The job of President of the United States is one of the most unique executive roles in America. Not only does it come with more power than any other position in the country, but it is one of the few chief executive positions in which a person can land the job without proving they have the requisite skills or knowledge to do the job.
When Barack Obama was on the campaign trail, many critics feared that he lacked the experience necessary to handle the complexities of being president. Now that his first year is office is behind him, even his admirers are beginning to admit that he was not fully prepared. Unfortunately, the same could be said for almost all of the candidates who ran during the last election cycle. A few of them had executive leadership ability but none of them possessed even the basic knowledge that is needed on the first day in the Oval Office.
Obviously, on-the-job training is the only way to really learn how to become an effective president. But it would be useful if they possessed a basic working knowledge before taking the oath of office. What is needed is a plan for helping future candidates acquire the skill-set needed to be the leader of the free world—in other words, a prep school for aspiring presidents. Here’s a modest proposal for such a course and an explanation for how it would work:
Candidates for the course would signal their intention to run for the highest office in the land by applying to head of their political party. Once the candidate was accepted, the DNC, RNC, or third party organization, would fully fund the cost of the schooling and pay the “student” a salary equivalent to a second-term Congressional representative. Candidates would be provided with full health and dental benefits as well two weeks vacation per year.
The 101-week curriculum would begin the week before Inauguration Day and end just in time for the student to organize their campaign for the coming primary season.
The course would include the following seven sections:
Section I — Foundation
Course location: Great Books Program at St. Johns College
A 180 academic day program of reading and discussing with others the great books of the Western tradition. The readings, based on the curriculum of St. Johns College, would be organized into five segments: Literature, Politics and Society, Philosophy and Theology, Mathematics and Natural Science, and History. (For example, the “Politics and Society Seminar” includes: Plutarch: Lives: Lycurgus and Solo, Plato: Republic, Aristotle: Politics, Machiavelli: The Prince, Locke: Second Treatise of Civil Government, Rousseau: On the Origin and Foundations of Inequality, Marx: 1844 Manuscripts, Tocqueville: Democracy in America.)
Time: 36 weeks
Section II — Strategic
Course location: U.S. Army War College/Naval War College
The Army War College and the Naval War College prepare students to assume strategic leadership responsibilities and help them better grasp the fundamental essence of war. The academic year would consist of approximately 180 academic days, split equally between the two institutions.
Time: 36 Weeks
Section III — Diplomacy
Course: State Department (Foreign Service Exam/A-100 Class)
Foreign Service Officers are the “front-line professionals representing the Department of State at all U.S. embassies, consulates, and other diplomatic missions.” Since the president is the front of that front-line of professionals, shouldn’t they be held to the same standard?
I propose that the prep school include a two week class to prepare them for the rigorous oral and written Foreign Service Exam. Assuming the candidates pass, they’d immediately attend an abbreviated five week version of the A-100 class, the orientation training class for incoming Foreign Service Officers on the US Department of State, information on embassy operation and foreign affairs, intelligence collection and dissemination, and the roles different categories of personnel perform in the conduct of diplomacy.
Time: 7 weeks
Section IV — Economics
Course: George Mason University
The curriculum would also include a 12-week crash course in macroeconomics taught by the members of the economics department at George Mason University (Bryan Caplan, Tyler Cowen, Robin Hanson, Walter Williams, et al.). The course would include, if needed, a refresher/remedial course on statistics.
Time: 12 weeks
Section V — Management
Course location: Crash-course at McKinsey & Company
The global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company has produced more CEOs than any other company, and is referred to by Fortune magazine as “the best CEO launch pad.” Prep school students would attend a three-week crash course on business, management, and the “McKinsey Way.”
Time: 3 weeks
Section VI — Internship
Students would attend an six-week internship based on their previous experience. For example, state governors would serve in the office of a U.S. Senator to learn about legislative tasks, while legislators would shadow a state governor to learn about the role of the executive.
Time 6 weeks
Section VII — Communication
Course Location: Dale Carnegie training center
Each student would take a one week Dale Carnegie Course on Effective Communications & Human Relations in order to “learn to strengthen interpersonal relationships, manage stress and handle fast-changing workplace conditions.” Additionally, they would, “be better equipped to perform as a persuasive communicator, problem-solver and focused leader.”
Time: 1 week
Upon completion of this program, the students would be provided with a certificate of completion a list of donors to begin their year-long session of fundraising.
What courses would you include in a prep schools for potential presidents?
February 1st, 2010 | 4:29 pm
What an absolutely awful idea. Giving an official imprimatur to elitist technocrats is the last thing the country needs. Anti-intellectualism, the oddities of the electoral college and fringe third party candidates keep the debate honest.
February 1st, 2010 | 5:15 pm
If you could get it all as books on tape it would save time and travel! Do you happen to have links to these places for webcasts or books on tape?
This would also keep the elitists at bay a bit. They won’t know until its over who was educated and how skeptically the education was received. Free courses will help the ivory shirts in their towers feel the blue collars 50 year pain.
February 1st, 2010 | 5:48 pm
Joe,
I knew I should not have looked at this site. I have more “important” things to do, but this thought experiment intrigues me.
First, I would say “abilities” or “knowledge” instead of “skill-set.” Sorry, I had to get that off of my chest.
Any such system would be subject to a constitutional challenge, even if all it provided were the right to run for a place on a party’s ticket. In any case, I would leave the parties out of it. They are already too much the problem.
The system should include some means for assessment of the skills and knowledge the potential candidate already possesses, and he or she should only have to take the courses in the area where he or she has an obvious lack.
I like the great books crash course idea. I am unsure about the Carnegie course since a campaign should serve to develop and test those skills. In the alternative, perhaps the Carnegie course should come early as a kind of “weed-out” class along with the foreign service portion.
I find it interesting to consider how our past presidents would have fared under such a system in terms of how well prepared they were based on the criteria you propose. Off the top of my head, without consulting any histories or biographies, I would say the most qualified of our presidents from the WWI era on would be:
Wilson, Eisenhower and Hoover.
Then, Nixon
Next, I would put H.W. “resume man” Bush.
Then, Roosevelt and Clinton closely followed by Kennedy and Obama.
All of these would have already had at least some of the requisite knowledge and would have been capable of completing the coursework. Except, perhaps Nixon would have flunked the Carnegie course.
This leaves out two, rightly or wrongly, revered presidents – Reagan and Truman. It also leaves out, I think, Johnson, who was perhaps the most brilliant politician to occupy the office in this century, except for Roosevelt. No one else could have pulled off the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act. But, then some of the others might have known to not escalate Kennedy’s foray into Vietnam.
As I said, I am intrigued, but it also smacks of France’s system of “Grandes Ecoles” which produces brilliant, competent, often amoral technocrats.
Any such system would, of course, be quickly gamed – the reach for power knows no bounds. It would also accumulate requirements on subjects such as faith and morality, “sexuality” and diversity in response to the demands of various constituencies, and would crash from the weight of its own absurdity.
It would be better if we had a more robust system of public questioning and debate and a public that would pay attention and care about the substance. We could have, say, a retired military officer who has actually seen soldiers die ask questions about military strategy rather than a TV anchor.
Them’s just some of my random thoughts on the matter. ;)
February 1st, 2010 | 7:39 pm
But when would they have time to brush up on their Zinn and Alinsky? You know, the important stuff.
February 1st, 2010 | 8:01 pm
This is interesting because in my opinion the previous 8 years of the Bush administration were easily the worst 8 years in USA history and of course Bush was thus the worst President in USA history too.
And of course Obama inherited this toxic legacy plus a “conservative” movement that does not accept any of Obamas legislative frame-work.
February 1st, 2010 | 9:52 pm
April Fool’s Day a little early this year?
February 1st, 2010 | 10:46 pm
I would swap the St. John’s great books program for the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University. The Torrey Honors Institute is probably more rigorous. I think the program might include a stint as a teacher in an inner city school, or maybe training as a Teach for America teacher.
February 2nd, 2010 | 12:44 am
I’d add something involving personal interaction, preferably something that involves meeting and working with an extremely broad range of people. H.W. Bush famously had never seen a grocery scanner before. That’s not quite what I’m getting at, but its symptomatic of losing the human touch.
I’d say it should be something like working as a New York City cabdriver for a week or maybe as barista at any Dunkin Donuts
February 2nd, 2010 | 1:49 am
The real benefit of this approach lies in having formed a body of people – the teachers and students at the various institutions – that might actually be in a position to judge, or at least comment intelligently on, the candidates.
But no one will go along with this. So as long as we’re fantasizing, how about we just draw lots for all political positions, like classical Athens? The true benefit here is that most people are aware of how unqualified they are to wield vast power – and then maybe they’d think twice about granting it to other mere mortals who are likely no more qualified than they are.
February 2nd, 2010 | 5:09 am
It strikes me that the real issue is that the role of President has been allowed to grow beyond what is reasonable. Perhaps shrinking the job to a level even Joe Biden could handle and returning the governance of life to the people who actually live it is in order? If the same thing happened to the House and Senate and the various state-houses….
February 2nd, 2010 | 6:01 am
Careful what you wish for. I’ve found that a number of my civil war battle articles have been archived at the Carlisle Barracks War College (if I’m saying that correctly) and cited in recent cw books!
I don’t think the problem’s particularly “intellectual,” a term oft used in a pejorative sense, rather moral which some argue tends to be, culturally, a cyclical phenomenon.
February 2nd, 2010 | 12:24 pm
@ Jennifer: I don’t see anything about the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola that indicates more rigor, but perhaps you are not familiar with St. John’s College, as I am not with Biola beyond its website. At any rate, I’ll restrain myself from challenging you to a duel as liberal artists should stick together. Stop on by sometime: we are conveniently located in Annapolis, MD and Santa Fe, NM, and will raise you origins in 1696 to your > 100 years…..
Biola advertises itself as Biblically centered and training future Christian leaders, which might be controversial for the purposes of this post, a proposal for training of future presidents. St. John’s, despite the name, is secular, but I believe engaging with the primary sources (including the Bible, Augustine, Aquinas) in open discussion engenders respect for them.
All that being said, Joe Carter, please do not clutter my alma mater with political wannabes who will skim their readings for talking points!
February 2nd, 2010 | 4:46 pm
So if the people found all these pre-prepared candidates wanting and wanted to elect someone else, they wouldn’t be able to? Not so modest a proposal, is it?
And good luck selling the idea of the George Mason economics department to liberals.
February 3rd, 2010 | 2:34 am
Since the rigorously trained official candidates would almost certainly be defeated by the first Moviestar/Pro Athlete/Beauty Queen to come along, I doubt it will be thought worthy of the significant investment of time and money; it could only work if everyone else were put through a similar program to qualify them to vote, and wouldn’t that open a can of worms! You are also assuming that the right people get to define the program; who would dare bet against its degenerating into a prolonged Sensitivity and Diversity indoctrination session after the first few electoral seasons?
February 3rd, 2010 | 10:39 am
Let’s just educate the people in these concepts and let them vote intelligently for each office.
February 4th, 2010 | 3:25 am
Anyone who is talented can become a president. I love Barack Obama because of the policy that he gave us since he became our Pre.
February 5th, 2010 | 2:59 pm
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