When character counts in choosing a president

Americans have a good idea of how Barack Obama would do in the 2013-17 term: Just look at what he's done since 2009.

Appraising his major rivals is trickier. Should voters weigh the character of candidates or focus only on their positions? A high-minded person might say that we should just look at policy, averting our eyes from the grubby details of personality.

But if we want to ponder how a candidate would fare in office, this approach won't take us very far. Read my lips: Candidates will break their promises.

More important, they cannot anticipate all of the issues that will emerge during the next presidential term. Political scientist Amy Black points out that terrorism scarcely came up during the 2000 campaign, even though it would become the central national concern a year later.

Character counts, but let's be clear on what "character" means. When journalists use the term, they are often referring to politicians' personal lives. This kind of "character issue" can be relevant if private sins taint public behavior, as they arguably did in the Lewinsky affair, when President Clinton gave misleading testimony in federal court.

Such cases are the exception, however. Usually there is no clear link between home life and political life. Franklin D. Roosevelt was an unfaithful husband and a neglectful father, but he was still a great president.

For the purpose of choosing a chief executive, it is more important to think about public character. How have candidates conducted themselves in office, in business, or on the campaign trail? Have they shown the cardinal virtues of courage, self-control, wisdom, and justice?

Political courage is the willingness to risk one's electoral future for the sake of the greater good. In "Profiles in Courage," John F. Kennedy wrote about senators who took unpopular stands, and some of them went down to defeat.

Newt Gingrich has displayed such courage from time to time. During the 1980s and '90s, his efforts to elect a GOP House majority put him high on the Democrats' target list. He kept at it, even though they nearly denied him reelection more than once.

Nevertheless, his courage took plenty of vacations when it came to policy convictions: Expedience led him to embrace trade protectionism and pork-barrel spending.

As for another major GOP candidate, Mitt Romney's would be a short chapter in "Profiles in Courage." When he was running for senator and governor in liberal Massachusetts, he cast himself as a pro-choice moderate. When he launched his first bid for the GOP nomination for president in 2007, he became more conservative. His conversion may well be genuine, and a President Romney might actually run political risks to uphold conservative principles. But his career to date offers little precedent.

What Mr. Romney has in abundance is self-control. Thanks to his capacity for concentration and discipline, he went from earning top grades as a student to making top dollar as an executive. Everything about him – from his economic plan to his hairline – is methodically arranged. His campaign book is titled "No Apology," but a more fitting title would be "No Surprises."

1 | 2

Next