{"id":35,"date":"2016-03-07T18:34:11","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T00:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/?p=35"},"modified":"2016-03-10T18:34:46","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T00:34:46","slug":"kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/","title":{"rendered":"Kasich should stop running as \u201cHugger-in-Chief\u201d – Presidents should not soothe citizens’ souls"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"Screen$ <\/p>\n

It seemed like it had been a long day.<\/p>\n

John Kasich was doing one of his many campaign appearances, when he asked for one more audience comment. I bet he wasn\u2019t expecting the message from the student who came to the microphone. The young man fought back tears as he described his friend and mentor committing suicide, his parents getting divorced, and his dad losing his job.<\/p>\n

But even though he was in a \u201cdark place,\u201d he explained, the story had a happy ending. \u201cI found hope. I found it in the Lord, in my friends, and now I\u2019ve found it in a Presidential candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, he asked for a hug.<\/p>\n

Yes, a hug.<\/p>\n

Watch the exchange here:<\/p>\n

<\/iframe><\/p>\nKasich\u00a0responds by talking about\u00a0the \u201cpain of people all around this country,\u201d which is a fine way to deal with a rather awkward situation \u2013 an obviously distressed person still wrangling with grief and disappointment. However,\u00a0he kept going: \u201cWe don\u2019t have enough people that sit down and cry with that young man.\u201d<\/p>\nReally? Is this what America has become? A nation of voters who look to their Presidents for hugs? Candidates who encourage citizens to cry more?<\/p>\nThe young man is apparently in turmoil, and my heart goes out to him. However, this exchange is not a high point in an otherwise crass campaign season, an antidote to Trump\u2019s more acrid campaign style. As David French <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/431613\/john-kasich-needs-stop-hugging-people?target=author&tid=1048\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">pointed out in National Review<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>This is not politics in its proper place. While presidents can occasionally inspire with their own brand of political courage, with their personal example, or with stirring rhetoric, if our politicians now have to help meet our emotional needs, then we\u2019ve lost our way. Kasich is walking around the country acting like the family life minister of a particularly sappy seeker church. I don\u2019t want my president telling me to sit down and cry with people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe student said that his story had a \u201chappy ending,\u201d because it led him to an \u201cunwavering support\u201d of John Kasich. But does it? What happens when Kasich inevitably loses? How does he continue to make sense of his friend\u2019s death, his parent\u2019s divorce, and his dad\u2019s lost job?<\/p>\n\u201cOur citizens have the responsibility of not seeking spiritual meaning from politicians, and politicians have the responsibility to stay in their lane. A president is neither national parent nor national pastor, and the bully pulpit is not the place for hugs and tears,\u201d French wrote.\u00a0\u00a0 This is true. Remember when Gov. Mitt Romney had to repeatedly remind voters suspicious of his <a href='https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\/mormonism' target='_blank'>Mormonism<\/a> that he wasn\u2019t running for Pastor-in-Chief? \u00a0Well, someone needs to remind Kasich that he\u2019s not running for Hugger-in-Chief. Politics is largely about leadership,\u201d French continues. \u201cand it\u2019s time to lead our country away from the notion that a politician can serve as the balm to soothe the wounded soul.\u201d<\/p>\nI\u2019m not sure what our Founding Fathers would\u2019ve thought had they seen that clip, but I bet they\u2019d be startled at the incredible amount of stock Americans now put in their leaders.<\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/churchformen\/2016\/02\/how-father-wounds-are-changing-politics\/?repeat=w3tc\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Patheos writer David Murrow<\/a> believes broken homes are to blame. \u201cFatherlessness\u00a0has exploded in our country\u00a0over the past fifty years. In 1960\u00a0just 11 percent of U.S. children lived in homes without fathers. Today that number is 33 percent. Almost 40 percent of school-age children live in a home without their biological fathers. Fatherlessness disproportionately affects minorities and residents of the South. More than half of black children live in single-mother homes,\u201d he writes. \u201cAll this father-woundedness is beginning to show up in the way we choose our leaders. Fatherless children grow up yearning for paternal strength \u2014 but they are accustomed to maternal care.\u201d<\/p>\nIs the deterioration of the family to blame for the way we now view candidates as father surrogates? Are we now as a nation so morally and emotionally broken that we \u201cask not what we can do for our country, ask how quickly our President can empathize with us?\u201d (Or, in the case of Donald Trump, chastise us?)<\/p>\nAmerican citizens, if we want to take our nation back, we need to get our expectations right. The President is not Oprah Winfrey\u2026 And it\u2019s past time for voters stop looking to politicians to save them \u2013 emotionally or otherwise.<\/p>\nPut politics in its proper place.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Is this what America has become? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2673,"featured_media":36,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Kasich should stop running as \u201cHugger-in-Chief\u201d - Presidents should not soothe citizens' souls<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Is this what America has become?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kasich should stop running as \u201cHugger-in-Chief\u201d - Presidents should not soothe citizens' souls\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Is this what America has become?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mark Meckler\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-08T00:34:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-03-11T00:34:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/653\/2016\/03\/Screen-Shot-2016-03-10-at-6.33.04-PM.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"379\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Meckler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Meckler\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/\",\"name\":\"Kasich should stop running as \u201cHugger-in-Chief\u201d - Presidents should not soothe citizens' souls\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-08T00:34:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-03-11T00:34:46+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/e95fc54d2a84068750f5d9a181cd2421\"},\"description\":\"Is this what America has become?\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Kasich should stop running as \u201cHugger-in-Chief\u201d – Presidents should not soothe citizens’ souls\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/\",\"name\":\"Mark Meckler\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/e95fc54d2a84068750f5d9a181cd2421\",\"name\":\"Mark Meckler\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf71f8e44cbfd7951a4eb0173d2a8f27?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf71f8e44cbfd7951a4eb0173d2a8f27?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Mark Meckler\"},\"description\":\"Mark is one of the nation\u2019s most effective grassroots activists. After he co-founded and was the national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, he founded Citizens for Self-Governance to revolutionize American government. Founded in February 2012, this grassroots initiative expands and directs the ever-growing, bipartisan self-governance movement. Mark appears regularly on wide variety of television outlets, including MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business and the BBC.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/author\/mmeckler\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Kasich should stop running as \u201cHugger-in-Chief\u201d - Presidents should not soothe citizens' souls","description":"Is this what America has become?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Kasich should stop running as \u201cHugger-in-Chief\u201d - Presidents should not soothe citizens' souls","og_description":"Is this what America has become?","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/","og_site_name":"Mark Meckler","article_published_time":"2016-03-08T00:34:11+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-03-11T00:34:46+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":379,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/653\/2016\/03\/Screen-Shot-2016-03-10-at-6.33.04-PM.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Mark Meckler","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mark Meckler","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/","name":"Kasich should stop running as \u201cHugger-in-Chief\u201d - Presidents should not soothe citizens' souls","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-03-08T00:34:11+00:00","dateModified":"2016-03-11T00:34:46+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/e95fc54d2a84068750f5d9a181cd2421"},"description":"Is this what America has become?","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/03\/kasich-should-stop-running-as-hugger-in-chief-presidents-should-not-soothe-citizens-souls\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Kasich should stop running as \u201cHugger-in-Chief\u201d – Presidents should not soothe citizens’ souls"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/","name":"Mark Meckler","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/e95fc54d2a84068750f5d9a181cd2421","name":"Mark Meckler","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf71f8e44cbfd7951a4eb0173d2a8f27?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf71f8e44cbfd7951a4eb0173d2a8f27?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Mark Meckler"},"description":"Mark is one of the nation\u2019s most effective grassroots activists. After he co-founded and was the national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, he founded Citizens for Self-Governance to revolutionize American government. Founded in February 2012, this grassroots initiative expands and directs the ever-growing, bipartisan self-governance movement. Mark appears regularly on wide variety of television outlets, including MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business and the BBC.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/author\/mmeckler\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2673"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}