John Champagne
San Antonio, TX

October 14, 1992
To the Editor:

Choosing a President

If you could ask anyone to be your next president, who would you choose? I often ask this question of strangers that I meet on the street, in line at the grocery store, or on the bus. Who do you think might be a good president? The answer that I hear more than any other is "Anyone that is not running now".

We have a tradition of choosing our presidents from the nominees of the two "major" parties. Unfortunately the candidates that have been put forth in recent elections have so failed to embody what we would like to see in our Presidents that we have become accustomed to hearing phrases such as "Lesser of two evils, and "What choice do I have?"

A free society draws its strength from the enthusiastic participation of its people. The pervading feeling that our role amounts to choosing the least offensive of two or three unappealing candidates is a serious indictment of our presidential selection process. It has contributed to the continuing boycott by half of the eligible voters in this country. Voting should be a positive experience. We should feel free to vote for who we want. Phrases like "Lesser of two evils,' and "What choice do I have?" have no place in a free society. We should not feel constrained to choose among unattractive options because the feeling that there is no one worth voting for is destructive to a democratic society.

We should not feel constrained, by tradition or by law, in the choices that we have for President, or for any other office. Nowhere in the Constitution can we find the idea that the people should be prevented from expressing to the Electors of the President their personal choice for the office. When legislators make laws that say that my vote will not be counted because I choose to write in the name of someone who did not file an application, those legislators have overstepped their authority. They have the authority, the power, to choose the Electors of the President. They may, if they wish, choose Electors who promise not to vote for non-applicants, but they cannot choose to discard my vote. My vote is my communication of my preference to the Electors of the President. Interference by legislators in this communication has no place in a free society.

I tell people that I think that Walter Cronkite would be a good President. Sometimes they say, "But he is not running," as though there were some law that says only people who were promoting themselves and actively seeking the office could be chosen as our President. George Washington did not run for President, but people wanted him to be President, the Electors asked him and he accepted the responsibilities of office. Washington was a very good President at a time when the country very much needed good leadership. If we consider only those people who tell us they should be President, we will miss the opportunity to have as our President persons who cannot or will not stand and promote themselves, but who would, if we choose them, accept the burdens of leadership.

Walter Cronkite has said why he should not run for office: someone who has made his name as a television journalist should not use that as a platform to run for President. If that happened then anything any journalist says will be suspect. We might wonder, "Is this person reporting the news, or are they trying to build a platform for some future run for office?" With this question in mind, would we be so inclined to pay attention to the news of the day--as we must do if we are to understand the problems we face and create imaginative solutions for those problems. "If there is anything that might strike at the peoples', belief in the integrity of journalists," Cronkite says, "I don't want to see that happen."

Nothing he said, though, leads me to believe that Mr. Cronkite would refuse to be President if we chose to elect him. On the contrary, he actually said at one point, "Notice you did not get a flat 'No."'. Several years ago, in 1983, he put out essentially the same question that I have put forth above: "Aside from those generally thought to be running, who do you think might make a good President?" He reported the results of this survey. (His name was on the list of nominees.) It is clear that he believes we should be more involved in deciding who will be our leaders.

We have to choose a President. Does it matter whether we choose someone who we know and trust? Yes. Does it matter whether we get a President who can confront the problems of the day with good ideas clearly spoken? Yes. Should we choose a President who believes that we should take a more active role in choosing our Presidents? Should we have a President who comes to the office because we call him there and not for any reasons of ego or career? Yes. We should have such a President, and we could have such a President if the Electors of the President know that is what we want.

I will write in Walter Cronkite and Barbara Jordan (who was also named as a possible good president in Cronkite's survey). I hope enough other people will do the same to persuade a few Presidential Electors to choose these fine, honorable people. Then the selection will go to the Congress. I want to see Mr. Cronkite in any group of three that may go to the House of Representatives. (I would like to see Ms Jordan in any group of two that may go to the Senate.) Then I will communicate my preference to my Congressmen. If we want this to happen, we need to talk about it; let people know what we want, ask for what we want, and we could get what we want.

John Champagne