OPINION:
There are so many Republicans running or thinking about campaigning for president in 2016 that even political pundits are hard-pressed to name them all — and they come from all backgrounds, including even the field of medicine. The situation speaks to the notorious unprofessionalism of American politics. Our presidents have come from almost any source: the military, governorships, Congress, appointed government service, newspaper editorships (Warren Harding), even from academe (Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama).
Ronald Reagan was a Hollywood actor who was nothing to write home about in terms of his film skills. Harry Truman was an Independence, Mo., farmer whose background was so unimpressive that the Wallace family, whose daughter Bess he courted from grade school, would have absolutely nothing to do with him until he came home from World War I as an officer. When Harry and Bess finally married, they lived with her parents, with Harry engaging in an unsuccessful haberdashery business.
The unpredictability of the backgrounds and abilities of presidents would give a certain instability to U.S. politics, especially in the 19th century, with power moving from the White House to Congress and vice versa. There would be a few great presidents, a few bad ones, and a whole list of so-so men whose names would escape historic note. (For example, try recalling — in order — the chief executives from Jackson to Lincoln, or from Lincoln to McKinley).
The crowding of candidates in the old days has been affirmed in recent history, leading the famous lawyer Clarence Darrow to remark, “When I was a boy, I was told that anybody could become president. I’m beginning to believe it.” To be sure, candidates like to tout such words as experience and credentials in advancing their campaigns, but the truth of the matter is that professionalism in politics, like that in fields such as business, is an elusive science.
In business, for example, jargon for specialization outruns reality. So-called “strategic” planners and experts in human resource management (what used to be called “personnel”) sound impressive, but their disciplines have far to go before their highfalutin rhetoric trumps common sense. And in government, passing a civil-service exam — or even being elected to low or high office — is no guarantee that subsequent public service will be a bastion of excellence.
This nebulous state regarding what it takes to be president is what the Founding Fathers consciously designed. They did not necessarily have in mind Plato’s philosopher-king for the nation’s highest office. Nor were they set only on a Cincinnatus-type farmer who would leave his fields, serve his country, and return to the land. Their qualifications were modest: citizenship, age and residency requirements. And their choice for the first chief executive, George Washington, was evidence that a man with little education, a mixed record as a military leader, and a temperament that was more aloof than outreaching still could illustrate effective leadership.
In an age of specialization, Americans would do well to keep their presidential vision as wide as the constitutional parameters, recognizing that leadership is not necessarily the result of a preconceived number of years in politics or any other field. It involves risk, but that’s what democracy is all about — with the final decision resting on the voter. And sometimes voters make mistakes, as illustrated by the elections of 2008 and 2012.
No one knew risk better than Truman, who rose to the level of leadership that the circumstances of his day demanded. Truman also kept his vision of the presidency in practical terms. The president, he said, “should be an honorable man. Then he should be a man who can get elected. Finally, he should be a man who knows what to do after he is elected.”
And, above all, he ventured, the president shouldn’t be worried about the way he wished to be remembered. A statesman, according to Truman, was a “politician who’s been dead 10 or 15 years.”
• Thomas V. DiBacco is professor emeritus at American University.
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