We’ve been watching a TV series about a news room and broadcast. It is fantastic! I didn’t know it existed. After a terrible broadcast, the Executive Producer says to the news anchor, “You are leading from fear. Be the moral center of this show. The integrity. This is Friday. On Monday I want you to come in here …and tell me if you are in.”

That was the best few seconds of television I have ever seen. Someone needs to sit our two major presidential candidates down and repeat those lines. This is the worst campaign cycle in the history of the universe. The USA is better than this! We are presenting democracy to the world as if we are a fourth-world country. Yes! Worse than the third-world countries. We are better than this railroad yard rock fight.

I want a president who will be the moral center, the integrity. Someone whom we respect, not because he or she is perfect and never screws up, but because they are good.

In the middle 1800s, Frenchman Alex de Tocqueville came to America to study our form of government—democracy—to measure whether it would be a plus for the French. His book “Democracy in America” is his debriefing. You know more of his quotes than you can guess. To me, the most important is,

“America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

Donald Trump contends (I paraphrase) that he has never asked God for personal forgiveness because he has never felt the need. Mr. Trump, America has been keeping score and making a list. We have a list you may want to use as primer.

Mrs. Clinton told us that we didn’t accurately hear what FBI James Comey said to the congressional committee. I heard him say she had not been honest. Mrs. Clinton says he didn’t say anything of the kind. I trust my hearing more than I trust hers.

I’ve been mulling 2 Chronicles 7:14 for a while. “If My people…turn from their wicked ways….” I’ve been trying to picture what that would look like in USAmerica 2016.

I want my president to know how to repent. Mr. Trump gets into trouble when he tries to be funny, cute, cynical. He may or may not have meant what it sounded like he said about the Second Amendment people. He would have benefitted with an acknowledgement that in spite of his slightly bent humor it was a bad statement. Saying I’m sorry is a powerful skill. Mr. Trump you are a better man than what you sometimes sound like.

If Mrs. Clinton is the most qualified person in history to become president, then she must follow Lincoln’s path from skeptic, agnostic, to a person of prayer with an emphasis on asking for mercy and forgiveness and then godly wisdom.

Some time in the past 24 hours, God spoke to me. It may as well have come via Facebook. He didn’t tell me who is going to be the next president, therefore, He said, I am to pray for both of them. Seriously pray. That the winner of this cage fight will have earned authority and trust and the right to be heard when they express condolences and present challenges. How is that “moral authority” ranking achieved? Sincere expressions of “I’m sorry” and—oh, you know what we teach kids whom we want to be good. Good and tough and honorable–honest, respectful.

It is odd that one of the two most distrusted people in our country will become our leader. Leader in what? As in “moral center?” “Integrity?” Repenter in Chief? How about it? Can you get it started by Monday?

Yes, Mr. Tocqueville, I hear you. To be great again—to be good again.

©2016 D. Dean Benton         writer & wonderer,         Bentonministries.com