{"id":533,"date":"2008-02-07T17:49:39","date_gmt":"2008-02-08T01:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=533"},"modified":"2008-02-07T17:59:59","modified_gmt":"2008-02-08T01:59:59","slug":"what-qualifies-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2008\/what-qualifies-me\/","title":{"rendered":"What Qualifies Me?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The US Constitution qualifies me to be President of the United States:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> natural-born citizen of the United States\n<\/li>\n<li> at least thirty-five years old\n<\/li>\n<li> resident in the United States for at least fourteen years.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Like I said in my first post on this subject, I meet all three requirements. Easily.<\/p>\n<p><i>&#8220;That&#8217;s fine, Mark, but it qualifies millions of others as well. What other qualifications do you have?&#8221;<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Picky, picky, picky. \ud83d\ude44<\/p>\n<p>OK, then, since you asked, I&#8217;ll have to <strike>toot my horn<\/strike> state a few relevant facts.<\/p>\n<p><b>Leadership experience<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> husband and father and grandfather\n<\/li>\n<li> missionary field director (ex)\n<\/li>\n<li> church pastor (ex)\n<\/li>\n<li> high school teacher (ex)\n<\/li>\n<li> school principal (ex)\n<\/li>\n<li> lead man on assembly line (ex)\n<\/li>\n<li> Christmas tree crew foreman (ex)\n<\/li>\n<li> textbook editing and review committee chairman (ex)\n<\/li>\n<li> mission board chairman\n<\/li>\n<li> school board secretary\n<\/li>\n<li> Anabaptist Bookstore founder and owner-operator<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><i>&#8220;Ho hum!&#8221;<\/i> you say?<\/p>\n<p><i>&#8220;Too many <u>ex&#8217;s<\/u> there,&#8221;<\/i> you say? Well, how much of the above can one man do at the same time, huh?<\/p>\n<p>Like I said, picky, picky, picky!<\/p>\n<p>But for your sake, I&#8217;ll add another category.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><b>Character and Temperament<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> patient and pleasant\n<\/li>\n<li> principled and values-driven; not into deal-making that compromises my principles\n<\/li>\n<li> good listener and open to advice\n<\/li>\n<li> not swayed from solid convictions\n<\/li>\n<li> not a buck passer (but I know how to delegate)\n<\/li>\n<li> clean spoken and even tempered\n<\/li>\n<li> tested in deep waters\n<\/li>\n<li> honest and truthful\n<\/li>\n<li> my word is good\n<\/li>\n<li> considerate and frank\n<\/li>\n<li> kind, generous, and compassionate\n<\/li>\n<li> loyal and dependable\n<\/li>\n<li> not divorced\n<\/li>\n<li> frugal and thrifty\n<\/li>\n<li> calm and steady, even under fire\n<\/li>\n<li> not a partier (&#8220;It&#8217;s fun to have fun, but you have to know how.&#8221;  &#8212; Dr. Zeus)\n<\/li>\n<li> not above apologizing the real way\n<\/li>\n<li> visionary, yet realistic\n<\/li>\n<li> deep distaste for gossip, innuendo, railing, mockery, flattery and their ilk<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Wow! I sound like a pretty good guy! \ud83d\ude33 (I better stop bragging, huh?)<\/p>\n<p><b>Other experience<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> native-fluent in Spanish (which I learned as a child in Mexico)\n<\/li>\n<li> grew up in Mexico as an MK &#8212; from infancy to mid-teens\n<\/li>\n<li> served five years in Mexico as an adult missionary\n<\/li>\n<li> military service (of the spiritual sort)\n<\/li>\n<li> reader, writer, and public speaker (My own speeches are my own, not a speechwriter&#8217;s.)\n<\/li>\n<li> blogger and webmaster\n<\/li>\n<li> a formidable chess player (in my youth, anyway)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My, my, my &#8212; tooting my own horn is a very distasteful enterprise. If that&#8217;s what it takes to be a successful politician, count me out!<\/p>\n<p>Well, this is a long enough post. I suppose there are other things that might qualify me to be President.<\/p>\n<p>And I&#8217;m sure there are some things that would disqualify me. But those, as well as the skeletons in my closet, will have to wait for another post.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, consider this question: If you used the items in the second category above as a checklist, how would each candidate for President score?<\/p>\n<p>Then this one: How would you score?<\/p>\n<p>And I consider this one: How would my wife and children score me?<\/p>\n<p>And how about God?<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US Constitution qualifies me to be President of the United States: natural-born citizen of the United States at least thirty-five years old resident in the United States for at least fourteen years. Like I said in my first post on this subject, I meet all three requirements. Easily. &#8220;That&#8217;s fine, Mark, but it qualifies &#8230; <a title=\"What Qualifies Me?\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2008\/what-qualifies-me\/\" aria-label=\"More on What Qualifies Me?\">Read more<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mark4prez","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-8B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}