Sunday, May 31, 2015

The One Major Barrier to Winning the Presidency

As everyone knows, your average joe-in-the-bowling-alley is not apt to make it to the Presidency. First, he's likely too smart to want the job, but also he's not keen on anything cutting into his lengthy bowling schedule.

On the other hand, if he truly dreamed, craved, and worked hard for the job, he has a shot.

Unless he has a young son, then he can just forget it.

Having a boy child is the number one impediment to winning the Presidency. Think about it. In my lifetime, there has never been a President who had a young son living at the White House. JFK was there for a tiny period before he was eliminated, but maybe (and I've always wanted to use this in a sentence that made sense) he's the exception that proves the rule.

So, I've wondered Why? What is it about young sons that precludes an otherwise completely qualified person from winning the Presidency? I've come up with a few theories:

1.  Maybe the man, and so far it's only been men, who has daughters feels incomplete as a man, and that inadequacy drives him even more fiercely toward the Highest Job in the Land. Where you live real close to that tall, majestic, pointy, white thing.  I'll call that the Freudian reason.

2.  Maybe the man with daughters and a wife, being surrounded by so much female awesome-ness, naturally and easily rides the wave of that support, brilliance and nurturing straight into the Great Beach House. Let's call that the Friedan reason.

3.  Maybe it's because boys are just such little doofuses. (O.K., I'm speaking generally, am not talking about your precious son, g-son, nephew, neighbor, boyfriend, etc.) A little American boy tends to be harder to control, more likely to be caught sticking a french fry up his nose, re-arranging his crotch, looking stupid when he should be angelic, and so forth. The candidate "arrangers", and later, the White House "arrangers" have a hard enough time keeping tabs on the President, let alone a pre- or post-hormonal boy. This is, of course, the French Fry reason.

4.  Maybe it's because, well, just because. The Fickle Hand of Fate reason.

If anyone has any other theories on this apparent phenomenon, I'd love to hear it!