So many times in November, I think I  have cast an intelligent vote for which our founding fathers would be proud.  Then come the years of disappointments.  The attractive, seemingly sensible, practical, and fair-minded person for whom I voted suddenly shows an unsavory side.  That smiling campaigner who seemed poised to get constructive things done for our country in a bipartisan way now proves unworthy.  I have been duped again.

After all these years, I finally think I have figured out our problem as voters.

I thought I had been voting for one person.  Wrong!  I have been voting for multiple personas.  Here are at least four of these multiple personalities residing in that seemingly one candidate:

1) The Campaigner.
Many candidates for president mount wonderful campaigns.  They do particularly well when they vigorously attack our current herd of political sheep in Washington.  They never mention how our basic human nature makes consensus almost impossible for so many of us narrow-minded Americans.  Attractive, photogenic campaigners do not always effective presidents make.

(2) The Political Thinker / Strategist / Manipulator.
Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and Abraham Lincoln are often touted as brilliant political strategists.  The cliché reads, “To get anything done in Washington, a president must know how to exquisitely and deftly manipulate political colleagues and voters in order to get things accomplished.”  What candidate ever discusses the details of such applied chicanery ahead during a campaign?

(3) The Organizer / Administrator / CEO.
Even an MBA doesn’t present a valid credential for a prospective president.  Presidential candidates never mention the endless numbers of appointments of heads of even key federal agencies and departments during election campaigns.  They should name their cabinets before the election!  The candidate should discuss during the campaign how he or she plans to oversee the head of the IRS, VA, NSA, INS, NLRB, INS, ICE, DoE, Homeland Security, etc.

(4) The Leader / Inspirer / Role Model.
This important domain of a president’s identity is said to be grown into as his time in the White House unfolds.  We voters must use our creative imaginations to predict this crucial domain of our future leader, as we listen to the shallow TV debates conducted by media personas who take their orders from the media network moguls.

Good luck, fellow voters!

Peter Olsson, M.D. is a retired physician, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst.