What I Want In The Next President
Today brings a new entry from a very creative thinker, Robert Fritz. But before I introduce Robert and his piece, I couldn’t help but share my amusement with a comment made by Senator Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential debate. For it echoed the great conversation we’ve been having about honesty, which Jim Kouzes argued is so important. Barack, with obvious strategic aims relative to Senator Clinton, talked about what he thinks voters are looking for in a President: “What America is looking for,” he said, “is straight answers to tough questions.” It will be very interesting to watch whether this criteria is one that continues to be discussed and whether voters feel like they can figure out who’s best to bring “straight answers.” Now, let me introduce a totally different tack on our discussion.
Where Jim Kouzes turns to the data on what people want from a leader they admire and willingly follow, Robert Fritz - author, consultant, musician, and film-maker - paints a different picture of what America needs in a president. Fritz is best known for his book The Path of Least Resistance, a book about creativity, that has huge implications for leadership. Fritz’s work on the power of vision and on creativity is useful for individuals as well as for organizations. Creativity? Yes! One could argue that to be president is all about creating: a President paints pictures, finds resolution among differing voices, orchestrates agreements, envisions possibilities others have not, sculpts new policies, and builds teams. In short it’s highly creative work! . Today, with the characteristic passion of a creative thinker, Robert Fritz tells . . .
What I Want In The Next President
It’s a hard time for leadership in America because so many of those in present positions of leadership have poisoned the well.
I am particularly thinking of President Bush, who has been the very worst American leader I have seen in my lifetime. I was born when Franklin Roosevelt was President, I can remember Truman when I was a little boy, the first person I planned on voting for was Kennedy in ‘64. Up to now, I thought Nixon was the worst.
Now Nixon looks fairly good to me in his understanding of international affairs, especially his daring move of opening China. While I didn’t like Reagan’s politics, I thought he was a true leader. He had a positive vision for America, and, in many ways, he represented what was best in the American spirit. I feel about him the same as a business leader I know felt about Kennedy. He said, “I didn’t agree with anything Kennedy did. But when he was president, I felt better about being an American.” That’s about how I felt about Reagan.
But now the world has changed. The new political strategy, the one that Carl Rove exploited to a tee, is to distort what the opponent has said, making it seem to be absolutely ridiculous. Then, the talking points are arguments against something the opposing candidate never said and doesn’t think. This “new” politics is a throwback to the old “Big Lie,” pioneered by Joseph Goebbels. And it has worked and worked, election after election.
I hope Abraham Lincoln was right about not being able to fool all the people all the time. Reality has a way of showing up and eventually the truth rises to the top. But before it does, there is a lot of dysfunctional politics that has a chance to fester and grow. When this is the case, interesting ideas - which can come from anywhere within the political spectrum - are hard to explore, good will is hard to generate, and nonsense becomes the order of the day.
The leadership qualities I would like to see for the next president must be understood by the tenor of our current times…
I long for intellectual honesty. I long for creativity. I long for good sense. I long for the long view, where American interests are seen from a vantage point of decades and centuries.
I long for someone who was as cultured and street smart as JFK.
I long for someone who understands history, our own and that of the world. I long for someone, who like Kennedy, does not blindly follow the advice of the generals, but combines that advice with a sense of proportion. (Had Kennedy followed the advice of General Curtis LeMay, we would have had a nuclear war in 1963.)
I long for the insight of an Eisenhower, the guts and inner strength of a Truman (who didn’t mind surrounding himself with the likes of a General Marshal, who he considered much better than himself.)
I long for someone who can put complex thoughts together and express them with a simple elegance like Theodore Roosevelt could and Bill Clinton can.
I long for a leader who can lift us with the highest of aspirations, feed our public soul with greatness of purpose, instill in us the fundamental causes of truth, justice, respect, innovation, freedom, and adventure.
I long for a leader who can touch that incredible creative and affirmative thing that is so much part of the America spirit.
I long for someone who truly loves freedom of the individual, and sees that, rather than the political system of democracy, as the formative cause that can powerfully compete against radical anything. After all, the point of democracy is to assure freedom of the individual, not simply to hold elections.
I long for a leader who has read and understands Thomas Jefferson’s monumental writings on the separation of church and state, and has read and understands The Federalists Papers. I long for a leader who has read Theodore White’s In Search of History.
I long for a leader who is motivated by love rather than hate. I long for a builder, a practical visionary, a leader who can forge a new and better path through the dangers of the times, and can play our very best hand: demonstrating how people from such diverse backgrounds, religions, thoughts, cultures, traditions, ethnic groups, and customs can become one people.
©2007 Robert Fritz
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November 19th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I always appreciate Mr. Fritz’s point of view. I think he captured most of what I want as well; not just in a President but in all of our elected officials. Congress should be a house of leaders, but frankly members of Congress have been disappointing and don’t seem to get it.
I am not sure Mr. Fritz asked for this so I will add it to his list. I want a President who recognizes that in the past (going back decades) he (and members of Congress) has been a member of the “specialized class” (phrase coined by Walter Lippman) who has not listened to the American people (or “bewildered herd” again coined by Lippman). I want a President who will begin a process to radically change our democracy to one that is free (from one that might better be described as a totalitarian “dictatorial” democracy).
The challenge is great because I am not sure we have ever had the democracy I invision. In the last 6 years we have gone in the opposite direction and we need a cohort of leaders who are committed to righting the wrongs!
November 20th, 2007 at 2:27 am
I apprciate your insights. I look to Ron Paul. Consititutionalist Finance smarts (formerly on the Fed Reserve board). Truley a Replublic straight shooter.
November 20th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
I underlined what I feel is a contradictory message, that this “tried and true” way of doing things having resurfaced during recent administrations (and their contests) is something “new”. I am not sure what you meant by it, but you do manage to empathise with people who are uninformed about history, which is sadly a majority of voters and non-voters alike. Not only do they fail to make proper decisions (or simply fail to be deciders at all), sadder still, their behaviour is warped by what they see.
The megalomania of politicians who can manage to pull this off is admired by people who feel greatly disssatisfied in a simultaneous number of ways: let-down; insufficient; incapable; overburdened; succumbed; disenfranchised; marginalized; reduced; disassociated; devitalized; pointless. People admire how somebody can simply stand up and — basically — lie to first a few people, then a dozen, then a few dozen, and eventually a few dozen million, all the while supporting their needs and frivolties as well as several of their close campaign staff with the incoming monies representing the interests of those millions in seeing more of the same. All by distorting the truth in more and more absurd ways and shining their trophies all the while.
Such politicians are admired because they manage to win instant gratification by simply breaking the rules, whether they are rules of common decency and civility or rules of logical debate and order. And they’re admired by the dissatisfied people who work as hard as they can and barely make ends meet, a population whose numbers a growing largely because such candidates take position after position, win after win. It’s an awful cycle.
But the worst part of it is that this admiration isn’t just a detached sort-of, “look at those overpaid superstars go” spectatorship. People tend to mimic what they admire, being that they invariably admire for what they perceive to be positive traits. And greatly dissatisfied people will admire the simple form or act of winning, at any cost. And if what they see in these winners’ words are: distortion of truth; injustice and disrespect towards others and truth; nauseous absurdity in logic; psychological projection, and gross inaccuracy; all with plainly wrongful intent towards any perceived or challenging opponent, then these greatly dissatisfied people will adopt those same behaviours, just to get closer toward winning instead of being so dissatisfied.
We may say, “fine, so lots of people will spend their days lying and trying and vying for various positions in various levels of government, the more the merrier”, but the problem is that most of the American public isn’t interested in pursuing political careers or lying full-time in order to obtain them. These dissatisfied people aren’t going to take up running and campaigning, they’re just going to take these adopted behaviours to their workplace, their social environment, and their family life, and apply them there.
And we can’t assume that people under a certain age remain unexposed to this deeper psychological level of “Big Lying”, and people who are exposed are old enough not to go through formative processes. If anything, we could even investigate how much of that long-held belief system was fomented by the self-same Big Liars through what Eisenhower termed “the educational-research complex”. Obviously, both young and old are susceptible to taking up new behaviours, especially when they see that these behaviours “work”.
Not to be comical, but a well-known example of the long-term and widespread effects this adoption of apathetic and wrongful aberration of thought would be the spectacle of “Jerry Springer’s Show”. A lot of people wonder if this sort of thing is scripted, while nobody can deny that the show is extremely popular with a great number of people no matter where they live in America: obviously it’s as real as rain, and any exposure to the real lives of American people would reveal that the behaviours displayed are far more common than just one show airing from one state.
So, my point is, if you ever read the op-eds and wonder how so many Americans became so twisted in their minds, maybe you’ll also consider how they may simply be taking after their favorite politicians.
After all, many of these politicians are getting away with what they are doing because they aren’t really promoting their personality or their ideas — they’re already tokenized, selected for single attributes a la “key peg” platforming, and every other attributable instance either falls to the wayside as a quirk (usually because it’s swiftly and smartly brushed-up by their handlers) or is chalked up against the token runner as a glitch in their programming (such as Kerry’s “failed joke”), and in either case, any display of any attribute besides what’s “key” is to be highly avoided by candidates.
Consider the Hilly. Congratulations and adorations: it’s a woman. This election, any woman who wants to see a female president will tend to vote for H.C. no matter what she says. And, if you follow what I said in all those paragraphs above, they will also tend to not only follow her exploits but also adopt them for use hacking the system of their own life, so to be less greatly dissatisfied (you would have to be rather greatly dissatisfied to hire someone just on their gender while ignoring all other traits). That’s just one easy example.
Not only in terms of when the crowd cries for encore, but also how they make demands at work and at home.
I don’t think I’ve seen a list like that before, in terms of qualities. I think that’s a rather grand list. I see myself in fewer than half the points, but at the very least I see what I like in myself; those would be points that would count toward a particular candidate, were they ever to run. Frankly I fear that America would be in a state of not-far-off dystopia before they would pull together to the extent needed to collaborate for such a candidate. But that’s just part of taking the long view, you have to worry about the next fifty to five hundred years some times. That’s purely my own opinion and speculation.
Any information that is disseminated can be used to portray and to spoof what is expected as real. If you make a list like that, a politician can work hard with their handlers to portray those attributes as realistically as possible. Sometimes, knowing this, a person tends to keep their wishes secret. Like some superstitions say, doing so helps make wishes come true; but very realistically, another superstition can form. Having to keep all the details of what you’re looking for secret can produce too much work, and leave you to wonder if there’d be no difference if you simply said “I’ll vote for whoever I like at the moment I step into the booth, it doesn’t even matter what I want”. Obviously, though, not doing the work is part of what plagues Americans and their politicians both, especially towards not getting what they want. If you don’t describe what you want, if can’t become a social discussion, and a person can’t realise if they can meet the public’s needs, and a people can’t make sure they’re the best for the position. But — in the same informational relationship — all of this discussion can be filtered for the sake of making the best impression through dishonesty.
If anything, you see, such an honest person would never be able to wield the enormous plutocracy or survive it relatively intact.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:58 am
Where is the constituency for the president who is the best of Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Nixon, Clinton? The world has changed, and the thinking of those who control massive wealth has by a majority changed only in that they all the more know how to manipulate the public mind; in the way that poor persons are made to believe that the right to work is good for them, and that states’ rights prevent an overpowering government from having its way; the way people are made to believe that global warming has no connection to man made pollution; the way a majority of Americans are made to believe that Saddam Hussein was involved with 9/11; the way we think that the choice of president will change any of the cleverness and motivations which lead persons of considerable intelligence to manipulate the entire system of thought, which impairs our progress today, and all for commercial purposes. No longer do we wage war for land, the territory the powerful vie for is the human mind and spirit. Break their spirits and turn their minds, because those are our only defenses; those being what ancient philosophers called the weak force, or reason of the mind and spirit.
The twisted mind and broken spirit will not vote for the iconic president of Robert Fritz; they vote for Karl Rove’s Pygmalion idol; they vote for catch phrases and lawn signs.
Mark John Hunter
Alpena, Michigan
November 21st, 2007 at 6:32 pm
The reference to Carl Rove and the strategy he employs to win elections for candidates has become the norm. The deceit and deception used by a candidate and promoted by his or her backers was clearly evident in the last Governor’s race and more recently in Local Elections. Those office seekers who are on the receiving end of such distorted tactics are defenseless, especially in the Metro Detroit area where it is abundantly clear that one political party is able to control major media outlets that communicates misrepresentations to an uninformed segment of the voting population. I was at a function last week and comments were made about our Governor’s ineffective leadership made by one person sitting to the right of me and a comment by another person sitting to my left who said if Devos had been elected the budget would have been resolved within a month and that Govenor Granholm blew one and a half billion dollars that was left to her by her by John Engler. I stridently and passionately attacked that statement by pointing out it was the other way around and my belief was based on absolute fact.
My reason for sharing this conversation is I believe it ties in with this discussion about leadership qualities we would like to see in the next President or anynone who runs for public office. I want a leader who has integrity of the highest order, is a defender of equl oportunity and fairness, Answers questions directly and not evasively, and has a definite plan to move our country forward. But we cannot expect our leaders to have those characteristics if we as an electorate and society lack those traits and believe what we want to hear to satisfy the reasons for electing someone to office rather than to investigate or scrutinize the political history of canditades. Unless the voting public takes their right to vote seriously and lead with our best self then we can expect the kind of government control over information that the German government secured that led to World War II.
November 21st, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Fritz is introduced as a “Creative Thinker”, yet I find little “creativity” within this obvious President Bush-hating diatribe. I’ll borrow one of Dan’s phrases: “I don’t think I’m being partisan…” and state that Fritz’s comments are utterly predictable given his opening thesis of Bush being the worst president that he’s seen in his lifetime.
I was particularly struck by Fritz’s assertion: “But now the world has changed. The new political strategy, the one that Carl Rove exploited to a tee, is to distort what the opponent has said, making it seem to be absolutely ridiculous. Then, the talking points are arguments against something the opposing candidate never said and doesn’t think. This “new” politics is a throwback to the old “Big Lie,” pioneered by Joseph Goebbels. And it has worked and worked, election after election.”
This is “creative thinking?” The distortion of a political rival’s position and the barrage of “talking points” was pioneered by Carl Rove? Apparently Fritz ignores the workings of the likes of Bagalla and Carville in Bill Clinton’s “War Room.” Oh, and call Sen. Joe Lieberman and ask how Rove, et al drove him from the Democratic Party. Such a comparison, as postulated by Fritz, is based in ideology, not creative thinking, and it is intellectual sloth.
Further, Fritz’s comparison of Bush (Rove) to the Nazis (Goebbels) and the clear implication that he (Bush) was elected through incessant lies to the public is neither illuminating or new. (It is fascinating to note that public manipulation and stupidity seems to resurface every 4 to 8 years when a Republican is elected and then we all return to our senses and with perfect clarity elect a Democrat as President.)
His following “longings” are superficial and whimsical and written to be contrasting insults of the current President. In other words, “Here is my list of what I want that Bush isn’t…”
For example, Fritz “…long(s) for someone who was (I assume he means “is” as opposed to “used to be”) as cultured and street smart as JFK.” I’d like to understand what was particularly “cultured” about JFK? Does arising from a wealthy and well-connected aristocratic family qualify? If so, we’ve got that now.
“I long for someone who understands history, our own and that of the world. I long for someone, who like Kennedy, does not blindly follow the advice of the generals, but combines that advice with a sense of proportion. (Had Kennedy followed the advice of General Curtis LeMay, we would have had a nuclear war in 1963.)” OK, Fritz is a fan of JFK. Fair enough, but again there is some selective admiration that doesn’t account for an obvious contradiction: what understanding of history and thoughtful and proportional advice was JFK applying when green lighting the Bay of Pigs operation?
“I long for the insight of an Eisenhower, the guts and inner strength of a Truman (who didn’t mind surrounding himself with the likes of a General Marshal, who he considered much better than himself.)” I’ll grant this statement “creative thinking” status as it’s the first one made by Fritz that goes against type. Remember the continuing condemnation of the U.S. over Truman’s decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan? People around the world (i.e. the U.N. General Assembly) resent what they believe to have been an “unproportional” use of a weapon(s) that needlessly slaughtered innocent civilians in order to protect our own self-interest and quest for world domination…(oops, sorry, I just described the world’s view of our current war against Islamic terrorism). And yes, I know, I shouldn’t use the term “Islamic”, but if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, sounds like a duck… it’s a duck.
“I long for someone who can put complex thoughts together and express them with a simple elegance like Theodore Roosevelt could and Bill Clinton can.” Ummm. OK. The President is hardly and eloquent speaker, which is hardly a news flash, but the continued insistance that he’s a simpleton is, well, simple. By the way, one might think that Fritz would put Ronald Reagan in this category above one who used his considerable oratory skills to mislead and lost his license to practice law for perjury.
“I long for a leader who can lift us with the highest of aspirations, feed our public soul with greatness of purpose, instill in us the fundamental causes of truth, justice, respect, innovation, freedom, and adventure.
I long for a leader who can touch that incredible creative and affirmative thing that is so much part of the America spirit.”
“I long for someone who truly loves freedom of the individual, and sees that, rather than the political system of democracy, as the formative cause that can powerfully compete against radical anything. After all, the point of democracy is to assure freedom of the individual, not simply to hold elections.” I respond to these three together as they lead to one name in the post-WWII era: Ronald Reagan. Just ask the people of the former Eastern Bloc.
“I long for a leader who has read and understands Thomas Jefferson’s monumental writings on the separation of church and state, and has read and understands The Federalists Papers. I long for a leader who has read Theodore White’s In Search of History.” “Reading” and “understanding” does not lead to “application,” as we all well know. I haven’t read White’s book, but perhaps I will now given this prompting. Otherwise, I would agree that the separation of church and state is a cornerstone in our country, but the current trend is for activism to succeed in eliminating “church” anywhere and everywhere possible and for leaders on the left to allow and indeed encourage the continued disparagement of a carefully selected and significant portion of the religious population (i.e. Christians).
“I long for a leader who is motivated by love rather than hate. I long for a builder, a practical visionary, a leader who can forge a new and better path through the dangers of the times, and can play our very best hand: demonstrating how people from such diverse backgrounds, religions, thoughts, cultures, traditions, ethnic groups, and customs can become one people.” What does Fritz mean? Again, generalities and worn phrases that smack of “Can’t we all just get along.” Would a love of freedom qualify (it would seem to given Fritz’s statement above)? Is it practical to develop our own energy resources while research and development proceeds on alternative energies? Is it a safer “new” path to allow radical and murderous ideologies to fester and grow as long as they are centered x miles from our shores? And as far as becoming one people, I couldn’t agree with Fritz more: we shouldn’t support a leader that continues to perpetuate sterotypes as they are born of ignorance (i.e. conservative Christians are stupid and Republicans all want to keep the black man down); respects the traditions of the people while encouraging their melding together (i.e. retain your native tongue, but learn English…you’re an American now).
My point to all of this: Fritz does not put forward a creative or, for that matter, unique take on what our next leader should be and/or reflect. Such an approach would be refreshingly free of ideological partisanship - which this is not - would be much more difficult to contrast and would be much more credible.
November 22nd, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Mr Fritz,
Liberals put us in this position time and time again. The conservatives bail America out time and time again. History will prove to you and many OUR PRESIDENT BUSH has done the right thing and saved many lives. Today and in the future. Enjoy your FREEDOM.
November 27th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
I agree with Eugene.
Ron Paul is the only candidate from either party who is campaigning from a position of honesty, respect for the rule of law and the Constitution, balanced budgets, a humble non-interventionist foreign policy, fair trade, and secure borders.
In my mind, it isn’t even close. All of the other candidates are to one degree or another using deceptive techniques to sweet talk us into voting for them. Not so with Dr. Paul (an obstetrician by profession, he has delivered over 4,000 babies). He treats us like adults and realizes that as president, he will work for US, not the other way around.
Please consider voting for Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. Hi campaign web site is http://www.ronpaul2008.com
December 1st, 2007 at 3:46 pm
What is interesting to note is that both Kouzes and Fritz are hopeful Americans. They both had some sense of ingenuity and a grasp of basic information, and tried their best to bring Americans to have the same sense and grasp. I think Kouzes is somewhat cowed, and Fritz seems thunderstruck, but nevertheless I am glad that Mr. DGMulhern has shared their ideas and wishes with us. It’s interesting to note that MStratton saw Fritz’s views as skewed towards a partisan, anti-Bush mentality, and that DSchmitz has a particular, chosen candidate in mind as their best pick. Is it possible to have a Presidential discussion that does neither incite nor impart partisanship, or that does not lend participants the opportunity to offer their preselections? We have almost a full year to try it out and see. It’s also interesting to note that the election season has started early, Clinton’s campaign having been going continuously now for somewhere between three and seven years, depending on who you ask (as a campaign marketer, I carefully discerned that Clinton’s campaign lifetime is toward the latter). But I also noticed that the eight days between first and second update here were short compared to our wait for a third. Maybe Mr. DGMulhern is going to offer us a zinger?
December 31st, 2007 at 2:57 pm
We need another essay to comment on this is one is a month old, so if you are going to make a project out of this, it needs to produce more.
Today’s Reading for Leading fits in with “What I Want in the Next President.” Freedom to detach yourself, from external circumstances and inner habit is one thing the next president needs to be able to do. All the built up corruption and unfair influence on our governmental is accepted as a bad habit, and a circumstance we can do nothing about. We need to escape that trap.
Mark John Hunter
Alpena