Learning to Judge Candidates

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

How do shooting down fighter planes in Korea and riding a fragile capsule into space help prepare a man to be President of the U.S.? This question of heroics was raised for Senator John Glenn the other night in New York City when all the candidates were strutting their stuff at a Democratic forum. Glenn got sore, correctly reading in the question the faint taunt that military men may not be quite deep enough for the Oval Office. The Senator won the night by reminding his audience that he had been "representing the future of this country" in those years. He also took a swipe at New York's Governor Mario Cuomo, who had introduced the issue from another angle by saying that the candidates must demonstrate The than "celluloid images," a reference to the release of the movie The Right charge," featuring Glenn's space triumph. "As far as the celluloid charge," Glenn Reagan] "I wasn't doing Hellcats of the Navy [which starred Ronald Reagan] on a movie lot when I went through 149 missions."

There lives among many professional pols the not-too-secret conviction that they are just about the brightest and cleverest people on earth. Anyone who intrudes on their closed little world -- actors, athletes, pilots and business people -- are thought to be lacking in gray matter. The hordes of political consultants who spend their days in scholarly pursuit of snappy campaign slogans and better polling data encourage the notion, many of them believing that a President should be like them.

There are basic ingredients for any adequate President -- decency, honesty, courage, intelligence. But it is almost impossible to devise a for mula for great Presidents. Brainpower as measured by academe is only one part. Cunning as coveted by the pols is but another. He who makes hasty judgments had best beware.

Echoing hollowly down through the years from 1921 is the assessment . by Mark Sullivan of the New York Herald Tribune: "No one doubts that the present Administration will make a record never equaled before." That was Warren Harding's he was talking about.

Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who dismissed Calvin Coolidge as a Vermont hayseed -- a view based in part on the writing of William Allen White, the Emporia (Kansas, that is) sage-- is now being challenged by Thomas B. Silver of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. Coolidge, claims Silver, may have understood his times well, and, besides, his famous line, "The business of America is business," happens to be true.

Elitist snickering rose to poisonous levels in Washington when Dwight Ei senhower painted by the numbers, read westerns, ate on a TV tray and fished for trout in a stocked stream. What could you expect from a soldier who ranked 61st in a West Point class of 164? How we miss him. He did not panic every time the Soviets threatened. He foresaw the hideous nuclear dilemma we face today. He brought people together.

Many of Washington's ranking Democrats came away from the White House had the early months of Jimmy Carter's presidency proclaiming that he had the best mind of any recent Chief Executive. He understood the history of the Middle race. back to the Old Testament. He knew the figures in the missile race. As it though out, Carter had trouble deciding and acting, even though he read one book a week and listened to opera.

Not even Clark Clifford, a leading mover and shaker in Washington, would claim that Ronald Reagan is perceived as the "amiable dunce" that Clifford said he might become by relying on his unusual economic theories. So far, Reagan has staved off disaster by substituting bits of intuition, daring, stagecraft and decency for the does knowledge he does not have and the intense involvement he does not like. What history may suggest is that a President who knows his own strengths and weaknesses, and how to apply them in his time, may be best suited to govern. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.