You Cannot Elect Greatness
You can only vote for potential.
Given the way he won the Civil War, voters in 1868 had every expectation that Ulysses S. Grant would be a great president.
He was only mediocre.
Voters loved Herbert Hoover in 1928. They saw him as a millionaire with a social conscience, having led American relief efforts in Europe after World War I.
But he could not spearhead any relief programs for Americans in the Great Depression.
Americans elected Franklin D. Roosevelt to guide them out of the Depression. They didn’t know he would also be at the helm when World War II started.
As you watch Bernie, Mayor Pete, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden jockey for the Democratic nomination, you cannot know how each one of them would handle a crisis.
I mean a big, earth-rattling, catastrophe. A terrorist attack that kills thousands, a hurricane that wipes out the Florida coast, or another economic collapse.
You don’t know what they will do. You think you might know, given their past performances in either politics or their personal lives. But you can’t be sure.
We have an idea how Trump would handle such a catastrophe — poorly. By jumping to conclusions, issuing orders his military did…
