My choice this election cycle did not come easy.
There are probably 5 or 6 democratic candidates who would make good presidents. Good, just good, not great. After Trump that would be child’s play, appearing to be a good president.
However, there were not many on last night’s debate stage who strike me as potentially great.
Roll that idea around in your head, a great president. We haven’t seen one in a long time. Not in my lifetime. We’ve had a number of good presidents. Presidents who followed laws and traditions. Presidents who honored the dictates and courtesies of democracy. Presidents who labored to help the downtrodden and fight against the rule of despots in countries near and far.
In my mind, Franklin D. Roosevelt was the last Great President of the United States of America. A president who came along when America needed greatness and bold ideas. When you start from the fundamental belief that government exists to serve the needs of its populace, you stick your finger in the face of anyone who starts shrieking “Socialism!” as if there were bugs in their bed.
If F.D.R was a socialist he was a pretty strange looking socialist. More effete intellectual than socialist firebrand, more concerned citizen than self-enriching politician, F.D.R. came from a privileged background, the kind that believed their duty was to lean over to help those lower on the social and economic ladders. Noblesse oblige in all its glory, especially when showered down upon impoverished masses with hollow dustbowl futures.
And now, 74 years after the death of F.D.R., I survey the debate stage and search for the one candidate strong enough, committed enough, and human enough to wear the mantle that F.D.R. so brilliantly modeled. A candidate strong enough in her beliefs to shrug off all the naysayers that will come at her. And there will be many. But, most important, a candidate strong enough to beat the wind out of a corrupt, noxious and bloated gasbag!
I believe there is such a candidate.
That’s why I’m supporting Elizabeth Warren.