Trump Isn’t Ready To Be President, And Neither Was John Kerry

(NOTE: Based on time elapsed since the posting of this entry, the BS-o-meter calculates this is 10.854% likely to be something that Ferrett now regrets.)

A commenter was complaining – with some right – that this election would determine the course of the economy, and for the last two week’s it’s been a constant stream of TRUMP GROPES.  How can we tell which candidate is qualified to, you know, be President?

And here’s my take on the issues:

Running a Presidential campaign is a lot like being the President.  It’s full of constant, unexpected vectors, you are required to make decisions that will alienate portions of the voter base, you are required to make decisions that will infuriate your own supporters.  A Presidential campaign is a hugely complicated thing to get right.

And if you bobble the campaign, you’d make a sucktacular President.

I’m not saying that winning makes you a great President by any means.  But if you watch someone’s campaign dissolve into disaster, that’s the first sign that they couldn’t get the job done.

And in particular, if you can’t handle the obvious attack ads that people will air, you’re not gonna do well in office.

Like, you know, John Kerry.  Everyone knew they were going to come after his war record.  The guys running Bush’s campaign had gone after Max Clenand’s war record in a Senate race, and that guy had lost limbs fighting for his country.  They might as well have sent him an engraved invitation saying, “WE ARE GOING AFTER YOUR STRENGTH IN THIS ELECTION IT’S WHAT WE DO RSVP ROVE AND COMPANY”

…and the attack ads came.

And Kerry spent five days dithering about how to respond.

And I thought, “God, I really don’t like Bush, but seriously, if it takes Kerry five days to respond to something every political pundit saw coming, how well is this man going to do when there’s an unexpected emergency?”

I liked a lot of what Kerry stood for.  But when the obvious attacks came, man wasn’t prepared.   And having a President who either doesn’t prepare for the obvious or can’t see the obvious or, God forbid, both?  Not so good.

Likewise, Trump’s groping comments, well, he knows what he said – or should have.  He should have prepared for the certainty that some of his tapes would have emerged at the worst possible times.  And instead, he’s blaming everyone else but himself and his campaign for not having a good answer prepared.

On a personality level, I still don’t like Hillary all that much.  But she’s that policy wonk who’s got a plan for everything.  Maybe she’s scheming, yes – but you want a schemer in the White House, because the alternative is having some dope like Kerry or Trump who are completely bollixed by the world’s most predictable events, and God damn you do not want that at the helm regardless of political stripe.

(Now only if Bush’s staff had applied the same rigor they did during his campaigns to, I dunno, predicting and boxing off the negative outcomes of the Iraq War, and we might have an entirely different country today.  Which is proof that running a successful Presidential campaign is your first hurdle to prove you’re worthy of office, but by God it is not the last.)

 

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