Ann Landers for president

IT’S PROBABLY too late now to get Ann Landers elected
president of the United States. A pity. She was the perfect

choice.

She was the last, best hope of
our neighbor, the great republic.
Not was, is.

Unfortunately the thought
doubtless never entered her head.
Even her readers don’t think of
her as a political leader. They
think her concerns are premarital
sex, in-law fights and household
disputes about whether bathroom
tissue should be hung to be pulied
down next to the wall or away
from the wall.

Americans, like Canadians, are
not creative thinkers and tha: is
why Miss Landers is probably go-
ing to continue for the rest of her
life as a newspaper sob sister in-
stead of being what she could be,
a Maggie Thatcher with a heart
implant.

Ann Landers — Effie whatever
her original and married names
were, it dcesn’t matter — has
spent a working lifetime develop-
ing one particular quality. It is
called common sense.

Common sense is usually the
first casualty of success. There is
seldom room at the top for it.

Presidents, the chairmen of
boards of directors, generals and
Nobel prize winners have usually
had all the common sense knock-
ed out of them by the time they
get to the top together, all too
often, with their brains.

Ann still has it and deals in the
commodity daily.

If other qualifications for a
U.S. president are needed, she has
those also.

She has compassion. She has
flashes of wit. She has high integ-
rity or, if not, then limitless
discretion, which is almost as

good,

She knows about the hopes and
dreams, the sorrows and the fears
of the ordinary people of the
United States. They write and teil
her about those things every day
of the year.

Stack those qualifications, one
by one, on a pile. Common sense.

Health and Welfare
Canada

B+a

Paul
St. Pierre

PAULITICS & FERSPECTIVES

Compassion. Wit, integrity and a
decent reserve about her private
life. Finally, the knowledge of
what the ordinary Americans are
thinking.

Can you imagine attributing
those virtues to the George Bush
of the Republican party or that
pretty littl chap whatshisname
who is running for the
Democrats?

Of course, as it turns out, nei-
ther of them is going to be presi-
dent anyway. Even in early sum-
mer, it’s clear enough that inoss
Perot, the Texas billionaire, is go-
ing to win November’s election.

Time and chance have favored
Mr. Perot. He has publiciy fought
with and bested General Motors
Corp., sometimes described as the
worst-run major company in the
world.

He has a hundred million of his
own money tc spare for cam-
paigning so that it is conceivable
he could win office owing nota
single political debt.

The American psess will be
almost solidly opposed to him and
that’s a big heip also. The Ameri-
cans have about the same faith in
their newspapers as they have in

their congress and presidents.

The press will oppose him for a
private and a public reason.

The private reason is that poli-
tics is much easier to report when
only two teams play; third parties
start people thinking and asking
questions.

The public reason they will op-
pose Mr. Perot's election is that
he will decline to offer specific
policies.

If he has any sense, he will con-
tinue to refuse the specifics. He
doesn’t need them.

All Mr. Perot need do is assure
the American people that he is not
Ronnie the Tap-Dancer from
Hollywood or any other politician
prominent in recent years.

After all, he does not need to
convert a single Democrat or
Republican voter. He can do
without them all. He need only
coax back to the ballot boxes the
Americans who have quit voting
in recent decades; they are the big
majority he can tap.

Why, then, should a Canadian
regret that Ross Perot shall win
instead of Ann Landers?

Because, dear Mr. Perot, of a
fault in you for which you are en-
tirely blameless. You are male.

Women proceed by intuition
rather than by logical process, and
God knows neither big industry
nor big government is fitted for
logic.

Women are expert at interper-

_sonal relationships, whether in a

family unit or a board room.

In all human relationships,
women are natural experts in deal-
ing with the possible rather than
the ideal.

With Ann installed as president
of the U.S., we would have been
one large step closer to that happy
day when government and the
heavy lifting is left to women and
men are free to devote themselves
to proper pursuits which are
story-telling, whittling, drinking,
writing poetry, hunting, fishing
and now and then going to war.

We could all have been so hap-
py.

RL A TN OS

Friday, May 29, 1992 — North Shore News - 9

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