VOTING: PERSONALITIES OR POLICIES?

I tell no one how to vote. That is not my purpose and never will be. My purpose is to give the reader a rational basis for how they must choose their candidate. So many Americans will vote this week based on what they perceive to be the personality of the candidate. Some will say that Trump is not a nice guy. He is imperious, brash, crude, arrogant, self-exalting, condescending and unfaithful. Yes to all of them. What then follows is a statement like this; ‘and therefore I can’t vote for that man.’ Okay, let’s look at Biden. He is a career politician, two-faced, indecisive, dull, confusing, crooked, and weak. And again I say, yes to all of them. What follows is the statement, ‘well, then, I can’t vote for Biden.’ But is the way to look at any candidate? It shouldn’t be. After all, when a person votes for a president he is not voting for his pastor, babysitter, or counselor. Now of course it would be nice that every candidate was a person of high moral character. But at the end of the day whether the candidate is a nice people or not has very little to do with whether you should vote for him. When we vote we should vote according to principle not personality. We should vote for that person whose agenda is more in keeping with what the voter deems to be best for the country. We should vote for a candidate who will implement policies that will promote a general morality and will bring peace, prosperity and protection for the people. That alone should be basis upon which a person in a free democratic society votes. That means the voter may at times grit her teeth as she pulls the lever knowing that the man who she is voting for is a flaming jerk. I remind the reader that there have been many jerks who have been great leaders. One such leader was the 10th President John Tyler. Tyler could be so arrogant and bullheaded that one pundit wrote about him in 1842 saying “one year of the rule of imbecility, arrogance, and prejudice has taught them the folly of selecting for Vice-President a man of whose fitness for the office of President they had no reasonable assurance.“ By the time of his term’s end, every cabinet member save one had resigned his post. Tyler was very difficult to work with. By the time Tyler left the Presidency in 1845 he had alienated his own party and could not run for re-election. Because he had come to power upon the death of William Henry Harrison, his single term in office was mockingly remembered as ‘His Accidency.” Yet despite his cantankerous nature, Tyler is now considered by historians as one of the best presidents the nation ever had. He furthered the principle of America’s ‘manifest destiny’ and expanded his nation’s territory by ratifying the annexation of Texas on his last day in office in 1845. He signed the Webster Ashburton treaty in 1842 which established the northern boundary between the U.S. and Canada. In addition he secured a beneficial Wanghia treaty with China which allowed U.S. merchant ships to trade with China without submitting to Chinese laws. Tyler was a difficult man to like by all accounts. But he was decisive in his policies and most of them benefitted America greatly. Remember that when you walk into the booth or fill out the ballot. You must not think about personality. Think about policy. Separate the man’s moral character from what he stands for. Vote for the man who will give every American the best chance to prosper under a free democratic system. Vote for the man whose policies will protect all Americans - men, women and children - from the tyranny of government overreach. But I am telling no one how to vote.