Just about this time last year, I announced my candidacy for Congress. I hadn’t decided whether to run for the United States House of Representatives or the Senate. I still haven’t but count on me to decide something soon… or later.
I like to weigh these things carefully before I make a decision. I do my due diligence and collect all the facts. I seek advice of others, past and present. My mother used to say… “Reach high.” (She was referring to the cereal box on the top shelf, but that stuck with me.)
The presidency has been in the news a bit lately… well, all the time. I’ve been thinking, maybe I should go for the gold, top of the heap, chief honcho. Maybe I should run for President.
Since I like to listen to people who are smarter than I am, I have been doing some research. Ben Franklin, a Founding Father, was way smarter than me. You remember old Benny, the chubby fellow with the tiny glasses who, when asked what kind of a government we created said, “A republic, if you can keep it.” He sure was smart. (Well, he did stand out in a lightning storm flying a kite with a metal key attached, but we all do stupid things from time to time.)
He had a lot to say about the Office of the President. He didn’t want one! Yup, he wanted an executive council making the big decisions. Having lived under a king, he was worried about all that power going to one person. Old Benny liked George Washington but was thinking about the future. He wondered what if a real despot somehow got elected, what then?
He said in a speech at the Constitutional Convention that a government “likely to be well administered for a course of years… can only end in despotism, (so) corrupted as to need a despotic government.” He thought the people might become “uninformed or disinterested.”
He told James McHenry, a delegate to the Convention from Maryland, that executive power “will be always increasing here, as elsewhere, till it ends in a monarchy.” Wow!
That can’t be right. Must be fake news or AI.
But, as a true politician, Benny voted for a president anyway. So, if a president was good enough for Ben Franklin, it’s good enough for me. I’ll be a great president. I’ll guarantee a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage. Hmmm, that slogan may already have been taken. I’ll check.
Speaking of checking… I best check another opinion about this whole idea.
How about Thomas Jefferson? I have faith in his opinion because he was pretty smart too (and tall). After all, he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Tom said he had “no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office.” He said he was also afraid of “corruption.” Well, you wouldn’t have to worry about my presidency, I’m not a crook.
He also said “…my movement to the chair of government… would be like… those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.” Whoa wait! What? That’s not very encouraging.
Maybe I should give this whole running for higher office a second thought.
Mattapoisett resident Dick Morgado is an artist and happily retired writer. His newspaper columns appeared for many years in daily newspapers around Boston.