one year. After that she served for one year on the faculty of the University of Arkansas Law School. She then was employed by the Rose law firm in Little Rock where she worked from 1976 through 1992. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton’s husband was elected Governor of Arkansas and so from 1979 to 1981 and then from 1983 through 1993 she was the First Lady of Arkansas. When her husband became President of the United States in 1993, Hillary Clinton became First Lady of the United States. Most recently, with the expiration of Bill Clinton’s second term as president, Mrs. Clinton was elected United States Senator from New York. She has served in the Senate from 2001 until the present.

Every moment of people’s lives will affect them in whatever job they perform, including being President of the United States. So all of Hillary’s personal and professional life will mold what kind of president she may be. However, Senator Clinton claims that there is something special about the last thirty five years that make her particularly qualified to be president.

We can discount her first two jobs out of law school, as a congressional staffer and as a law school “faculty member,” as having no real relevance to being president. I’m also not sure how her years with the Rose law firm make her any more qualified to be president than thousands of other attorneys practicing law for influential law firms throughout the country. So, the thirty five years of experience upon which Senator Clinton bases her claim to the White House must really be the twelve years she was the governor’s wife in Arkansas and the eight years she was the president’s wife in Washington, D.C. (and, of course, the seven years that she has served as the Junior Senator from New York).

There have been some very influential first ladies in our country’s history. It is said, for example, that after Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke in 1919, Edith Wilson was acting as president for the remainder of his term. This may be the truth, or it may be more legend than fact. Eleanor Roosevelt, as first lady, was so active in government matters that she became a political actor in Washington almost independent of her husband. Some would say that Mrs. Roosevelt served at least as significant a role in motivating the country to get through the Depression and World War II then did President Roosevelt.

There have been other first ladies who came to Washington with a passion to accomplish some public good during their tenure, in addition to their purely ceremonial role as hostess of the White House. Rossalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush have all accomplished much as First Lady.

But Senator Clinton argues that her tenures as First Lady first of Arkansas and then of the United States provided her with the type of experience that would enable her to “hit the ground running” on January 20, 2009. I find it hard to buy her assertion.

It is true, that Bill Clinton assigned more responsibility to his wife than did other presidents. For example, he appointed her chair of the President’s Council on Health Care Reform. In that roll she became only the third first lady to testify before a committee of the Congress. However, as I remember it, the recommendations that came out of that council were so controversial that the president decided not to push for its passage. Mrs. Clinton continued engaged in various political issues and lobbied successfully for the passage of several significant programs during her tenure as first lady. But, I still have not heard how any of her experiences as first lady are relevant to being president.

It is true that Hillary and Bill Clinton lived together in the White House residence. This provided them the opportunity to discuss public policy issues and the president often asked for his wife’s advice. However, this factor is not unique to the Clintons. All of the presidents and first ladies shared the White House residence and many of the presidents discussed public policy with their wives.

Regardless of how much responsibility her husband may have given her, we need to remember that being first lady is not close to being the president. First ladies are not responsible for leading the Executive Branch of government. First ladies do not serve as Commander in Chief of United States military forces. First ladies do not make foreign or domestic policy decisions. They do not make appointments to the Cabinet or the federal courts. They do not negotiate treaties with foreign governments. They do not have the awesome (or awe full) responsibility of controlling our nation’s nuclear arsenal. In short, for first ladies, the buck does NOT stop here.

So, in this maven’s mind, the only experience that Senator Clinton has that would relate to her being President of the United State is the seven years she has served in the United States Senate. No matter whether I count with a calculator or on my fingers, this does not amount to “thirty five” years experience.

But, dear reader, although her claim to all that experience bothers me, it is not the major problem I have with Senator Clinton. Look, I have no doubt as to her leadership abilities. I have seen her performance in the campaign during this past year and I am convinced that she has the ability to be president. I approve of most of her policy positions. In fact, I find it very hard to explain objectively what it is about Hillary that leaves me feeling uneasy. This is particularly bothersome to a maven, who should be making decisions based on objective criteria, not based on feelings.

Perhaps my feeling is that the Hillary Clinton we have been seeing since this campaign began is not the real Hillary Clinton. It seems that Hillary Clinton the presidential candidate is a carefully rehearsed character. There is just something about Hillary that doesn’t seem genuine. It is clear that she is extremely intelligent. She seems to come up with the right answers to most of the questions that the media and her opponents have thrown at her. But I have the feeling that the views she expresses are not necessarily her own; they seem more the consensus opinion by all her advisors of what she should be saying.

On top of that, I have the feeling that there is something about Hillary that is being hidden from us. It’s like the ads for the product are all well thought out and well presented but there is something that they’re not telling us. Maybe this feeling I have is leftover from the bitter taste I had during the last years of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Although I do believe that much of the aura of scandal that floated around the Clintons during their tenure in the White House was manufactured by those who couldn’t abide Bill Clinton being president, I am still upset by President Clinton’s behavior with respect to Monica. Not only did he lack the ability to keep his pants zipped up in the Oval Office, but when he was caught he lied about it, both in a sworn deposition and in a televised statement to the American people.

Perhaps it is unfair of me to have my feelings about Bill Clinton prejudice my feelings toward Hillary. I would really like to be able to judge her candidacy purely on the facts. But I just can’t seem to do that. There is just something about Hillary . . .

Dream Team? Be Serious

My maveness has been suggesting it for weeks. Now the CNN guys have brought it out in the open. How about a Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton ticket for the Democrats in the fall? Not only would it be historic in having a woman and an African American as nominees for president and vice president (not necessarily in the order stated) but it would be hard to beat.

For the media, it just couldn’t be better. The media have really loved this past year with both the first woman and the first African American as serious candidates for president (not that I forget Shirley Chisholm). But, alas, we are approaching midnight and half of this story may soon go away. At whatever time either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama gain enough delegates to win the nomination, the other will go back to the Senate and this year will suddenly become only half as historic as now. So, in the fine media tradition of trying to make the news rather than just report it, Wolf Blitzer and his “Best Political Team” have proposed this dream team. And, as everybody is reporting it today, neither candidate ruled it out.

Oh really? This maven watched the debate last night (there’s nothing more entertaining than rival candidates just oozing with love for one other) and I’m not sure I heard the same thing. What I did hear was both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton acknowledging that the other would make a fine running mate. What I didn’t hear was either candidate saying s/he would agree to run as number two.

Neither Mr. Obama nor Mrs. Clinton have to run for reelection this year, so it is safe for either of them to run for VP (although if my memory serves me right, Joe Lieberman did run both for VP and for reelection to his Senate seat in 2000). The real question is whether it is safe for either of them to be elected vice president. Although in recent administrations vice presidents have been given more and more responsibility (some suggest that Dick Cheney is actually the closet president), it is still second place. Moving from the Senate to vice president just might prove to be a career-ending decision.

Mrs. Maven tells me that being vice president puts one in position to run for president in a few years. I agree (and not just because she is my wife). Being vice president often makes one the odds-on favorite to win the party’s nomination four or eight years hence. But let’s look at a little history. Of the four sitting vice presidents who have run for president since 1960 only one, George H. W. Bush in 1982, has been elected (although, of course, Richard Nixon was finally elected eight years after he left the vice president’s office). As Richard Nixon in 1960, Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and Al Gore in 2000 learned, being vice president doesn’t necessarily mean you will be elected president.

Of course we can’t discount the possibility that the president will die in office and that the vice president will inherit the office. As we’ve heard in many campaigns in the past, “Would you want _____ to be one heart beat away from being president?” Although eight of our presidents have died in office thus thrusting their vice presidents into the White House (and one resigned making his vice president into president), there is a long list of vice presidents who were elected to this office and were never heard of again. For a person ambitious to be president, accepting the vice presidency and hoping that your boss will die before January 20 four years from now is not the best way of getting the job.

So, why would either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama give up her/his influential seat in the United States Senate to become vice president? For the good of the party? To get a chance to run for president in eight years? To get the chance to cast a vote in the Senate when there is a tie? I’m not sure agreeing to serve as vice president is a good political decision for one eager to serve at the top.

But, didn’t Lyndon Johnson agree to give up his very powerful job as Majority Leader of the Senate to run for vice president in 1960? I really don’t know how the Kennedy brothers convinced LBJ to run for number two. (Historians suggest that the vice presidency was offered to Johnson as a courtesy and that the Kennedy brothers—especially Robert—were shocked when Lyndon accepted.) Senator Johnson certainly couldn’t have known that the considerably younger man who would become his boss would not live to complete his term. Why he gave up such power for a job not worth a bucket of warm spit will forever be a mystery.

We will have to wait to see whether my maveness’ and Wolf Blitzer’s “Dream Team” becomes a reality. But, if I were you, unless you have a wonderful set of lungs, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Dewey Defeats Truman!

In its lead editorial today, our great metropolitan daily (The Richmond Times-Dispatch for you out-of-towners), tried to explain Senator Clinton’s unexpected defeat of Senator Obama in the New Hampshire Democratic primary last week. As you know, before the vote the political polls indicated that Senator Obama would build on his Iowa caucuses victory by thrashing Senator Clinton in New Hampshire. All the political pundits were stunned by Senator Clinton’s seventy five hundred vote victory over Obama. How to explain it?

The TD tried to explain the upset by what it calls “The Wilder Effect.” It harkened back to the 1989 election for governor here in the Commonwealth. Before the election, the polls showed Democrat L. Douglas Wilder (African American) with a significant lead over Republican Marshall Coleman (Caucasian). On the day of the election, however, Mr. Wilder beat Mr. Coleman by a scant few thousand votes. “The Wilder Effect,” according to the TD, is the tendency of white voters to tell pollsters that they will vote for a black candidate although they do not really intend to do so. Presumably, these voters lie to the polls to avoid being perceived as racists. Only in the privacy of the voting booth will they reveal their true preferences.

Good try, TD, but I have a different explanation. The polls were just wrong. Way back when I was a wee lad, cutting my political teeth on a Democratic Party primary election in Brooklyn, USA, I learned the truth about polls, and it has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. The only poll that counts is the one on Election Day.

In 1965, the New York Democratic Party was choosing between two candidates for mayor—Sanitation Commissioner Paul Screvane and City Comptroller Abe Beam. I campaigned for Screvane going door-to-door in my neighborhood urging people to vote for him. On the night before the election, we sat around the Monroe Democratic Club celebrating our victory the following day. Why this premature party? The final polls on that Monday indicated that Screvane was going to beat Beam rather badly.

But, I forgot to tell you one key fact about the candidates. Paul Screvane was of Italian origin; Abe Beam was a Jew—the first Jew to run for mayor of New York. On Election Day, a funny thing happened. The Beam people hired a large number of busses and transported huge numbers of residents of Jewish senior residences to the polls to vote for Abe. Some came to the polls in wheel chairs; others actually on stretcher beds. Most of these older people hadn’t voted in years. Certainly the pollsters had not included them in their samples. So, on primary day, the Democratic electorate proved the pollsters wrong by choosing Abe Beam, rather than Paul Screvane as their candidate. I call this “The Abe Beam Effect,” or as Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”

There is another “effect” that may explain the big New Hampshire upset. I will call this one “The We’re Gonna Teach Those Outsiders a Lesson Effect.” It was explained by a New Hampshire voter the day after the election. He said that people in New Hampshire are very independent and resent all the media and pollsters telling them how they are going to vote. He thought that a significant number of New Hampshire Democrats changed their vote from Obama to Clinton at the polls just to prove the political professionals wrong.

So what is the real reason that Hillary beat Barack in New Hampshire? Frankly dear reader, I don’t give a damn. The fact is that the polls were wrong and Clinton won. “The Guy with the Most Votes is the Winner Effect” triumphs again.

Give Me a Break!

(Parental discretion is advised. The maven is going to use the “O” word).

I’m sorry. I just don’t get it. Did I sleep through a whole year? Was tonight the election? Have we elected the next president? The media pundits and commentators and news anchors were so excited about the New Hampshire primary that I was afraid we would be watching mass multiple orgasms right on our TV screens.

What was all the panting and moaning about? Well, it seems that Senator John McCain and Senator Hillary Clinton pulled off the greatest comebacks in political history. I mean, just last week, everybody was writing them off as politically dead and now they have been reborn. We have rarely seen such political miracles. Hillary actually received about 95,000 votes. McCain got about 75,000. You heard me loyal reader. Those are not millions those are thousands.

Yes, the media world is going absolutely insane over a very small number of votes. New Hampshire, that wonderful Granite State, is the home for 1,314,895 people according to 2006 census estimates. In population it is the 40th largest state in this country. And a primary election in our 40th largest state is causing mass media hysteria. Only about 250,000 people voted in the Democratic primary. For the Republicans it was about 200,000 people who voted. Yet, the winning candidates and the media wizards would have you and I believe that political history was made today.

And, all of this comes only five days after equally momentous political history was made further to the west. On last Thursday, an equally small number of voters in Iowa created almost equal excitement by delivering victories for Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee. (I hope you haven’t forgotten those names from last week’s monumental political earthquake). As for Iowa, it is inhabited by 2,982,085 people according to 2006 census data. That makes it the 30th largest state by population.

Two weeks. Two “historic” votes. Each is more significant than the other. The excitement from each is almost unbearable.

Now, we are moving on to Nevada (2006 population 2,495,529-ranked 35) and South Carolina (2006 population 4,321,249-ranked 24). I assume that those two small state primaries will be equally historic. I really don’t know how our poor pundits and commentators and anchors will be able to keep their excitement level so high week after week. They might not have anything left for the primaries on February 5, which may actually be historic.

Choosing the President: It’s the Media, Dummy

According to the Associated Press, ABC News has excluded Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel from its New Hampshire Democratic Party presidential debate. Apparently, neither the Ohio Representative nor the former Alaska Senator meet the network’s criteria for inclusion. ABC has determined that only senators Obama and Clinton, former Senator Edwards and New Mexico Governor Richardson can possibly win the Democratic Party nomination.

On the Thursday evening NBC News this week, anchor Brian Williams and Washington bureau chief Tim Russert were discussing the Iowa Caucuses that were about to start. After discussing the campaigns of Democrats Obama, Clinton and Edwards, and Republicans Romney and Huckabee, the two began to talk about the “second tier” of candidates. Somehow the issue came up of the role of the media in reducing these candidates to also-rans. Williams and Russert recognized that the candidates that raised the most money, and were thus able to run the most extensive campaigns, were the ones that received the greatest coverage from NBC News. Russert indicated that the campaigns of the “second tier” candidates complained to him that they weren’t getting adequate coverage from the media. Russert acknowledged that they might be right but added that it was, in effect, their own faults for not doing a better job selling their candidates.*

Loyal reader, we have a serious problem with the process by which we choose party nominees. The media, both print and broadcast, give extensive coverage to certain candidates. Those candidates, with this free publicity, are then able to raise significant amounts of money and gain recognition and support from the public (whoever the “public” may be). Those unfortunate candidates who do not win favor with the media do not get this free publicity. Therefore, they are not as effective in raising campaign money and in gaining recognition and support from the public. And, wouldn’t you know it, the early public opinion polls show that those candidates who received the free publicity from the media happen to be scoring better. Now, these candidates are the front runners, or “first tier,” and the media gives them even more free attention. All this has a multiplier effect and, in the words of the late Ray Charles, “them that’s got are them that gets.”

Look at this year’s Democratic contest, which as we know started last year at about this time. The media began salivating with the creation of exploratory committees by senators Clinton and Obama. One candidate was the first woman to launch a serious presidential campaign. Further, she was the wife of a former president. The other candidate was the first black man to launch a serious presidential campaign. (My apologies to Reverend Jackson.) And he was someone who was a virtual unknown as recently as 2004. These were great stories and the media gave them all the coverage they could. And, when other candidates got into the race they didn’t receive nearly the same coverage as Hillary and Barack. After all, a few old senators, a southwestern governor and a perennial candidate from Ohio just didn’t have the news sex appeal of Clinton against Obama. With all that free publicity, who raised the most campaign money? You got it—Clinton and Obama. With all that free publicity, who could put together the best campaign organizations? Again—Clinton and Obama.

Sorry senators Biden and Dodd! Sorry ex-Senator Gravel! Sorry Governor Richardson! Sorry Representative Kucinich! We the media have decided that you just don’t have the glamour necessary to be a viable candidate. Sure, one of you just might be the candidate best qualified to be president. That doesn’t matter. We have determined that the American electorate is just not sophisticated enough to judge among so many candidates. It will be so much easier for them to choose from just three.

I don’t know about you, but I get real upset when the media decides for me which individuals are viable candidates for president. I have checked the Constitution and I can find no reference to the role of the media in our election process. In this country the media have a tremendous responsibility to report completely and accurately. This applies especially to the broadcast media because we the people have granted them the use of the airwaves from which they make their profits. Yet the media revel in their power to be king makers. They are not particularly bothered by questions of objectivity or fairness. Unfortunately, they will continue to wield this power to choose for us until we demand that they stop.


*I apologize for this rather sketchy description of the Williams-Russert discussion. I went to the MSNBC website to view that discussion again. Unfortunately, the video of that Thursday night report seems to be missing.

Choosing the Next Prez: Part II

I was really hoping that this process of picking the best candidate in each party was going to be a dialogue or a trialogue or even a multilogue. However, none of you responded to my first “Choosing the Next Prez” post. So I guess this is going to be a lecture.

Of course, according to the media, both broadcast and print, this is a meaningless exercise. The media have already decided, based almost entirely on how much campaign money has been raised, that only three Democratic candidates—Senators Clinton and Obama, and former Senator Edwards—have any chance of winning their party’s nomination. Among Republicans, the media have decided that only two—former New York City mayor Guiliani and former Massachusetts governor Romney—can win the nomination. (Of course, the media may add an additional Republican if a certain actor who is a former Senator decides to run).

Despite the decision by the media, and despite the fact that I, along with millions of other voters, will never have any say in who our party nominates for president, I will go forward with this analysis.

You and I are hiring the next President of the United States. We have to review the resumes of all the prospective candidates to see who is most qualified. But before we do that we have to consider the job description for the president.

The president is the leader of our country. S/he is also the leader of the Free World (whatever that means). S/he is the Commander in Chief of the military of the United States. Further, the president is the chief executive officer of the Executive Branch of our government. S/he is also our country’s top diplomat. The president also appoints (with the consent of the Senate) all federal judges and the top leadership of all of the departments and agencies of the Executive Branch.

So what kind of experience should we look for in our next president? In what kind of a job would a person demonstrate the kind of talents he or she will need to do the job? The resumes of the candidates show they have filled such jobs as United States Senator, United States Representative, state governor, city mayor, federal cabinet secretary, attorney, college professor, actor, state legislator, state cabinet secretary, minister, business executive, author and military officer. Does any of this experience demonstrate that a particular candidate has the skills and talent to be President of the United States?

The three leading candidates among Democrats are incumbent or former United States Senators. Does being a senator (or representative or state legislator) prepare someone to be president? As we have described the job, almost all of the president’s functions are executive, managerial or diplomatic. Yet, the job of a legislator requires no executive or managerial skills. A legislator drafts legislation, builds coalitions to get that legislation enacted, sits on committees and debates either in committee or on the floor of the legislature. Although serving several years in the Senate or House of Representatives may allow a legislator to develop a great deal of expertise in one or more areas of public policy, it provides that legislator with no executive or managerial experience. Even committee chairs develop only a minimum of leadership skills.

But haven’t senators always been the leading candidates for president. Actually, since the Constitution was amended to provide for popular election of senators, rather than their appointment by state legislatures, only two United States Senators have been elected president. The first, Warren Harding, elected in 1920, will never be considered in the top 50% of presidential quality. He accomplished very little as president and his administration is mostly known for corruption. The second was John Kennedy, elected in 1960. Although Kennedy was a great orator and able to inspire great numbers of Americans, an assassin’s bullet prevents us from judging how good a president he may have been. Based on his less than three years in office, I can say that he was not effective in getting most of his legislative program enacted. He approved the Bay of Pigs invasion then decided to withdraw support when things started going badly. He started the escalation of American presence in Viet Nam. He successfully avoided nuclear war with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I loved John F. Kennedy; he triggered my life-long fascination with politics. However, I don’t think that being a United States Senator adequately prepared him for being president.

Since Kennedy’s election in 1960, four United States Senators—Goldwater, McGovern, Dole and Kerry—have run for president. All of them have lost. If we look at the men elected for the first time as president since 1960, four have been incumbent or former state governors and two have been incumbent or former Vice Presidents. It seems clear to me that the American electorate favors candidates with executive experience.

So, if we look at all those resumes, which candidates have had executive or managerial experience?

Dennis Kucinich, Democrat………… Mayor, Cleveland, Ohio, 1977-79

Bill Richardson, Democrat……………Governor, New Mexico, 2003-present
Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy, 1998-2001

Rudy Giuliani, Republican…………….Mayor, City of New York, 1994-2001

Mike Huckabee, Republican………..Business executive, 1983-1996

Mitt Romney, Republican…………….Governor, Massachusetts, 2003-2007
Business executive, 1978-84

Sam Brownback……………………………Secretary, Kansas Dept. of Agr., 1986-93

None of the following candidates have listed any executive experience:

Joe Biden, Democrat
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat
Chris Dodd, Democrat
John Edwards, Democrat
Mike Gravel, Democrat
Barack Obama, Democrat
Duncan Hunter, Republican
John McCain, Republican
Ron Paul, Republican
Tom Tancredo, Republican

If I were the H.R. director for any corporation looking for a Chief Executive Officer, I would have to reject the applications of Democrats Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Gravel and Obama, and Republicans Hunter, McCain, Paul and Tancredo (and the actor if he gets into the race). None of them have the executive experience we are looking for.

(Of course, experience isn’t everything. One man, who was a lawyer and whose only public service was a term in the Illinois legislature and a term in the House of Representatives, was elected our sixteenth president. He did a pretty decent job I am told).

(Part III to follow soon).

Choosing the Next Prez: Part I

Now that I am officially out of the race, at least for now, I must begin the process of choosing who I will support for president in 2008. Of course I take this responsibility seriously because I know how much the president can effect how I feel for the years 2009 and after. I did not feel good for months after the Supreme Court elected “W” in 2000. And I wasn’t too happy after a second Liberal from Massachusetts blew the election in 2004. So this choosing a president thing is nothing I do lightly.

In fact, before even looking at the remaining candidates, I thought I would determine the qualities I want in my next president. What is most important? Do I care about a candidate’s views on the nation building in Iraq? Definitely not! How can you choose among 15 or 20 candidates who all want to bring the troops home. Besides, I am sure that our wily Mr. Bush will have an October surprise which will neutralize the war issue.

What about a candidate’s views on health care? Hell, everybody is in favor of health care. What about taxes? They’re all against taxes, at least until after the election. What about the environment? Come on, nobody would admit that they favor a degraded environment. And global warming? I don’t think many of the remaining candidates favor more heat.

I think that issues are pretty irrelevant in this upcoming election. For one thing, the issues that candidates raise now will not necessarily be the issues that one of them will have to deal with after January 20, 2009. Did George W. run on a platform of fighting the war on terror? The fact is that the crises that the next prez will have to deal with, we haven’t even thought about.

So, what about the candidates’ qualifications? What traits do they have that will make me confident that they can be the leader of the world’s only remaining superpower? (By the way, if we are the only superpower, how come we get no respect?) Do we want someone who has demonstrated great leadership? Do we want someone with experience in administering multibillion dollar projects? Do we want someone who actually does their current job rather than running around the country campaigning? Do we want a president who will not lie to us?

That seems like a good one: A president that tells the truth. At one time we prided ourselves on truthful presidents. George Washington couldn’t tell a lie, and Abraham Lincoln was known as “Honest Abe.” But among the more recent presidents lying is something we expect. Bill Clinton lied to us; he even lied under oath. And, I’m not sure I believe a quarter of what comes out of W’s mouth.

So, what do you think? Do you want a president that tells the truth?

Not me! In the words of Jack Nicholson, I can’t handle the truth!

A truthful president would have to tell me that in the Mayan calendar everything ends after 2011 except for a few scattered Mayas. (Don’t even try; I already found out that there is no way to convert to Maya.)

Even if the Mayans were wrong, a truthful president would have to tell me that somewhere in the solar system there is a 100 mile long asteroid that has its cross hairs locked on earth and will get here in 2023. Two billion people will die the first day. And the following nuclear winter will kill everybody else except for a few scattered Mayas.

Even if the asteroid misses, a truthful president would have to tell me that some day a volcano in the Canary Islands will tumble into the ocean and a super tsunami, more that 5,000 feet high, will inundate the eastern coast of America from Greenland to Tierra Del Fuego, crossing the Appalachians and creating an inland sea in the Mississippi valley, killing everybody except a few scattered Mayas.

I can’t handle the truth.

But I could use a national leader who will not deliberately lie to me. What if a candidate had the chutzpah to tell us, “Hey, I represent the ultra-wealthy? If I am elected, everything I do will be designed to benefit them. If you happen to get some benefit from trickle down, that's good for you. But I do not intend to represent your interests.” I wouldn’t vote for him (not willing to rely on trickle down), but at least he’d earn my respect.

But, seriously, shouldn’t we expect our president to be honest with us on the critical issues facing our country? How about a president who told us we have to cure our addiction to fossil fuels because in a few decades there won’t be any left? Shouldn’t he or she tell us that we are spending ourselves into insolvency; that continuing deficit spending of any amount will require our grandchildren to deal with crippling taxes (or a government that defaults on its obligations?). Why shouldn’t the president tell us that minimizing climate change will require us to make significant changes in our lifestyles? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a president who told us that winning the battle against international terrorism will require the American people to make some sacrifices? (Can we believe that this is really a war for national survival when only soldiers and their families are asked to pay the price?)

So, who among the uncountable Democrats, significant number of Republicans, possible independents and unannounced candidates do you trust is telling us the truth now and will continue to do so if elected? Let me know. It will affect my decision-making.