By Amy Rudolph
Elm Staff Writer
If you were to ask someone what came to their mind when they heard “presidential”, an image would pop into their head. The image is probably of a person in a crisp business suit sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office or something along those lines. But just a nice suit doesn’t, or shouldn’t, make someone presidential. Their actions and demeanor should reflect this as well.
When you think about Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, do you see a real presidential candidate with all of the positive attributes of a president? In recent weeks, both Clinton and Trump have been trying to look about as presidential as they can, even going as far as acting how a sitting president would by meeting with world leaders. Right now, however, they’re not world leaders. They are just applicants trying to get a job promotion but are conducting themselves as if they already have the corner office. What makes this ok?
Trump recently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin supposedly for the first time. He also met with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. Forbes has called the meeting between Trump and Nieto “a win-win.” It is surprising that a meeting in which Trump was expected to enlighten Mexico as to how they will front the bill for his massive wall to keep out Mexicans would ever be considered a win-win. Trump has continued to praise Putin, which is probably still making the United States government pull their hair out, as that is not something a potential president should be saying.
Clinton has met with foreign policy leaders, but no foreign leaders directly outside of her role as Secretary of State, which she resigned from in 2013. If she has met with foreign leaders, there aren’t nearly as many news stories about it. Clinton may not have met with world leaders as of yet, but she has had her fair share of not-so-presidential behavior.
We all know about the 30,000 some odd deleted emails and have probably seen the viral video which dubbed her “Chillary Clinton” floating around online. Clinton is quick to point out ways in which Trump has shown to not be ready for the presidency, especially during her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention where she referred to Trump as “a man who you can bait with a tweet” and went on to say that Trump “can’t be trusted with nuclear weapons.”
That makes a lot of sense as we want our leader to be headstrong and rational but, even though Hillary is trying to point the finger at Trump, she has also pointed it at herself. Hillary has been baited by ridiculing tweets as well, some, if not most of them, coming from Trump himself.
Both candidates are easy to get a rise out of, and this week President Barack Obama taught them the proper way to deal with unkind remarks. President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte called President Obama “the son of a whore.” Duterte may have taken his insult lessons from seventh grade boys but still, you don’t say that about another president. Obama and his staff said nothing regarding the insult and simply cancelled the scheduled meeting between the two leaders. Just to repeat to make sure Clinton and Trump have learned this lesson: even if someone calls your mother a nasty name; do not reply to them, do not let yourself become bait.
Remaining calm and confident even when angry is very hard but something that a president needs to do. There are a lot of things that a president needs to do that regular citizens are not privy to.
The president of the United States is the hardest job in the world and the candidates need to prepare to represent themselves and our county in the best way possible by remaining as presidential as can be. One of them has until Jan. 20 to figure it out.
