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Forty two individuals have been elected to serve as the president of our great nation. Throughout our country’s history we have had numerous presidents who were rich, primarily due to family inheritance and marriage and others who overcame very humble beginnings, in what we would term in modern day language, as “growing up in poverty.”
According to historians, we have had good presidents who were rich and likewise we have had good presidents who were poor. As we look back through history, the size of their bank accounts has proven to be far less a measure of their success than “the content of their character,” in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Like many political activists, despite being on the other side of the aisle as they say, last week I watched much of the Democrat National Convention. I was struck by how many of their speakers thought it was important to take a political swipe at Senator John McCain because of his wealth. As if having money should disqualify someone from being President in the eyes of the liberals.
Surely these same Democrats would not take a poke at Franklin D. Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy for their families’ money. Have these Democrat Party activists forgotten what Joe Kennedy (President John Kennedy’s father) told a reporter when asked about how much money he spent on his son’s election: “I didn’t mind buying an election, but I wasn’t going to pay for a landslide.”
Think back to our nation’s first president. George Washington’s father was wealthy; he married a wealthy widow, worked as a surveyor, made money through land speculation and operated a successful plantation. Thomas Jefferson was wealthy. Teddy Roosevelt was wealthy. There are many other presidents that could be added to this wealthy list who served our country with great honor.
Likewise, there were presidents who overcame their family’s poverty and through their own endeavors, the sweat of their brows and the power of their thoughts captured our nation’s highest political office. Andrew Jackson was our nation’s first log-cabin president, whose parents arrived from Ireland with little or no possessions just two years before his birth. Jackson was illiterate when he entered adulthood. Abraham Lincoln described his childhood as: “the short and simple annals of the poor.” While dying of throat cancer and virtually penniless, Ulysses S. Grant wrote one of the best accounts of the Civil War that has ever been written, so that his wife could live off of the royalty payment after his death. Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan also came from humble beginnings.
We have had rich presidents and poor presidents, and what mattered in their service to the country was not the size of their bank accounts but rather their character.
Many Americans are suffering right now with the lagging economy, high fuel prices and soaring food costs. But the Democrats are unable to offer up any real solutions to these problems – so they go on the offense and try to play the “class difference” card.
In their efforts to appeal to the “middle class,” the Democrats are forgetting that Americans, regardless of where they are sitting currently on the economic ladder, still want and do believe in the American Dream; the dream that if given the opportunity anyone can achieve economic success.
As a Delegate to the Republican National Convention this week, I have been overwhelmed by the testimonials of so many of John McCain’s supporters, who personally know of his character. Tuesday night was a historic moment when Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate in 2000, spoke on behalf of his fellow senator, John McCain, telling about his service to this country and the content of his character.
This November after the blitz of television and radio ads, after the debates and the endless news commentaries, there is one key factor that rises above all else when selecting a President; it’s the content of their character. |
