WHO IS YOUR PRESIDENT?

Because as conscientious voters we’re expected to have a say in who our next President should be, some of us cannot help wondering why it always turns out (usually after the election, alas) that a whole bunch of folks we know personally would probably do a better job than the fellow we helped get into the White House.

Apparently the problem lies in the fact that the list of candidates we get to consider every four years is dramatically limited.

1. Here’s what’s going on now -

In theory, candidates are nominated by their respective political parties. It is common knowledge, though, that only a handful of people, known as party leaders, pick the contestants. Once a nominee emerges, these few will give him or her their full support, expecting to benefit personally (with your help) from their creature’s victory.

Once they get their blessings from the party leaders, the cherry-picked candidates (your future President among them) launch fund-raising campaigns, practically begging folks for money to pay for media coverage, travel expenses, and so-called local support (the calculated speech-interrupting applause, lapel pins, and so forth). Money or any other valuable consideration given or promised with a view to corrupting the behavior of a person, esp. in that person’s performance as an athlete, public official, etc. is the dictionary definition of bribery, yet apparently bribery is okay if we apply a different term, such as endorsement.

During the primaries, only party members are allowed to participate in the nomination process. With very few exceptions, the resulting pair of nominees constitute the entire list. (In recent memory, a rare pseudo-significant third party nominee was actually accused of taking votes away from the Democratic Party candidate, the idea being, one would think, that it is somehow uncouth for non-partisan people, or folks with a different party affiliation, to try running for President).

Finally, the voters – you and I – are offered the two candidates to choose from. Before you pick one of them, you get to familiarize yourself with their respective track records, if any, while they engage in tedious mutual mudslinging in the media.

Who are these people? You don’t know, not really. You can’t figure out their thoughts from the sanitized scripts composed for them by someone else that they call speeches. You can’t get an honest opinion out of them, either: they are trained to talk for hours without really saying anything. How did they get on the ballot – what special services did they render, or expect to render, to the party leaders who made their nomination possible?

These are important questions – important to you, voter – because by voting you will have to shoulder your share of the responsibility of depositing one of them in the Oval Office. The choice, as they keep telling you, is yours. And so it is.

2. Is this somehow unconstitutional?

Only if you follow the spirit, and not the letter, of the United States Constitution. Is it unfair, unjust, or even dangerous? No kidding.

(Some blame it on the well-documented problem of the electoral vote vs. popular vote. Reforming the Electoral College would not help, though. Whether or not the public and the Electors are in synch, when you look at the two finalists (today or twenty years ago), one question that springs to mind is, “Are these two guys the absolute unquestionable best we can do in a country whose population has recently exceeded three hundred million souls?”)

Article Two of the United States Constitution explains how Presidents get elected, yet makes no provision for the selection of candidates. Back in the Eighteenth Century, when the entire population of the young Republic was less than three million people, such a provision may not have been necessary. Some things that weren’t necessary then are very much so now, though. Foreseeing this, the Forefathers composed Article Five. Just a thought.

3. What are parties for?

In the past, each political party had a well-defined socially oriented doctrine. Countries with various degrees of democratic values had landowner parties, labor parties, farmers’ parties, monarchists, aristocrats, communists (who for some weird reason thought of themselves as representatives of the working class), and so forth. Each party doctrine was predicated on the then-current social conditions. In addition to the registered parties, a group of folks known as the intelligencia has always had at least some political influence. Scientists, engineers, book authors, journalists, actors, artists, Bohemians of all sorts – even though they still refuse to view themselves as a party – are the only group today that actually has a set of relatively clear political views. The two official major parties in the United States, the Democrats and the Republicans, seem to have misplaced theirs.

4. The Campaign.

The candidates the two parties force on us habitually dodge important issues, avoid direct confrontation, never tell the whole truth, and are perpetually afraid to offend anyone lest this should somehow undermine their respective campaigns. They change their views on the fly, twice a week, and they’re experts at denying this. When all is said and done, they’re exactly what they seem, i.e. bureaucrats who put personal and party interests ahead of those of the nation. The one thing they all have in common is they really, really want to be our President. They’ll say and do anything the media and some of us want to hear in order to be elected. Like a drug-addicted streetwalker looking for the next fix, they’ll make any kind of promise, no matter how absurd or impossible to keep, so long as they get campaign points for it. They’ll sever ties with anyone who might be viewed as a blemish on their record – loyalty is never their strong point.

We’ve been able to get away with this as a nation for quite some time now. In our two centuries of democratic rule, we seem to have developed a kind of social immunity that somehow keeps obviously unworthy folk from gaining the White House. Or maybe we’ve been lucky all along.

So accustomed are we to the ritualistic aspect of all political campaigns, we’ve ceased to notice how humiliating they can be for everyone concerned. We don’t even seem to realize that in terms of similarities between presidential campaigns and American Idol, fewer is in fact better.

Or do we? The media won’t tell us, but maybe, just maybe, there are folks out there . . . thousands . . . maybe even millions who feel that the current candidate selection system needs to be reformed if only to be consistent with our computer-powered, technology-driven epoch.

Let’s pretend for a moment that we all agree on that, and let’s consider how, exactly, we could change it.

5. Who is your President?

First of all, let us try to figure out what kind of person we – you – would really like to see in the White House – what kind of person you, voter, would want to be your President.

Your President should be intelligent. That’s a no-brainer. Not just intelligent, though, but really, really smart. A genius, maybe. Well, that’s probably too much too ask. Just pretty smart, then. Smarter than a whole lot of people. (How? I mean, how can you go ahead and establish with any degree of certainty which candidate is the smartest? Oh, come on. It’s not rocket science. You can do it. Most people can).

What milieu should your President come from? Any old milieu will do. He can be a good industrial manager, a successful farmer, a talented general, engineer, scientist, artist or author. It doesn’t matter.

Should you consider a candidate who has dedicated his entire life to politics?

Career politicians, no matter how well-meaning, tend to lose sight of what the voters really want from them. They can’t help it. It’s part of the job. That’s what it takes to be a politician. Why should your President be one of them? Seriously. Political experience? Oh, please. Intelligent folks know enough about politics reguardless of their occupation. Once elected, your President could hire a few competent consultants who would then fill him in on whatever nuances of presidential policy he may not be familiar with. A couple of weeks would probably suffice to accomplish this.

Another important thing is this. Your President must not be a party member. Here’s why. As we mentioned earlier, a party – any party – is a group of people bound together by common interests that may not coincide with your own, nor the nation’s. A good President should be above party politics. Your President should look after everyone’s interests. With your President, the nation should come first. (We would probably do well to remind ourselves at this point that the first President of the United States nominated by a political party was Andrew Jackson. The Constitution doesn’t mention parties, although maybe it should – in a new Amendment restricting the parties’ power and making sure that your President is an impartial political leader. How about it?)

What about your President’s looks? This is pretty important if you think about it. Your President should not look old. He should be easy on the eyes, and well-mannered. Remember, the Presidents gets to be on the news – a lot. It is certainly more gratifying to see a handsome person on your TV screen than an ungly old geezer. (A handsome old geezer would be okay, providing he looks fit).

What about your President’s morals?

Not too long ago (historically speaking), a certain President dedicated some time to putting the moves on an intern who welcomed his advances. A practical gal, she used the incident to create a media sensation that seems to have brought her substantial material benefits since. On the other hand, it was never a secret that John F. Kennedy, to pick another playful President, used every chance to drag a pretty girl into bed. The media hardly ever brought it up. With his brother’s assistance, JFK’s masterful control of the press was second to none. The two examples should serve as a warning for you, voter. You shouldn’t allow the media’s opinions influence your decisions. Should you give your vote to a known rogue? Not really. Sexual pathology doesn’t mix very well with presidential responsibilities. On the other hand, extreme prudery should be regarded with some suspicion as well. As a rule, a candidate has a very large circle of acquaintance that includes many women, making it very difficult for a normal person to avoid extramarital encounters completely. A good-looking, sociable man who hasn’t gone astray even once despite the countless opportunities should automatically be viewed as suspect. Excessive primness is just another form of sexual pathology. Your President should be a normal, anomaly-free person in every sense.

And so it all boils down to the fact that your President should be an intelligent, honest, and decent person in every respect. Does that sound a bit vague, maybe? Too broad? Not concrete enough? No, not really. Think about it. In real life, intelligence, honesty and decency are very plain, easily understood concepts. Like faith, love, and hope, they don’t even require definitions.

You shouldn’t expect your candidate to be perfect, though. Perfect people do not exist.

6. The Method.

Now let’s move on to the system that would allow such a person to become President.

Someone you could trust should be given the task of selecting candidates for your consideration. Who? Here’s one scenario that could work -

Suppose each State should appoint a number of young men and women (say, five or six), who would be called – Choosers, for lack of a better word – recent law school graduates, too young to have been thoroughly corrupted. Endowed with the same qualities as your future President (i.e. intelligence, honesty, and decency), armed with modern technology, using online resources freely, these Choosers would select a group of presidential candidates from their State. How?

Let’s pick Colorado as an example. Having a pretty good idea of their region’s demographics, the five Choosers from that State would conduct a number of surveys (naturally sociable, as many young people are, the wouldn’t have a problem contacting folk from every walk of life – in person, not over the phone).

Denver, the capital of Colorado, has three universities, museums of national importance, and an opera theatre. Everyone knows about the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, the observatories, world-famous ski resorts in the Rockies, and so forth. Farming is pretty big in Colorado, too. The State’s vast meadows serve as pastures for hundreds of thousands of cattle. The minerals include molybdenum, coal, oil, and natural gas. All in all, the region is a pretty good place for intelligent, energetic folk to utilize their skills. They do – and are invariably in the public eye.

It wouldn’t take the five Choosers longer than a week or two to select some candidates from their number. Five? Seven? Perhaps. In more populous States, such as New York or California, the number of candidates should be higher. Ten? Fifteen?

Once the selection process is complete, all of the Choosers (about three hundred of them, representing all fifty States) would convene in a conference room on Capitol Hill, where outsiders would not be allowed. With the help of an efficient computer system designed for this purpose, the Choosers would integrate the faults and merits of all candidates (five hundred of them, roughly). Because young folks (our Choosers should be young, remember?) tend to be hot-tempered, spirited debates would then follow, resulting eventually in a secret ballot (in which the Choosers would NOT be allowed to vote for a candidate from his or her own state). Five or six candidates with the most votes would then be nominated (a larger number could confuse some voters).

Suppose some of the selected candidates should not want to run for President?

That’s irrelevant. In that sense, there is no difference between the Chief Executive’s office and jury duty. And, speaking of jury duty, some of the best jurors are those who did not want to serve.

The actual national election process, replacing today’s practice of campaigning (which, by the way, is meaningless in the age of television) would thereupon commence, beginning with public assessment of the selected candidates. The incumbent President should probably be added to the list of nonimees at this point.

Debates? Maybe, but why not start with a trivia show?

(Let me reitereate that even though the proposed system would be a wonderful improvement on the current model, it is far from ideal. I’m just throwing around some ideas. The main thing is for folks to realize the urgency of the problem. This is by far the most important political issue in this Republic today).

Imagine TV screens across the nation lighting up. Prime time. The four or five candidates are introduced to the audience. Their names are announced, their biographical data and highlights of their careers are presented to you, voter. Finally, the show begins. Each candidate has to answer simple trivia questions in front of millions of viewers. These questions would cover various areas of human knowledge. (Strict measures would be taken to make sure that none of the candidates has any knowledge of the questions beforehand. Any kind of cheating would result in instant disqualification, and the guilty candidate would then be replaced by whoever came in sixth in the selection process).

There will be no points to score, no winners in the show. No candidate should be expected to answer all of the questions correctly, either. Why not? We’ll get to that later.

Here are some sample questions a candidate would have to answer (please bear with me):

1. In what year was Julius Caesar killed?

2. How much does an average cabdriver in Cincinnati, Ohio pay for his lunch? How much does his lunch cost a New York cabdriver?

3. Name the main points President George W. Bush made in his speech immediately following September Eleven.

4. Take this notepad. Here’s a pen. Write down Albert Einstein’s energy formula. Explain what the letters in the forumla stand for.

5. What is the yearly salary of an average family doctor in the State of Montana?

6. Which NBA team won the championship last year?

7. Name the approximate annual state budget of Louisiana.

8. Pick up that pen again. Write down the first two lines of Lord Byron’s dramatic poem titled Manfred.

9. What is the top speed of today’s most technologically advanced American fighter plane? Thank you. And our best bomber’s top speed is … ?

10. Show the candidate a Boticelli painting and a Giotto painting without naming their authors. Ask him or her to name the authors.

11. What is the current population of Thailand?

12. What is your favorite hockey team?

14. Let the candidate listen to two fragments from symphonies by W.A. Mozart and S. Prokofieff. Ask him or her whether he or she can distinguish between the two different styles. Ask them to name the styles and the composers.

15. How many troops do we have in Iraq right now?

16. Name some similarities between the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions.

17. How many kilowatts of electrical energy does America consume on a daily basis? Which part of this energy is supplied by nuclear power plants? Hydro? Coal-powered plants?

18. Approximately, what is the monthly payment an average retiree receives from his pension plan in Denver, Colorado? In New York?

19. Describe the basic principles of the National Missile Defense. How does it work?

20. What percentage of the workforce is engaged in agriculture in the United States? In Canada? In Iran?

21. Name two of your favorite American fiction writers. Name two of your favorite foreign novelists.

22. Show the candidate a few photographs of famous actors and actresses. Let him or her tell which ones, in his or her opinion, are the sexiest.

23. How many people are unemployed in the State of Oklahoma as we speak?

24. What tools would a plumber use in order to repair a faucet leak? What tools would he need to fix a clogged toilet?

25. Who is today’s best Wagnerian tenor?

26. What is your favorite city?

27. Show us your handkerchief. (This might sound absurd to you. Their handkerchiefs? Goodness! Why? Here’s why. You can tell from the look off a handkerchief how its owner uses it. If the handkerchief is carefully folded (or absent), wouldn’t it suggest that the owner uses paper tissues instead? One way or the other, such seemingly insignificant details can reflect the candidate’s cultural level).

There would be over a hundred such questions.

Over a hundred? Wouldn’t that be too many?

Not at all.

No candidate would be able to answer all of them correctly, nor would it be necessary, either. Failure to answer certain types of questions reflects a person’s character, outlook, and taste. We voters are entitled to know whom we’re voting for. We have a right to be familiar with all kinds of stuff about our candidates. The trivia show would have to be paused at some point, and resumed the following day, paused and resumed again. (There will be no danger of a baseball game drawing away some of the viewers away). Then, open discussions and debates would go on for a number of days – in the media, naturally, but mostly among the voters themselves – in the street, at the local diner, at the neighborhood pub, at home – before we head for the polls .

Private funding of election campaigns would have to be banned outright (and anyway, the method I’ve just described would eliminate the need for it) – and good riddance, too. Spending millions on presidential campaigns creates a very embarrassing illusion that Presidency can be bought.

As for the Congress elections, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with them. As practice has demonstrated, the frictions between the Legislative and Executive branches can be useful – indispensable, in fact. A functioning democratic government cannot exist without opposition. A genuinely independent President confronting the House whose members have been imposed on us by party leaders? We could do worse.