Drinkers, Bowlers and Presidents

What are we really looking for in a presidential candidate? We’re making these three people, which we will choose from, jump through hoops that do not tell us anything about how they might or will lead. Obama is trying to bowl, Hillary is downing shooters like a trail rider coming off a six month cattle drive and McClain is eating chitlins with the girls down at Gee’s Bend while they sell their quilts. What in the name of good sense does any of this mean and how does it make anyone a better President? Thinking and acting like me and you is not what is important, thinking and acting like the leader of the free world is what counts. Neither me nor anyone I’ve ever known (and I’ve known a lot of people) needs to be the President of the United States. We’d better be finding someone for that job, not someone we’d like to bowl and drink whiskey with on Saturday night.

After growing up in a southern rural area, four years of undergraduate school,three years grad school and a lifetime of living, I know literally hundreds of people that can do every one of these things well and I wouldn’t vote for any one of them to lead the Lions Club. If we were getting a bunch together to go back to Panama City for a reunion houseparty or some kind of bowling for dollars for a charity then maybe all this would be important. Are we so simple and gullible that we buy crap just because someone on MSNBC or Fox News tells us that it is necessary to lead a nation as diverse as ours? I really don’t want my President answering that 3:00 a.m. call everyone’s talking about after he or she has knocked down a few boilermakers bowling in the basement at the White House.

As voters we’ve got to start looking for someone who is a different and smarter than the good ole boys. We tried the good ole boy approach eight years ago and it doesn’t work. I know Little George reminded us of John Wayne a little when he stood behind the microphone and with a little squint in his eyes told us he was going to bring in (dead or alive) Osama, and when he stood in New Orleans and promised help was on the way. The fact of the matter is that running this country is too complex for 99.99% of the people living here. We better start looking for the person that actually is smarter and capable of pulling us back together for the times ahead.

I know many will point to Ronald Regan or John Kennedy as just good ole boys with average grades that lead this country in magnificent ways, but these guys had smarts far beyond your average citizen. They had the ability to galvanize the national imagination, resources and will of the people to confront problems of the day and solve them together. They had the ability to create consensus among all our citizens to accomplish a vision they laid out for us.

I have had the privilege of knowing many smart and capable people in my life. Leaders in business, religious and humanitarian fields, men and women that excelled in most everything they undertook, but I have never known a person that I thought could lead our nation through good times much less trying times. We’ve got plenty good, and sometimes great; drinkers, bowlers and phony do gooder ass kissers, we need someone smart, decisive and compassionate and we need them now.

Now for the drinkers, the golfers, the bowlers and the phonies, there is a meeting at Geno’s Pub at 4:30 next Friday afternoon. Be prepared to stay deep into the night.