The Best We Can Do

I have to confess that I'm following the two sets of primaries with as much attention as I ever have in previous years.  So when I got a note from my brother the other day bemoaning the candidates' respective flaws, I had a lot to think about.

No one is perfect, and politicians are particularly less than perfect.  They are innately prostitutional, promising so much if only we will elect them to whatever office they seek.  Because the presidential election season is so long -- well over a year and a half, and that's just the active part -- the promises get bigger and the credibility smaller.

It's a hard thing to survive, a campaign like that, and none actually does with his or her integrity completely intact.  I mean, I've seen a few, but as was the case with, say, Mitt Romney in 2012, surviving with your integrity only a bit diminished (as opposed to Hillary Clinton, who had little to begin with and lost all of it around 1992) doesn't make you a necessarily good candidate.

So at about this time in the campaign, after a long season and a few Super Tuesdays, we have to ask ourselves -- not about the process, which needs repair but won't get it, but about the candidates themselves -- "Can't we do a lot better?"

You want flaws, I'll give you flaws.  Donald Trump is a New Yorker's New Yorker, with a bent to bully and a tendency to avoid specifics.  Bernie Sanders thinks there is a money tree somewhere on Wall Street that can fund his government-is-all, hyper-socialist approach.  Marco Rubio, no longer a candidate as of last night, has whatever robotic character flaw let him do that God-awful debate in New Hampshire amidst a dozen really good ones, and I'm concerned he is not mature enough yet.

Hillary Clinton is ... well, get out the list.  Self-centered, corrupt, completely untrustworthy, contemptuous of Americans, shorter on resume than she imagines, void of accomplishment and, frankly, annoying as heck to listen to.  That's just off the top of my head.  Ted Cruz doesn't play well with others and comes across as if every conversation is a debate.  And John Kasich offsets his resume and accomplishments with incredibly poor campaign skills.

No one has it all, but come on, isn't there anyone who has, you know, most of what is needed?  I'm really trying not to use any individual as a standard, because everyone is different.

I'd just like to see more of the qualities I once write about in the same person.  A real sensitivity to the issues important to me, wrapped in an ability to communicate them to the public to make the case.  Financial common sense ... a sense of America's role that maps with mine ... a long, long view to the future.  All wrapped up in a decent person.

Is that too much to ask?

I have not looked through the governors' offices, the House and the Senate to ponder people who might have more to offer than the current crop.  I'd like to think there are plenty of people who could be at least as worthy or maybe a lot more so, than those running now.  I mean, I really liked Mike Huckabee and he never got wind in his sails at all.  And he isn't even in government now.

Unfortunately, it isn't really a "system" delivering flawed candidates.  If anything, the system is what is making it so hard for someone capable and impressive to want to go through it.  Debates.  Insults.  The press up your backside all the time.  Tax returns back to 1947.  Secret Service protection.  Challenges to your principles on a daily basis.

I know I sure wouldn't want to go through that, and I'm younger than a few of the candidates still in it.  Candidates decide for themselves that they want to be president, and are willing to put on the armor and go through the fight.  But man, it sure doesn't produce people who look good politically at the end of a campaign, any more than had they actually gone to war and come back.

I don't want to have to cast votes reluctantly.  I want to believe in a candidate.

Maybe in four years.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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