There are not a lot of reasons that the wisdom of General of the Army and 34th President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower needs to be discussed. There have been volumes written about the man. Yet, in light of current events, it is worthy to mention just two points that President Eisenhower made more than fifty-five years ago and how those points relate to today.
As the 1956 presidential campaign was beginning to be talked about, President Eisenhower offered Vice President Nixon virtually any post in the Cabinet in a new administration. He did this because Vice President Nixon, although otherwise qualified, had never run anything. Nixon was a lawyer, had experience as an officer in the US Navy during World War II, was a legislator in the US House of Representatives and in the US Senate, but had never run anything.
We all know that former President Obama never ran anything either. He had experience as a community organizer, a university teacher, a state legislator, and even part of a term as a US Senator. But he hadn’t run anything. Now, compare President Obama’s leadership and accomplishments to that of President Trump’s first few weeks. One significant difference, President Trump had run something - a large multi-national corporation.
Then, in January of 1961, just a few days before Eisenhower would become “the former President”, he delivered a farewell address to the nation. One of his major points in this speech was a warning to all Americans against the efforts of putting partisan politics over national interests. We have seen the effects of partisan politics over national patriotism when more than sixty Democrats in Congress failed to attend the recent presidential inauguration. We are seeing the results of partisan politics over national interests when Senate Democrats walk out of committee hearings on the Cabinet appointees. We are seeing the results of partisan politics over national interests with the party-line rejection by Senate Democrats of President Trump’s Cabinet appointments. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just recently lamented about the partisanship pranks currently so evident in Congress.
I share these thoughts for two reasons. First, there will be a Primary Election for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in a few short weeks on February 21st. Get informed and get involved prior to the Primary. Carefully evaluate the education, experience, and employment of the three candidates and vote for the candidate that will do the best job of running Wisconsin education programs the next four years. Second, the next time there is an election for a legislator, either state or federal, and one or more of the candidates has legislative experience, make sure that legislator always voted for the interests of the constituents and didn’t just blindly follow the party line.
Isn’t it amazing that political problems of today were identified more than a half-century ago by then President Dwight D. Eisenhower?