In my opinion, the five most important qualities that should be possessed by our next President are as follows (in order of importance):
1. Courage: I had a dream one night in which a character told me that courage is more important than intelligence for a head of state, because you can rent brains, but not balls. In the conscious world, I believe that was correct.
2. Judgment: This is not the same thing as pure intellect; it is the ability to make the correct decision in 51/49 situations, and to evaluate people.
3. Empathy: You can’t interact successfully with either your friends or your enemies if you can’t put yourself in their shoes.
4. Communications skills: No elaboration necessary.
5. Patience: In the real world, problems are rarely resolved overnight. Blustering, throwing temper tantrums, and changing course abruptly in mid-stream are not effective management skills.
Who among our current crop of candidates best exemplifies these character traits? That will be up to the electorate, but if you read the descriptions carefully, you can probably guess, at a minimum, who should be disqualified.