U.S. Senator Don Nickles (R, Okla.) might have some stiff competition when the November elections roll around. Jacquelyn Ledgerwood forced a runoff with contractor Dan Carroll in the August primaries for Democratic nomination. Ledgerwood raked in nearly 21 percent of the vote. Not bad, considering the fact that she’s dead. That’s right. She died one day after the deadline for withdrawing from the race. Oklahoma law prohibits removing names from the ballot in “partisan races,” even if the candidate is dead—if you can believe that.
Now I’ve been hearing about all the polls lately which say America does not care about the character or the private life of the President, but I don’t think it really sunk in until reading about the success of a dead candidate.
But after considering it further, maybe Oklahoma voters are on to something. What if it were possible for dead candidates to run for President of the United States? That would give us some candidates with real qualifications.
George Washington could run. His campaign would undoubtedly center around his sterling credentials as one of America’s best and most experienced generals, leading the U.S. to victorious independence from the redcoats of Britain. Washington fought just as fiercely for an upstanding moral code. As our first President, during his Inaugural Address, he said, “The foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality.” To Washington, private morality was an indispensable prerequisite to our national policy. To him, private life was very much a public, or national, matter.
John Adams’ campaign slogan today would probably be family values. He and his lovely wife Abigail were famous for their unusually happy and strong marriage. Adams believed family stability was the bedrock of a strong nation. Sustained moral virtue, in his estimation, was the only way to preserve lasting peace and freedom. “Our Constitution,” he said, “was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Without an individual, strict moral code, Adams believed, excess freedom would result in hedonism and anarchy. “Human passions,” he said, “unbridled by morality and religion…would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.”
Benjamin Franklin never ran for President. Probably because he was too old. But he wouldn’t be too old today! His would be a campaign of virtue: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquillity, chastity and humility. This was the campaign he left behind in his autobiography. For the last virtue, humility, he explained simply, “Imitate Jesus.” Pretty good campaign slogan, in my opinion.
Abraham Lincoln’s campaign manager would underscore Lincoln’s honesty, unselfishness and resolute will to do what’s right. “Stand with anybody that stands right,” Lincoln said. “Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong. To desert such ground because of any company is to be less than a man, less than an American.” When America’s worst crisis threatened to destroy the national unity which so many had died for in Washington’s day, it was Lincoln who abandoned any inclination to selfishness, or dishonest political tactics, and instead did what was right for the nation. He accepted war—a disgustingly bloody war—rather than let the nation perish. America survived on his firm, unyielding resolve. Even his detractors knew Lincoln was a good man—honest, sincere, determined. His campaigners today would no doubt plaster “Honest Abe” posters and pins everywhere. Television ads would recount the many promises Lincoln actually kept throughout his long and distinguished career. They would end with this appeal: “Vote for Abraham Lincoln—a man you can trust.”
Theodore Roosevelt’s campaign slogan would be, “Walk softly, and carry a big stick.” Diplomacy, Roosevelt reasoned, is only as strong as the U.S. Navy. Indeed, when Roosevelt grew tired of waiting for the sultan of Morocco to find an American citizen who had been kidnapped in Morocco, he sent the U.S. Navy as a “prod” and the hostage was quickly released. Roosevelt’s motto was to translate thought into action. One observer said of TR, “He was pure act.” “National unselfishness and self-sacrifice, national self-mastery, and the development of national power, can never be achieved by words alone,” Roosevelt said. His philosophy for a powerful America was to make sure we were as strong as or stronger than any other enemy, tyrant or terrorist and then have the will to use that power. In Roosevelt’s view, the only way to oppose wrong backed by might was to overpower it with right backed by might. “Those who preach sloth and cowardice under the high-sounding name of ‘peace,” he said, “give people a word with which to cloak, even to themselves, their failure to perform unpleasant duty. For a man to stand up for his own rights, or especially for the rights of somebody else, means that he must have virile qualities: courage, foresight, willingness to face risk and undergo effort. It is much easier to be timid and lazy.” And to fulfill our obligation to this world, like many of the other dead politicians mentioned in this piece, Roosevelt preached strictness in morality. Unless we are good Americans first, he argued, we can do little or nothing for the good of the world.
Wow! What a difference someone like George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln or Theodore Roosevelt would make if they were leading America today.
I wonder if they would even be voted in.