Published: March 10, 2008 03:58 pm         

THEREFORE I AM: Can we elect a president we KIND OF like?

Does anyone really have lofty expectations of our next president? It's the same story in every election where there's no incumbent: "Vote for me. I'll be the difference-maker." Then someone gets elected, and it's Beltway business as usual while we try to remember why we voted for Candidate A over Candidate B in the first place.

I guess you could say that my aspirations for a president have been ratcheted down over the past few elections. I'm not reaching quite as high as Dr. King did, but I have a dream of my own: Can we, as Americans, support, nominate and elect a president who isn't vehemently hated by half of the constituency? Is that too much to ask?

Wikipedia.com names George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt as three presidents who are consistently ranked atop lists of greatest U.S. presidents (whatever "greatest" means). Two of those guys are thought so highly of that someone decided to carve their likenesses into a South Dakota mountain. If having your mug blasted into the landscape isn't a kudo, I don't know what is. Even with Washington's and Lincoln's "greatness" almost universally agreed upon, there were still plenty of Americans who despised them and thought they were doing a terrible job at the time. Read 1776 by David McCullough and you'll see that not everyone was ready to place George on their bottom dollar. If you could go back to the 1860s and ask a slave owner what he thought of Honest Abe, you'd get a less than glowing review.

No one, not even money presidents, pleases everyone.

Some people have suggested that Ronald Reagan should be added to Mount Rushmore, but I don't see that happening. First off, there's really not a lot of room up there. It's crowded as it is. Teddy looks like he slipped in at the last moment right when the photographer said, "Say cheese!" That Roosey. He was always a bit of a card.

In more recent polls of great presidents, Reagan often ranks right up there with Truman, Ike and Kennedy. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Ronald. Back in March of 1981, I was sitting in the gym of Cedar Bluff Intermediate School waiting for my school bus to arrive. While I and a few hundred of my schoolmates sat, a teacher walked in and told us that Reagan had been shot.

What happened next has bothered and angered me even today, 27 years later. A fair portion of the students cheered and clapped their hands. You'd have thought the teacher had just told them they were getting free ice cream. It was surreal. Sometimes I wonder if I dreamed it, but I know I didn't. You should have seen the look of shock and horror on the teacher's face. It was probably quite similar to the look on my 10-year-old face. To this day I cannot explain why some of those kids laughed, clapped and cheered, but I haven't mentioned a word about it until right now.

I've often wondered if anyone else in the gym that day remembers what happened. I'm sure some of the teachers do. That's the kind of thing that made them question their career choice. So that being said, I guess I wouldn't mind if a few South Dakotans decided to break out the dynamite and add Ronnie's face. Or better yet, find out who the trolls were who cheered that day in 1981 and have THEM do it. There might be a little space between Teddy and Abe. "Say cheese!"

I guess I'm tired of the divisiveness: Republican vs. Democrat, us vs. them. We don't all have to love the president, but wouldn't it be nice if most people at least kind of liked the president? Of the three horses left — Hillary, John and Barack — Hillary is the most polarizing candidate. She's the New York Yankees of modern American politics. The people who like her really, really like her, but the people who don't like her really, really don't like her. There's almost no middle ground with her.

Even candidates I feel good about for a while inevitably end up disappointing me. I voted for Bill Clinton — once, the first time. I voted for George W. Bush — once, the first time. When both these guys came up for re-election, my passion had evaporated, and my votes went to some unelectable dark horse whose name no one can even remember today. I guess you could call them protest votes.

What this country needs is someone who can unite most Americans and make them feel good about their leadership. Heck, at this point I'd be happy with a president who could unite a few hundred intermediate-school students. That's something I haven't seen in quite a while.

David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@tds.net.