Who Would Want to Be President These Days?

Apparently a lot of people.  I’ve lost count of how many people have announced their intention to run in 2020.

I can’t remember who said this in a recent radio interview, but a politician – in discussing the process of running for national office – offered this advice to potential candidates:  Prepare to be eviscerated.

Opposition research will dig up every parking ticket, every romantic relationship, every college escapade, every rumor, every secret.  Family members will be investigated. Neighbors will be interviewed.  Opposition research can alter the personal narratives of even the saintliest among us and define people into unrecognizable caricatures.

Who would put themselves through this?  Who wants something enough to be willing to be “eviscerated”?

Power is a potent motivator. But so is a vision of heaven on earth.

I am still in the institutional Church business because Jesus prayed ἐλθάτω ἡ βασιλεία σου, γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς: (“Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” Matthew 6:10).

I still believe that there are people in the world who are trying to serve something higher than themselves.  I would love for one of them to be elected President in 2020.

Happy Presidents’ Day.

Image of George Washington by Roy Lichtenstein (1962)