The current campaign to determine who will ultimately compete for the White House is some of the most divisive, yet captivating political theater I have ever witnessed. Every candidate is forced to communicate why he or she is better suited, better prepared, and offers greater hope for this nation than every other candidate. In reality, one actually wonders if anyone can.
The thing that concerns me is this. It is one thing to have the kind of qualifications necessary to win a presidential campaign and become president. It is quite a different thing to actually be the president. Big talk and smooth words do not define a president. Profound leadership, wise and effective decision making, and a willingness to place the country's needs in front of one's personal agendas top the list.
Every candidate, in both parties, is forced to bloviate about his or her personal accomplishments and qualifications. Some are much better at doing that than others. Two out of the current crowd will do that. But will that translate into an effective, nation enriching presidency? The question hovers, unanswered, tantalizing, and hopefully it will meet with a profoundly positive answer. He or she will.
Presidents should not blow their own horn all that much. Their talk should be backed up by action, by accomplishment, but uniting the country, the politicians, and our allies in a way that strengthens and builds the nation. That is not happening now.
The first election I can recall was between Dwight Eisenhower and Adali Stevenson. The Republican mantra was "I Like Ike." The Dems wore a lapel pin in the shape of a shoe sole, with a hole in it ... this, because Stevenson had appeared on stage, and when he crossed his legs, there was a gaping hole worn in the bottom of his shoe. Strange the things that one remembers. I was in the sixth or seventh grade at the time.
I recall every election since - Kennedy-Nixon-62, Johnson-Goldwater-'64, Nixon-Humphrey-'68, Nixon-McGovern-'72, Carter-Ford-'76, Reagan-Carter-'80, Reagan-Mondale-'84, Bush-Dukakis-'88, Clinton-Bush-'92, Clinton-Dole-'96, Bush-Gore-'00, Bush-Kerry-'04, Obama-McCain-'08, and Obama-Romney-'12. The first one in which I was qualified to vote was 1964. I was twenty years old and had been married for less than one year.
How did I vote? I voted as a citizen, as a Christian, as a husband, and in 1968 as a father. I voted according to my conscience, to my inherent sense of patriotism, and with the confidence that God is in control, whether my candidate won or lost.
In my estimation, the election of 2016 may be the most important one so far, but perhaps not. John Kennedy stared down Nikita Kruschev over the Cuban missile crisis. I was in the U.S. Navy at the time.
Ronald Reagan presided during the demise of the Soviet Union. He, as the leader of the United States, stood toe to toe to the Communist regime and the world took a collective sigh of relief. Today, very few truly communist dictatorships exist, though they have been replaced by something much more malicious, religious fanaticism.
The next president inherits a country more deeply divided than at anytime since the Civil War. Our nation is in economic chaos, with a national debt approaching $19 Trillion ... a number so huge it is impossible to comprehend. He or she will also have to face some of the most brutal terrorism, the most sadistic philosophies, and the most weakened morality in our collective memory. We are grappling with the most devastating racial clashes since the Haight-Asbury riots some thirty years ago. Crime is escalating in our inner cities, not declining. And Christianity has become the target of politically correct bigotry that demeans and darkens the motivation of the very people who decry Christians as bigots.
What does all this mean for the next president? It means that the next President of the United States will have to have almost super-human intelligence, and an incredibly perceptive sense of who to bring into the administration to make things happen.
As I write this little blog, I am driven again to prayer ... prayer for our nation, prayer for our current leadership, prayer for the choice we will make collectively in the coming weeks, months, and ultimately in November of 2016. Not only am I driven to prayer, the entire corpus of the Christian community should be driven to prayer... not that one political party, philosophy, or ideology would gain supremacy over the other, or over the nation. We must pray that our nation once again find its moorings in the good Word of God - the Bible. That the moral, intellectual, and reasonable approach on which we were established - governed by Biblical principle embraced by people who revere God and honor the faith of us all.
