Following the 2016 election, comedian Bill Burr appeared on Conan O’Brien’s show and talked about the astonishing realization that “The star of a reality show is gonna run the country. The guy who decided if Bret Michaels or Cyndi Lauper would make a better CEO of a company that doesn’t exist is gonna be running stuff.”
Laugh all you want, but it seemed surreal. The nation chose as its president a person so manifestly unprepared for the office, it was stunning when he won. Unfortunately, what it also did was cement the idea that it’s perfectly acceptable to elect people who don’t have the chops to do the job. And now we’re hearing rumblings about Rep. Beto O’Rourke running for president in 2020.
President George H.W. Bush just died, and it’s difficult to think of a person more qualified to run when he did in 1988. He was a fighter pilot in World War II, Yale-educated, a successful businessman, a congressman, ambassador to the United Nations, chairman of the Republican National Committee, director of the CIA, and then vice president. He had a remarkable resume.
O’Rourke is finishing up his third term in the House, and what does he have to show for it? Not much. There’s no major legislation with his name attached. He sat on two committees (Veterans Affairs and Armed Services) but you’d be hard-pressed to find anything of significance he did. Prior to his House election, he served on the El Paso City Council. Then he ran against Sen. Ted Cruz and lost.
Why not run for president with that impeccable track record?
Because he doesn’t need a record. Just as Trump didn’t need one and, to a large extent, Barack Obama didn’t need one. At the very least, unlike Beto, Obama won his Senate race. But he was there for only two years before launching his presidential campaign.
[Related: Obama draws parallels between himself and Beto O’Rourke: ‘Impressive, young man’]
This is a problem. The presidency is a difficult job. It requires making a ton of decisions; engaging in negotiations with staff, members of the opposing party, members of the same party, foreign adversaries, and allies; as well as taking in more information on a daily basis than one might think possible.
Beto may say all the right things. He nearly toppled Cruz in a race where people would have difficulty in explaining why they were voting for him. Beto’s biggest boast, that he didn’t accept PAC money, was a bromide, not an accomplishment. But we saw Obama ride the “hope and change” train to victory and Trump did the same with “make America great again.”
Voters, as a whole, are more ill-informed than they’ve ever been and it’s easy to see why. People feed on a steady diet of cable news and social media. Candidates study focus group results and polls more than policy. People watch “The Daily Show” instead of reading newspapers and magazines.
It’s not difficult to see how people like O’Rourke can come along and ride a wave of rhetorical jabberwocky to the White House. As long as he says the right things, most people won’t attempt to look (or care) to see that he’s largely an empty suit. That’s not a knock on him as a person, but it is a knock on him thinking he’s prepared for the presidency.
The job is not going to get easier. With a global economy, continuing technological advances combined with the still present threat of terrorism in addition to overseas leaders (and our own) fueling divisions with populist twaddle, the president must have more under their belt than a good campaign slogan.
The country just might be better off with someone boring leading the nation.
Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an editorial writer at the Dallas Morning News. He is also a contributor to National Review.
