Vetting Presidential Candidates

To the Editor:
This nation elected an African-American president, twice. We may be electing our first woman president in 2016. There are two Hispanics and two women in the early race. Have voters reached a state of enlightenment? Maybe.
A very famous man named King reminded us that what counts is the content of a person’s character, not the color of their skin. Similarly, character matters more than one’s ethnic origin or gender. Electing a president based just on these or other identities is the poorest of reasons. It ignores a wide range of qualifying questions about experience, achievements and leadership skills.
Identity politics is a tool of strategists whose only goal is the political win. In-depth vetting of a candidate is a tough job for individual voters requiring digging into many sources. Stay away from social media and the blogosphere. They’re swamps of misinformation. Be wary of far left and right websites. The framers of the Constitution saw a free press as a last line of protection against abuses of government and tyranny. That worthy vision has not played out as intended. The news media should objectively challenge all candidates. Sadly, today the media mostly supports and protects candidates of one party. By abandoning objectivity they have undermined the framers’ original idea.
In the 2008 election, Barack Obama became a media darling and was virtually anointed by it. What we got was a bright, articulate Harvard-law graduate with a gift for speech giving and little else in the way of experience, management or leadership skills. I didn’t vote for Obama, twice: not because he was black or a Democrat but because to me he lacked the experience and skills to be president. I was also troubled by the revelations about his political upbringing in the environs of Chicago-style politics and some of his associations.
Obama’s poor performance in office confirms my perception of him. We shouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton or Carly Fiorina because they are women or for Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio because they are Hispanic. Or, for that matter because a person is a Clinton or a Bush. The presidency requires more depth than that. But assessing the qualities needed in a president requires an interest in evaluating in depth, which many Americans don’t have, preferring to vote based on what they think a candidate will do for them.
Campaigns, like uninformed voters, are easier to manipulate. The media should be our champions, vetting candidates for us. But I fear their lack of objectivity and left-leaning sympathies have diminished their value in that regard.
This is a serious chink in our national armor and dangerous for the nation, because it extends beyond elections to White House policies foreign and domestic.