I am in middle of watching the Republican Primary Debates. I find it shocking sometimes, when watching Republican politicians, to take a step back and realize how far I have come in the past decade in how little these people speak to me. For example in the opening statement, I think every candidate bothered to mention that they are married with children. Now we know the real reason why this is; it is a simple way for Republicans to claim they have "family values." There is something else here that strikes at the root of what is wrong with our politics. Here we have people running for president and what do they offer us as their qualifications, but that they are "regular" folks just like us. One little problem with this; regular folks are, by definition, not qualified to be president. I have numerous Haredi relatives who are married and have successfully raised ten or more children. None of these people are qualified to be president (even if I suspect they are less unqualified than some of these people on the podium). For that matter I, with my graduate degree, am not qualified to be president even if the Supreme Court were to recognize my constitutional right to run despite my being only twenty-eight years old. (See "My Constitutional Right to Run for the Senate.")
What I want to hear from a presidential candidate is not how they are a regular person like me, but how they are not like me; that they are one of the most brilliant people in this country, a leading scholar in political theory, economic and foreign policy. Come to the debating podium with their framed Ph.D.s and a stack of published academic books. Barring the arrival of a world class genius I will accept a candidate who would come out and apologize to me: Sorry for having the nerve to run for president; in truth I am really a normal person just like you, with kids and and a job, and am completely unqualified for this office. If you can find it in yourself to think of me as something other then an arrogant power hungry fool, I promise to not make use of any of this power that I have not the faintest clue how to use in the first place. Instead I will leave you to live your lives and raise your children as you think best. Hopefully even people without a single graduate degree should be qualified for that.
1 comment:
Shucks! From the title of this post, I assumed that you were going to be talking about Sarah Palin....who is BEYOND unqualified. In fact, I don't feel that Sarah Palin is capable of teaching middle school social studies. And I say that with all seriousness!
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