One of the most passionate and thoughtless (the two fit together naturally) of Presidential campaigns is coming to a close, and not a moment too soon. It is by now abundantly clear that there are deep fissures in the body politic whose creation has been years in the making. In the years ahead, leaders will need to address some significant problems that were exposed, but not caused, by a campaign long on vitriol and short on insight.
Unfortunately, after the post-election dust settles, a decreasingly likely event, neither of the major party candidates is even remotely up to the task of asking the right questions, much less capable of leading the way back from the abyss. That is because they are each determined to expand the nanny state and its centripetal urge toward the bureaucratization of American life.
That leaves a choice: sit this one out, or write in somebody sensible, either of which is a perfectly sensible and honorable choice.
Several people currently in public life have the experience, judgment and temperament to assume the responsibilities of the Presidency. Each is certainly worth considering for a write-in vote. They include former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to name just a few.
This writer intends to write-in the name of Ben Sasse, a Republican, and junior Senator from Nebraska. Before his election to the Senate in 2014, Sasse was President of Fremont University in Nebraska. Sasse, who graduated from Harvard in 1994 with a BA in government, earned his PhD from Yale (in History) in 2004. He joined the faculty of the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs before going on to become Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at HHS in 2007 until the end of the second Bush Administration. In 2009, at age 37, he became 15th President of Midland University where he stayed until his election to the Senate.
Early on Senator Sasse announced he could never support Donald Trump’s quest for the presidency, a position he still holds. More than anything, Sasse can be described as a strict Constitutionalist who thinks that government should do fewer things, but do them better.
The best way to understand where Senator Sasse stands is to listen to him. The video below that contains clips from his maiden speech in the Senate is a good place to start.
JFB
Not that it matters much, but I believe that in some states the write-in candidate has to be registered as a write-in before the election for the vote to be “counted.”
I’d like to hear your thoughts on writing-in Evan McMullin. I think Ben Sasse is a great choice, but unfortunately I vote in one of those states where write-in votes are only counted if the candidate is registered.
It seems like a reasonable option to me, especially given the choices. Or to put it another way, I’d say it’s a much better choice than either Trump or Clinton. JFB