Candidates for the Presidency Must be Qualified to Hold that Office

Two Leading Candidates, Trump and Cruz, are Not

   My first vote was for Truman in 1948. I voted in every presidential election since then, a  few times with enthusiasm—as for Adlai Stevenson—but at times just faut de mieux. Voting Republican, even in their better days, was never an option for me. However, as best as I recollect, I did  believe that during those years the GOP candidates were qualified to be president, even if I much preferred the policies proposed by the Democrat.

   Here are the two main opponents in the elections I voted.  Check them out and you will see that they were all of them experienced as governors or in national office. Most of them knew what it meant to govern, with, interestingly, Obama closest to being a novice.

1948 Truman, Dem v Dewey, Rep

1952 Stevenson, Dem v Eisenhower, Rep

1956 Stevenson, Dem v Eisenhower, Rep

1960 Kennedy, Dem v Nixon, Rep

1964 Johnson, Dem v Goldwater, Rep

1968 Humphrey, Dem v Nixon, Rep

1972 McGovern, Dem v Nixon, Rep

1976 Carter, Dem v Ford, Rep

1980 Carter, Dem v Reagan, Rep

1984 Mondale, Dem v Reagan, Rep

1988 Dukakis, Dem v  Bush, 1^st, Rep

1992 Clinton, Dem v Bush, 2^nd, Rep

1996 Clinton, Dem v Dole, Rep

2000 Gore, Dem v Bush,2^nd , Rep

2004 Kerry, Dem v Bush,2^nd, Rep

2008 Obama, Dem v McCain, Rep

2012 Obama, Dem v Romney, Rep

 

   But times have changed. Barring unforeseen events, the Democratic candidate has been de facto determined, debates and primaries to come notwithstanding. Hillary Clinton, well qualified, is the likely Democratic candidate for president in the coming election.

   Matters on the Republican side are considerably more complicated. Twelve candidates “have been listed in five or more major independent nationwide polls, participated in at least one authorized debate, and are presently on the ballot in at least seven primaries.” Of that group, I generously count six aspirants as possibly making it—a guess, of course. They are, in alphabetical order, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubico, and Donald Trump.

   In my view, this is not a remarkable group of people; not one of them can boast of significant accomplishments. But three of the group are conspicuously unqualified to be president of our country: Carson, Cruz, and Trump, with Trump and Cruz, most remarkably, front runners in Iowa polls, the first primay state.

   What’s shocking about this is that that the Republican, “conservative” voters are prepared to entrust the leadership of the country to persons who lack the knowledge and experience or even temperament considered to be necessary for that job. At best, they are rank amateurs; and I mean “at best.” There is nothing conservative about entrusting the role of United States presidency to either of them. 

   While much has been written about the bollixed nature of current politics in our country not enough has been said about the rejection by a significant portion of the electorate of knowledge, experience, and a grasp of basic issues by candidates they will support. If either Trump or Cruz is the Republican candidate, either of them would be sharply distinguished from their predecessors.¹ This is perhaps the deepest difference between politics during Obama’s second term and (at least) recent history.

   Very well, you say, noted. But as a Democrat, don’t you wish that either of these jokers will get the nomination, since it is highly probable that neither could be elected?

   My answer to this interjection is to reluctantly reject it. Yes, I, too, believe that the country won’t go for such distorted conservatism. But the system is very leaky. A lot can go wrong. Between now and next November upheavals may preclude Clinton’s election; goofs or worse may sink Hillary‘s ship.  In effect, the game isn’t over until it’s over. And that will be midnight of November 8, 2016. That’s ten months from now; much can happen in the interim.

   Accordingly, over and above my liberal partisanship is my desire to have the next election put into office a competent leader of the United States of America.  That rules out Trump and Cruz.

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¹I won’t here defend this claim and hope that most of those who have followed the discussions about this race will agree. As it turns out, a devastating piece about Trump just appeared in the NYTimes:  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/opinion/campaign-stops/why-i-will-never-vote-for-donald-trump.html?ref=todayspaper.