The Economy

Send in the Clowns?

June 9, 2015

Choosing an American president is a serious business, not clowning around, contends retired IW senior editor John S. McClenahen, who suggests several steps for responsible citizen involvement.

John McClenahen

For millions of Americans, the country is again engaged in a political circus not worth attending. It’s irrelevant. To the most cynical or jaded, those who would be president of the United States are a bunch of political clowns, endlessly descending from clown planes and piling out of clown cars during a quadrennial silly season.

Does the United States need more clowns? Certainly not in public service. And specifically not in the presidency.

Although an inconvenient truth for some citizens, the choosing of a president of the United States is serious business, for campaign words uttered and campaign behavior do matter. They matter as much as your company’s reasons for being in business.

That the presidential political process too often does not get the serious attention it deserves is, in part, because some candidates’ media commercials and robocalls are more intrusive than informative. In part because some candidates’ statements are more platitudes than specifics. And in part because voters are just tired of elected representatives -- in local, state, and federal government -- who are more selfish than selfless.

The vast majority of Americans are not running for president of the United States. Nevertheless, each American not on the hustings has a vital, a consequential, job to do. It is no less than to scrutinize those folks who are running for president -- and to assess content of their statements and the depth of their character.

Envision the task of evaluation in business terms -- as if you were selecting the most qualified person to preside over your organization.

Envision the task of evaluation in business terms -- as if you were selecting the most qualified person to preside over your organization, a person who would faithfully execute its by-laws and would seek change in the pursuit of excellence.

First, ask yourself what political, economic, and social issues matter most to you.

Second, review the resumés the candidates have posted and read through their statements of purpose.

Third, undertake a more detailed review of those persons whom you believe are the most compelling candidates. As part of your review, mentally or manually list candidates’ assets and liabilities.

Fourth, question the candidates -- on the Web or in person, if possible. Listen to their answers -- and observe their body language. Seek to determine if any of the candidates is a clown disguised in a pinstripe suit or a pants suit.

Fifth, go back to point No. 1 and compare your critical issues to the candidates’ stances -- or absence of stances.

Sixth, don’t hesitate to talk to other people about issues and candidates, but also don’t hesitate to keep your own counsel.

Taking part in the serious business of election a president of the United States is relevant. Not to take part is silly.

This is another of a series of occasional essay by John S. McClenahen, an award-winning writer and photographer who retired from IndustryWeek as a senior editor in 2006.

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.

      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).

      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.

      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”

      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.