I have decided not to run for president of the United States in 2020.
The decision was not made easily, because I believe I have many attributes that would make me a president who would be no worse than … say … James Buchanan or Warren G. Harding. I am arguably better looking than Millard Fillmore, and am in much better health than William Henry Harrison, who died after only 30 days in office.
Yet, several dark corners in my past make me doubt I could pass the public scrutiny that comes with such a run for office in 2020. Although I think my values and sensitivities in the 21st century have been largely exemplary — with only a few serious missteps that were quickly recognized and reversed as much as possible with apologies and self-deprecation — my 20th century record is spotty, to say the least.
I am now in my seventh decade. In each of those decades I have done things I now see as wrong. I look back and recognize many of these shortcomings and regret most of them — certainly the ones that hurt other people — but I can’t change the fact that they happened. These hurtful acts were wrong, even the ones I did not recognize as wrong at the time.
Today, I work consciously to be a better, more-loving person. Yet, I suspect that if I am still alive in my eighth decade, I will look back at some of my words and deeds today and shake my head in disgust. And, if I should change my mind and run for president, I suspect much of my past will return to haunt me during the campaign.
So let me clear the air with some confessions:
I have acted and spoken in ways I now consider racist.
I have acted and spoken in ways I now consider sexist.
I consumed alcohol when I was under the legal age and smoked marijuana when I was a college student.
I have viewed women as sexual objects and at times treated them as such.
I have embraced hundreds of people — both men and women — without asking permission or even considering the idea I should.
These five admissions do not cover all the misdeeds throughout my life, but I think they are the main ones I will be asked about during my media interviews in the event of a run for office.
In my defense, I hope the voting public will realize I did not commit all these violations of moral integrity and good judgment at the same time. The intensity of my wrongdoings in individual categories varied by decade, age and social situation.
For instance, sexual objectification of women was a tremendous problem from about my 13th birthday until about my 25th birthday, but is not a major struggle today. Underaged drinking ended when I turned 21 and the marijuana thing was only part of a brief attempt in college to become a folksinger.
I do find that the uninvited hugging hasn’t improved much as I age, but I am working on it. I grew up in a family where we even hugged the policeman when stopped for speeding. I stop short of kissing people I meet on both cheeks in the mode of the French, but am having to learn that even a “sideways hug” in the tradition of the German Lutherans may still require permission.
However, the racism and sexism problems have been a constant and continuing hill to climb. Most of us who entered this world right after World War II started life deep in a “group think hole,” where racist and sexist ideas were imprinted on us like baby ducks. We blindly learned to think the way the group thought, and much of the group thinking was a self-serving, prejudicial, dehumanizing mess.
I never was so oblivious to the differences between right and wrong that I dressed in blackface, wore a KKK hood or burned a cross. Nevertheless, I have listened to and repeated racist and sexist jokes and kept silent in the face of bigotry. I have too often pigeon-holed the female gender into narrow definitions of “a woman’s place” — limiting their freedom while adding to my own.
So there you have it. I knew you would want to know why I am not planning a run for president of the United States of America. However, please clip this column and save it, just in case I change my mind. I don’t want to have to explain this all again at my first press conference.
Bud Herron is a retired editor and newspaper publisher who lives in Columbus. He served as publisher of The Republic from 1998 to 2007. His weekly column appears on the Opinion page each Sunday. Contact him at [email protected].
