Is It Ok If Our Presidential Candidates Are Just ”Products”? Are There Any Qualifications A President Should Have? Should Americans Be Aware Of What the Campaign Process Does to their Future Leaders?

The Best Paragraph I've Read: In my experience, if you see a CEO chasing press, that person’s company is probably headed for trouble. The energy spent burnish­ing your image could almost always be better spent managing your people, ferreting out problems, clearing obstacles, honing processes, talking to customers, selecting vendors, recruiting team members and working on new initiatives. With Manhattan Prep, the most important thing was to do a good job for each student. The most powerful growth driver would be a satisfied student telling his or her friend, “Hey, this company did a great job, you should give them a try.” That is the way most businesses operate: If you do a good job and make people happy, then the business grows. In the context of presidential politics it was the opposite. The job was simply the seeking of attention. You would seek press vir­tually all of the time. Interviews and press — or an in-person event that hopefully would attract press — were the job. When I wasn’t on the road, I would wake up on a typical day and head to a television studio first thing in the morning, go to the office to film some digital ads, do several interviews and then head to a grassroots fundraising event that night. This paragraph comes from a Politico.com essay written by Andrew Yang.  The essay is titled: "When I Ran for President, It Messed With My Head."  You can read the essay here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/03/andrew-yang-book-excerpt-campaigning-514967  Zac and Don discuss Mr. Yang's essay.  They wonder how authentic any presidential candidate is.  They talk about Mr. Yang's description of a candidate being a "product."  They also wonder if there are actual qualifications that a presidential candidate should have.  Finally, they discuss Mr. Yang's statements about how a campaign can really change a candidate's ability to have empathy.