By Sue Murphy
2016 will be an interesting year.
In August, we get to watch the Summer Olympic Games from Rio. In November, we’ll elect a new president, but those games have already begun, with preliminary events including demographic posturing, mudslinging and the great insult toss, none of which have helped at all.
The great thing about the Olympics is that if you want to find out who can throw a stick the farthest, you actually have the contestants throw a stick. Why can’t the presidential election race be like that? Why can’t we real-time test the candidates on presidential skills?
It would take some creative doing, but I’m sure we could set up events that would truly demonstrate who had presidential chops and who was just a windbag poser. And, I don’t want to seem harsh, but I’d suggest it be a single-elimination competition, not the best of seven, because even if a president is a great economist, he still has to be commander in chief. He/she can’t say, “Oh, well, foreign policy was never my thing, but hey, how about that great unemployment rate?” No, if the job requires a person to be competent in all areas, I think that’s what we should look for up front.
To get their names on the ballot, the candidates would have to go through an intensive FBI /CIA/CNN screening to ferret out every applicable faux pas from their past. If the candidate shows evidence of being a consummate liar or a hound dog skirt-chaser, they’d be eliminated. We deserve better than that.
Next would come a mock press conference. Remember, we’ll have to listen to our winner for at least four years. He/she needs to be able to communicate, to inspire confidence, to string together intelligent sentences. They’ll also be talking to a string of world leaders. We want our representative to make us proud, not make the world wonder, “What were the voters thinking??”
We’d line up our wiliest reporters to rapid-fire questions at the candidates: “What’s going on in Iran?” “Will you support the new tax bill?” “Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?” (I’d throw that one in to see if they were paying attention.)
Just like in real life, the questions would come in seemingly random order. A personal sidebar: If the candidate dodges the question or gives some roundabout party-line answer, an air horn will sound and they’ll be ushered off the stage. Next!
Those candidates still standing would move on to a series of “cool under fire” competitions. We’ll warm up with a few easy ones, you know, lighting the national Christmas tree, making toasts at state dinners, then ratchet things up to bigger issues: A major bank is on the verge of collapse. There’s been a plane crash in Dallas. Putin is doing anything at all.
No matter what the calamity, the candidate would have to make a quick, firm decision because if he/she gets the job, that’s what they’ll have to do. “Wake up, Mr. President, the North Koreans have missiles in the air.” Our President has to be ready to lead, not speechify, not hem and haw and wait until his minions take a poll on Twitter.
The Presidential Olympics would be a grueling competition, but the person who won would really be a winner. If no one made it all the way through, we’d know we had to look elsewhere. If the competition ended in a tie, we’d go to the lightning round. I don’t know, maybe we’d have them throw a stick.
