The Man I Wanted As President

John McCain

While Presidents have to portray themselves as perfect individuals- absolutely none are. The fact they want that kind of power reminds me of a sage quote by Plato (Despite my obvious good looks, I also took school seriously): “Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it.”

And let’s be honest, we can’t point to one President without flaws. I would argue there are no presidents who weren’t without flaws. But let me explain why I think of John McCain and why I would have been honored to have him as President. Okay, we can go into the fact that his voting record sometimes disagrees with my beliefs- BUT, the man literally couldn’t raise his arms after fighting in a war the U.S. literally should’ve left for France if they felt so strongly about it- and yeah yeah Kennedy proving himself- not a good leader in my opinion. But with McCain, his father knew he was being held prisoner; he was offered to be let go first because of his dad.

For people not familiar with the Vietnam War, the policy with prisoner exchange was ‘first in, first out’- McCain actually could have been let out, but he refused special treatment and waited his turn. So, when his dad had to make a military decision to bomb the prison he knew his son was being held at, McCain replied, ‘That was his job.’

But what I liked most about McCain is he acknowledged he was an asshole. His wife at the time- and while he was, you know being tortured for years- got into a car accident. She was disabled, and when she was relieved to see her tortured husband finally back on American soil, he admits, ‘She just wasn’t the woman I fell in love with.’ He is a dick- yes, women do change over the years- but so did you- that’s life- you deal with it.

I love when men think it’s only women who age- I am always like, ‘trust me, you also were better looking in your 20s’. But, this woman still always supported McCain- and despite him being an asshole about that and other different topics- he was ill-advised by his team and selected Sarah Palin instead of Joe Lieberman to be his VP (which actually would have been brilliant for many reasons).

But much like his first wife, and not knowing the personal struggles he was dealing with besides reading his book, I would have loved to see him as President. I disagreed with some of his stances- but in the elections when he ran, I felt like I had better options.