Why I am voting for Theo Epstein for president

The two major political parties have again failed the American people.

The quality of presidential candidates served up by both Democrats and Republicans during the last six election cycles has been mediocre at best. This year they’ve outdone themselves: we have on the Democratic ticket a leader of a long-lived criminal enterprise, and the Republicans are offering us a braying jackass with no cognitive control over what words spew from his mouth.

We got far better candidates when party bosses met over whiskey and cigars, filled the room with smoke, picked a candidate they thought could win and serve ably and then boarded their private railroad coaches and went home.

There are better people around, many of them, but they are not willing to submit themselves and their families to the two-year-long bedlam of so-called debates; beauty contest “party primaries”; crisscrossing the country dozens of times to see cornfields in Iowa, sand in Florida, grime in decaying northern cities and smog in Los Angeles; and eating bad food everywhere. What a life.

There are better people, and I am going to vote for one of them. His name is Theo Nathaniel Epstein. Never heard of him?

He is 42 years old. A Yale graduate, he worked part-time for the Baltimore Orioles baseball team while earning his degree. After graduation he went to work for the San Diego Padres and, while there, he earned a law degree, but has never practiced law.

Then he went to work for the Boston Red Sox, a team noted for disappointing its fans for nearly all of the 20th century. He was promoted to general manager of the Red Sox in 2002, at age 28. Two years later, he led Boston to its first World Series Championship since 1918, a few months before the end of World War I.

Five years ago he left Boston and moved west to Chicago, where he became president of the Chicago Cubs, another team that had dismayed its fans for well over a hundred years. The last time the Cubbies were World Champions had been 1908.

Last night the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. Epstein had made the Cubs world champions in just five years. The story of how he did it, both in Boston and Chicago, is widely available, and you should read it. Whether you care about baseball or not, learn about Theo Epstein.

He did it by being a leader.

Without going into detail here, suffice it to say that Epstein is extremely smart, articulate, good-looking, an incredible judge of people and talent, and is able to rule and make tough decisions while still being well liked, even loved, by those he works with and millions of other people in Boson and Chicago. One notable detail: 22 of the 25 players on the Cubs roster at the start of this season had been obtained for them by Epstein.

Neither Clinton nor Trump has demonstrated a tiny fraction of the leadership skills, character or intelligence of Theo Epstein.

I am writing him in on my ballot for President of the United States on November 8th.