here are many reasons why a voter picks one political candidate over another. Issues are important, and many voters will make their choices in the upcoming primaries on issues alone. But most voters will look beyond specific programs and positions the candidates have taken to matters of character, experience, and judgment - the less tangible qualities they would like to see in whoever occupies the White House. Here are some of the characteristics we believe voters should look for:
Voters should feel that their candidate is intrinsically honest. Recent experience has shown what ill repute an inordinate amount of lying can bring to the presidency.
A president should be a leader with the courage of conviction, someone who can bind an all-too-often disparate nation together and use what Theodore Roosevelt called the ''bully pulpit'' of his office to point the way forward.
A president should be able to work with others - specifically, but not exclusively, with Congress - in order to move the country toward achieving his goals.
A president should have the ability to delegate responsibility and to make able appointments to Cabinet positions, government agencies, and the courts that go beyond doctrinaire party politics.
A presidential candidate ought to have held elective office or demonstrated an ability to manage in an administrative and political environment.
A president needs to be mindful of future generations and the good of the nation, not just the expediency of the next election.
A president should have the ability to protect and foster the nation's interests overseas and to lead in an era when the United States is the dominant power.
Voters should feel a confidence that their candidate has the wisdom and the nerve to make the most fateful decision a president can be called upon to make: whether or not to commit American men and women to combat overseas.
Last, the most intangible and unquantifiable quality of all: Voters need to feel that whoever they choose is worthy of their trust to run the most complicated and powerful enterprise on earth.
