Regarding the Presidency: The Question of Qualification

Nowadays, we pick a set of positions we think important (“pro-life,” “for free trade,” etc.) and a set of attributes we’re familiar with as being good (“smart,” “speaks well”) and use that to make an argument for a particular candidate.

Of course, our position/attribute combination might not be terribly efficacious when all is said and done, because many of us can also safely say that the last time we voted for President, it was just as much an anti-Kerry and an anti-Gore vote.

So at least for me, one thing I’m doing as I work through issues in political science formally is figure out what sort of background one should demand of a Presidential candidate. I’ve been clear in previous posts that I would like it if the President would just shut up and do the job for the most part: I’m actually liking the fact the spotlight is on those mouthy Democrats now and I’m not hearing too much from the Executive branch, because I just trust they’re doing their best, and I’ll certainly do my best to voice my discontent with all forms of loud, obnoxious, not-well-thought-out Leftist tripe (i.e. most of what Congress says). I mention that because I’m partly concerned less with what the candidate says, and more with the qualifications he has.

But what job does the President have exactly? And what qualifications should he have?

His primary power rests in him being Commander-in-Chief. Okay, that seems to suggest a war hero like John McCain or a general might be a good candidate. But that isn’t a foolproof logic. I remember watching Nixon talk about what could have been the biggest failure of the Eisenhower administration – when we let Egypt have the Suez Canal. The trouble with that move was that while it was largely symbolic, it told Britain and France in no uncertain terms that we did not want them working with their former colonies, or standing up to a pure anti-Western sentiment. In their place, Eisenhower backed Nasser. As you well know, Arab nationalism of the Nasser sort is statist (socialist) and partial (nationalist): it is no surprise that movements like the Ba’ath party in Iraq arose shortly thereafter using the same sort of secularist/modernist rhetoric.

So it looks like a General isn’t the best candidate for the job, if he doesn’t have a broader vision of what the world might look like. One needs someone who can assess which actors are trustworthy under which conditions. So should someone from the State Dept, or an Ambassador or diplomat have the job?

Well, it used to be in the early days of the Republic that Secretary of State was the position one wanted to have in order to become President (i.e. John Quincy Adams). But that was back when we were a Republic, not the Hegemon. I mean, technically, even though we don’t have outlying territories and such, this is Empire, and I don’t mean that in a bad sense. The direct predecessor is the British Empire, which again, is not something to sneer at: when they were recognized as the chief power, the seas were free, markets were relatively stable (note when the Great Depression happens), and political expression for citizens within and sometimes outside the Empire was not rewarded with a hail of bullets (there were exceptions, i.e. Amritsar). In any case, it is hard to see how a diplomat running on that experience alone would have the necessary vision to keep actors on the global stage in line. Then again, the experience of that sort is so vital that it is easy to see someone like Condoleeza Rice or any Vice President, actually, being the perfect candidate, esp. as they have indicated through their work with the current Administration what goals they have on a larger scale.

What about the domestic functions of the President, i.e. his veto power, setting an agenda, and his power over agencies that preside over relief and dealing with emergencies? It would seem like a Governor or Mayor would be perfect for the first and last criteria, and that a Senator might understand the first two well enough as well as the last (the Senate is technically in charge of bodies like the FCC, so they deal with the bureaucracy of bureaucracy all the time). I should say that being Governor or Mayor, acting as Executive on a small scale, counts against one as regards being Chief Executive. It looks like the roles are just small scale (city or state) and thus directly analogous to large scale (country).

I would argue that there is a qualitative, not merely quantitative difference, between governing a city or state and the country. That issue of “foreign policy” changes the nature of the Executive, for it makes the Chief Executive’s power more absolute. A mayor or governor ultimately is subject to something higher: the President, on the other hand, isn’t subject to anyone because even when we are the most powerful country on earth, we’re still just another country. There’s a big difference between governing something within a nation – within a Constitutional order – and in a world where strictly speaking, there is no order except that which we created (the UN is our invention, as is the IMF and World Bank and NATO and a number of other entities. That’s why I find our adversarial relation to the UN so, so curious). In any case, any candidate declaring that their experience as mayor or governor makes them automatically fit to deal with foreign policy is, quite frankly, lying. Foreign policy is pretty much the whole game.

Which brings us to the Senate. The idea that Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton is qualified for this job is utterly, completely laughable based on their Senate credentials. Sen. Obama is probably more qualified inasmuch as he has seriously good legal training, as does Sen. Clinton. And I don’t say that latter part to put them down: given what I’ve outlined above, there are few candidates with the experience needed to really do the Presidency justice. What makes the Senate problematic is the lack of executive thinking of any sort: reviewing foreign policy is far different from crafting it. But in any case, a candidate’s education has to be something we look closely at.

Unfortunately, this post is getting too long, so I think I’ll start looking at that next time, as well as the question of rhetoric, although I think the “Open Letter to Newt” was pretty clear on how essential Presidential rhetoric is nowadays, and how limited it is still.