After I posted earlier today my view of the qualities we need in our next president, I got a series of emails asking me who met the requirements and who was out. I had purposely left out names in that first post since I think that we need to consider what we need before we all decide who fills those needs. Nevertheless, by popular demand, I am going to list some obvious results by the qualities I discussed this morning.
1. An honest and trustworthy person: Okay, let's start with the obvious. Hillary Clinton is out. Mrs. Clinton never met a lie she would not tell. We can go back to the old favorites like her claim that Bill's affair with Monica Lewinsky was just made up by some "vast right wing conspiracy" (when she well knew her husband and what he had done.) After all, Hillary was in charge of dealing with the so-called "bimbo eruptions" that plagued the Clinton campaign in 1992. We can move to some from her time as a senator: she called General Petreus a liar and claimed his testimony about Iraq to Congress was false when she knew that was not true. She later admitted as much to the people in the Obama White House. Then there are the greatest hits from when she was secretary of state. Who can forget her statements about the youtube video that was responsible for the Benghazi attack, something that she well knew to be untrue. That one took special heartlessness since she had to stand with the families of the slain men and lie to them about what caused the deaths. Now we have all the lies about her email, the most recent of which was her claim on national TV that she never received a subpoena when the facts show that she got three of them including one prior to her destruction of the evidence. That's enough. Hillary fails this test.
The remaining candidates all pass this test, although some like Chris Christie seem to only squeak by. As the campaign progresses we can get more information which may help us decide who is best on this point.
2. Someone who understands how the economy works and what can be done to improve it. Here there are quite a few who seem not to get it. Some are minor candidates like Lindsay Graham and George Pataki, neither of whom has demonstrated any understanding of the economy. Likewise, Ben Carson has indicated little understanding of the economy. Among the Democrats, Bernie Sanders wants to turn America into something resembling the current situation in Greece, so he fails here too. Although she already failed the first test, Hillary Clinton fails here too. Despite having been a candidate for nearly four months, Mrs. Clinton has not addressed the economy in anything like a comprehensive fashion. She is supposed to be giving a major speech on the economy tomorrow. Sadly, though, she is following the script used by the Obama administration for the last seven years, and we already know that Obamanomics just does not work. She is checking boxes on her to do list and not actually considering what will help the US economy and the declining middle class. The ones who seem to do best here are Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina. Donald Trump also ought to understand the economy, but he has yet to focus on it clearly.
3. Recognizing reality and proposing fact based ideas -- lack of this quality basically disqualifies Trump. The Donald is still talking about building a wall across the Mexican border as if this will end illegal immigration; it won't. The majority of illegal immigrants do not come across the border with Mexico; that has been the fact for years. The majority come here legally and then don't leave when their visas expire. No successful immigration enforcement program can be structured just to deal with the border: it's a piece of the whole but not the whole thing. Ted Cruz also seems to go awry on this category. It was Cruz, after all, who fought the battle that shut down part of the government in October of 2013 in an effort to delay Obamacare, and he did it at a point when there was no possibility of success. He should have recognized that and tried something else. A candidate who gets high marks here is Scott Walker. He chose his battles in Wisconsin based on ones that could be won. For example, when the rules for health insurance and pensions for government workers were modified, Walker purposely left out any change for police or fire fighters. Walker knew that any change there would send his proposals down to defeat.
4. Understanding our adversaries around the world as they actually are. This requirement drops Rand Paul off the list of possibilities. The Kentucky senator wants to live in a world where there are no serious security threats to the USA, so he proposes programs that would fit in such a world. Sadly, we don't live in that world. Paul's neo-isolationism is way too dangerous for America to seriously consider him for president.
5. Recognizing the greatness of America -- here is a category that strongly favors candidates like Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina, Scott Walker and John Kasich who are basically self-made individuals who speak often about the country that allowed them to prosper and about the need for us all to let new individuals continue to prosper.
1. An honest and trustworthy person: Okay, let's start with the obvious. Hillary Clinton is out. Mrs. Clinton never met a lie she would not tell. We can go back to the old favorites like her claim that Bill's affair with Monica Lewinsky was just made up by some "vast right wing conspiracy" (when she well knew her husband and what he had done.) After all, Hillary was in charge of dealing with the so-called "bimbo eruptions" that plagued the Clinton campaign in 1992. We can move to some from her time as a senator: she called General Petreus a liar and claimed his testimony about Iraq to Congress was false when she knew that was not true. She later admitted as much to the people in the Obama White House. Then there are the greatest hits from when she was secretary of state. Who can forget her statements about the youtube video that was responsible for the Benghazi attack, something that she well knew to be untrue. That one took special heartlessness since she had to stand with the families of the slain men and lie to them about what caused the deaths. Now we have all the lies about her email, the most recent of which was her claim on national TV that she never received a subpoena when the facts show that she got three of them including one prior to her destruction of the evidence. That's enough. Hillary fails this test.
The remaining candidates all pass this test, although some like Chris Christie seem to only squeak by. As the campaign progresses we can get more information which may help us decide who is best on this point.
2. Someone who understands how the economy works and what can be done to improve it. Here there are quite a few who seem not to get it. Some are minor candidates like Lindsay Graham and George Pataki, neither of whom has demonstrated any understanding of the economy. Likewise, Ben Carson has indicated little understanding of the economy. Among the Democrats, Bernie Sanders wants to turn America into something resembling the current situation in Greece, so he fails here too. Although she already failed the first test, Hillary Clinton fails here too. Despite having been a candidate for nearly four months, Mrs. Clinton has not addressed the economy in anything like a comprehensive fashion. She is supposed to be giving a major speech on the economy tomorrow. Sadly, though, she is following the script used by the Obama administration for the last seven years, and we already know that Obamanomics just does not work. She is checking boxes on her to do list and not actually considering what will help the US economy and the declining middle class. The ones who seem to do best here are Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina. Donald Trump also ought to understand the economy, but he has yet to focus on it clearly.
3. Recognizing reality and proposing fact based ideas -- lack of this quality basically disqualifies Trump. The Donald is still talking about building a wall across the Mexican border as if this will end illegal immigration; it won't. The majority of illegal immigrants do not come across the border with Mexico; that has been the fact for years. The majority come here legally and then don't leave when their visas expire. No successful immigration enforcement program can be structured just to deal with the border: it's a piece of the whole but not the whole thing. Ted Cruz also seems to go awry on this category. It was Cruz, after all, who fought the battle that shut down part of the government in October of 2013 in an effort to delay Obamacare, and he did it at a point when there was no possibility of success. He should have recognized that and tried something else. A candidate who gets high marks here is Scott Walker. He chose his battles in Wisconsin based on ones that could be won. For example, when the rules for health insurance and pensions for government workers were modified, Walker purposely left out any change for police or fire fighters. Walker knew that any change there would send his proposals down to defeat.
4. Understanding our adversaries around the world as they actually are. This requirement drops Rand Paul off the list of possibilities. The Kentucky senator wants to live in a world where there are no serious security threats to the USA, so he proposes programs that would fit in such a world. Sadly, we don't live in that world. Paul's neo-isolationism is way too dangerous for America to seriously consider him for president.
5. Recognizing the greatness of America -- here is a category that strongly favors candidates like Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina, Scott Walker and John Kasich who are basically self-made individuals who speak often about the country that allowed them to prosper and about the need for us all to let new individuals continue to prosper.
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