You'll never find a presidential candidate without a large ego. It takes a big ego to be a world leader. Look at the great figures in history, be they heroes or villains, they are larger than life. But the truly great leaders, while possessing big egos, also know the value of humility. They recognize the dangers of ego and have learned how to manage their own.
There are a host of big problems waiting for the next occupant of the White House-- war, economic uncertainty at home, and a tarnished image around the world. This president will need extraordinary relationship-building skills, particularly when dealing with ego-maniacal leaders like Russia's Vladimir Putin, North Korea's Kim Jong-il and others. Challenging times lay ahead of us and at the feet of the next Commander in Chief.

Political policies aside, in a perfect world we'd have a president with just enough ego, who is truly genuine, remarkably courageous and determined, and at the same time, deeply humble. Nelson Mandela is the ultimate example of leading with courage. He was driven by a noble cause and endured terrible suffering to find a way to achieve freedom for his people.

How are the current presidential candidates managing their egos?

Barrack Obama is a great orator and clearly thrives on large crowds and applause. He inspires people with his message of hope and the promise of change. He also seems to be buying into his own press that he's a savior-of-sorts and the next JFK.

Early on in the campaign, Obama's speeches had an air of genuineness and humility. You could see it in his body language and hear it in his voice. It felt real. After all these months and playing to huge, adoring international audiences is it possible that his humility has shrunk? Today he appears to swagger onto the stage and seems to be speaking more from his head than from his heart. It raises questions as to whether there is true alignment between who he really is and what he says.

John McCain, on the other hand, appears more authentic and less ego-driven. But is this true? It would be important for us to know. His body language is stiff and awkward-- is this because of his war injuries or is it a sign of humility? Or both? Over many months, his stage presence has remained unchanged. He's focused, has no airs and graces, and enjoys a joke. His style may be less inspiring than Obama's, but is it because he's less interested in bells and whistles? Is it that his life experience gives him a different kind of quiet confidence, one that comes from years as a prisoner of war and a man who's lived a full life? Or is he just simply uninspiring?

We know that McCain has an ego problem-- his temper. He's spoken openly about it and seems to be aware that he needs to manage it. But can he? Once again, these are things we need to think seriously about.

The entire election season has been filled with examples of ego gone awry. Hillary Clinton's ego got in the way of her achieving the Democratic nomination. Her message was all about "I, me, and mine." Then there's her husband Bill, whose ego hurt his own image during her campaign. John Edwards publicly blamed his ego when his affair with a campaign photographer was recently revealed.

So will it be political policies that decide the election in November? Age? Race? I truly believe the candidate who shows the most genuine display of personal authenticity, will be the one who wins. People are smart -- they know when someone is not authentic. They know pseudo realness from genuine realness. And guess what the word for that is? Humility! We want -- and need -- a president who is a visionary, who is confident, courageous and bold. And one who mixes that with a strong dose of integrity and humility.

We absolutely cannot afford a leader whose ego will become involved in the enormous decisions that have to be made and the critical relationships that have to be forged. It's up to the American public to watch and listen for the signs of ego and the signs of authenticity and vote accordingly.

By: Sandy Gluckman, Ph.D.
Sandy Gluckman, Ph.D., teaches 'power behavior, power communication for powerful results' to leaders and teams worldwide. These skills are available in her new book "Who's in the Driver's Seat?' Take the Positive Power Quiz at http://www.sandygluckman.com/pos-2.htm

When you write blazing articles about Governor Palin, you aren't just hurting her, you're hurting her husband and children. Have you thought about that? No, she didn't bring this on herself. You've chosen to disrespect a women who deserves our respect for her accomplishments. And when you put her down, it has to hurt her husband and kids. How would your family feel if one of your family members was being put down this way?

When you question her ability to be a mother and a mayor or governor, you question all women in that position. (It should follow that you're questioning fathers in the same position, but that's obviously not what's happening.)

When you question whether or not being a mayor of a small town is a difficult job, you're asking the same thing of small town mayors all over the country. Sure, there may be some who work part time. But my experience in small towns has been different. They have worked full time and worked hard to fulfill their duties.

When you think that being a Governor isn't such a big deal, you're saying that to governors all over the country. Or they probably think you are.

If you question Governor Palin's faith, are you also questioning the faith of millions all over the country? The Barna Group (the group that does church statistics) says that their latest polls show that 44% of all Americans are born again Christians and 7% are evangelical. Are you questioning their faith when you question Palin's?

One of the churches with which Palin has been associated is the Assemblies of God Church. According to their web site, there are almost 2 million members and almost 3 million people who attend their churches. When you question Sarah Palin's faith, are you also questioning theirs?

55 million people in America are Republicans. When you make fun of Sarah Palin for being a Republican, are you also making fun of them?

In the United States, approximately 350,000 families are affected by Down syndrome. Approximately 5,000 children with Down syndrome are born each year. If you want to make an issue of the Palin family having a baby with Down syndrome, have you considered that you might be causing distress in some of these other families as well?

When you joke about Governor Palin having been a beauty queen, you are disrespecting other women who have won pageants.

Did you know that....

Oprah Winfrey won the 1971 Miss Fire Prevention and Miss Black Tennessee titles.

Diane Sawyer was chosen as America's Junior Miss in 1962. She used her pageant scholarship money to attend Wellesley College, worked as a weathergirl, then press aide to Richard Nixon during his presidency and after his Watergate resignation.

Paula Zahn competed in numerous pageants and made the finals of the 1973 Miss Teenage America Pageant. She then entered TV journalism, wracking up credits on The Health Show, ABC's World News This Morning, and CBS This Morning with Harry Smith.

Imelda Marcos reigned as Miss Manilla 1953 before reigning as First Lady of the Philippines by the side of Ferdinand Marcos.

Deborah Norville, from Inside Edition and Today, was Georgia's Junior Miss in the 1976 America's Junior Miss Pageant.

Girls, teens and young adult women often compete in beauty contests so they can get scholarship money. Are you trying to make them feel bad by making fun of Governor Palin?

When you question Sarah Palin's choice of college, are you saying that if one does not attend an Ivy League school that one's college experience is not valuable? Do you know how many people in the United States attend colleges other than Ivy League universities? Are you disrespecting them as well?

When you say, "Well, she was just the Governor of Alaska. That doesn't count. The population is only 670,000 the same as the city of Memphis. That's nothing" - do you understand that you've insulted an entire state?

If you meant to do these things, then carry on. There's no hope for you.

But if you didn't mean to make fun of so many people, perhaps you'll stop and think about that the next time you're ready to show disrespect.

Women, when we discover another woman who has been successful in balancing career and family, someone whose faith is strong, and whose resolve is unshakable, we should be rejoicing.

In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was passed giving women the right to vote. In 1963 Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, openly criticizing the prevailing stereotypical role of the American housewife and mother.

Forty-five years later, some are suggesting that this strong and successful woman would be better off at home with an apron around her waist. Have we made no progress at all?

Where does it say that to be a "real" feminist one has to be a liberal and a Democrat? Where is it written than in order to be successful in balancing career and family one has to be pro-choice? Have you considered that if you decide that there is only one choice - abortion - that there is not really any choice at all? If you're against anyone making a choice to choose life over abortion, then perhaps you should rethink your position and call yourself "pro-abortion."

Oh, and by the way. When you cannot think of any REAL arguments for your case and merely toss around the words "moron" and "idiot" to any who disagree with your politics, don't worry. We don't take offense at all. We just consider the source. Since you have chosen to NOT research your own candidate or your own party (except for believing what any blogger spills out) we know that you don't really understand. We know that if you did, you'd either be making wiser decisions or at least keeping quiet about the foolish ones you have made.

By: Marilyn Mackenzie
Marilyn Mackenzie has been writing about home, family, faith and nature for over 40 years. She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com which is a site for Creative Writers. Her portfolio can be found at http://kenzie.writing.com

What we are witnessing today is not a failure of the free market. It is the failure of social engineering as economic policy. And it's a disaster of epic proportions.
Nobody's disputing that this disaster was precipitated by irresponsible lending practices, or that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were at the root of the whole debacle, though the ramifications have now spread far beyond them. What people are arguing about is the interpretation of the events that led us here, what should have been done differently, and what should be done to contain the fallout now that the pyramid scheme has blown up.

Hard core free market proponents, like me, will say that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were a mistake from the beginning. The government should have kept its nose out of the home mortgage industry, and not attempted to manipulate the market to enable people who couldn't afford houses to buy them. On the other hand, proponents of the "government is good" and "more is better" philosophy will say the problem was that there wasn't enough government manipulation. (Could there ever be?)

But, curiously, in 2005, when Alan Greenspan told Congress that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk,'' and the Senate Banking Committee proposed a reform bill requiring tighter regulation of those two entities, the Democrats opposed it, on a strict party line vote, crushing the bill before it got out of committee. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Christopher Dodd all voted against it. (John McCain, incidentally, was one of the co-sponsors of the bill.)

Huh? Democrats voting against more regulation? Republicans voting for it? One would expect Republicans to favor less regulation, as regulation is antithetical to a free market. But, in this case, it already wasn't a free market. A free market has its own natural checks and balances. Once the government has removed or impaired any of those natural checks and balances, the market loses its equilibrium and bad things can happen. What the Republicans were attempting to accomplish by proposing tighter regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was to artificially restore the natural constraint that had been removed by shifting the risk from the lenders to the taxpayers.

In a free market, the desire for profit is counterbalanced by the aversion to risk. If the risk incurred by an investment or loan outweighs the profit potential, it's not in the investor's/lender's best interest to participate, so the transaction doesn't occur. However, when the government removes the risk associated with a bad transaction, by assuming the risk itself, then the natural constraint of risk aversion that would apply in a truly free market is eliminated, and investors will take risks that would otherwise be unacceptable. That's what happened in the case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The taxpayers assumed the risk, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made unsound investments.

In today's mortgage industry, mortgages are always packaged up and sold to aggregators, who sell them to bigger aggregators, with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the top of the pyramid as the granddaddies of all aggregators. Because Fannie and Freddie had no risk aversion, lenders further down the chain were free to take risks they wouldn't otherwise take, knowing the aggregators would buy up the high risk (subprime) mortgages anyway. This was intentional.

Affordable housing is a euphemism for making home loans available to people who would not qualify for a loan under a free market system. The reason someone would not qualify for a loan in the free market is because they present too high a risk. In other words, they can't afford to pay off the loan. Fannie and Freddie represented a wide scale experiment in social engineering. It was an attempt to use federal policy to "level the playing field" so anybody could "afford" to buy a home whether they could actually afford to pay for the home or not.

When the Republicans wanted to tighten the reins on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and preclude them from making excessively risky investments, it would have meant they could no longer fulfill the mission of making homes "affordable" to those who couldn't afford them. That's why the Democrats opposed the bill. And that's why we're where we are today.

The great experiment in social engineering has now failed. Dramatically. And, because the experiment was backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. taxpayer, it is our money, and our future, that is getting called in as collateral for this grand social experiment.

Anybody who blames this failure on the free market is either dishonest or naive. It was liberal social policy masquerading as economic policy that got us into this mess. If you want to see more of the same in the future, there are plenty of Democrats still in Congress. And there's one running for president, too.

By: NotYourDaddy
NotYourDaddy is a conservative libertarian who believes in free will and the free market. NYD thinks the role of the government is to protect the rights and liberties of its citizens. Stop there.

NYD's attitude toward ever-expanding government can best be summed up by snarling "Get your hand out of my pocket and leave me alone!"

Visit NotYourDaddy's blog at Government is Not Your Daddy.

I'm Italian and I'm proud that I'm a first-generation American. My mother's family are all Communists. At least they were, until WWII. Benito Mussolini was a wonderful, inspiring speechmaker, who dazzled the crowds. His official title was "His Excellency Benito Mussolini, Head of Government, Duce of Fascism, and Founder of the Empire." Mussolini appealed to the people with envy of "the elites." He promised to level the economic disparity in Italy.
So why the history lesson? Today's election is not between the Democrats and Republicans. It's about the course of American history being dramatically changed. I only wish our country would have the real political debate: Socialism or Democracy?

All I've heard from Obama supporters is that they "believe in him." They are unhappy and disappointed with our present government. He gives heartfelt speeches, and people want to believe that any change will be good. They hate what's happening and are willing to overlook the obvious: Obama promises Socialism.

Our current administration is about to give government control of banking. If Obama is elected, he'll quickly transform the rest of our government: 1) We presently have public (government) schools controlling the education of our children from age 5 to 18. Obama promises government schools from preschool through college. 2) Our health care is in a mess. Obama promises universal (government) health care. 3) Obama promises government subsidizing of housing. 4) Obama promises government minimum pay raise and that you will be guaranteed a job (the government will even train you, if needed).

He says all this will be paid for by the rich (envy of the elites). Even with the present banking crisis, Obama says he plans to move forward on all his promises. Unfortunately, the "rich" include you and me. There will be a great redistribution of wealth, not only from the rich, but the middle class as well.

Sounds like Socialism: "Modern socialism originated in the late nineteenth-century working class political movement. Karl Marx posited that socialism would be achieved via class struggle and a proletarian revolution, it being the transitional stage between capitalism and communism. All socialists share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth into a small section of society who control capital, and creates an unequal society. All socialists advocate the creation of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly."

So please, don't pretend that the only change in November will be which party is in control of the White House. My mother's family were proud to be Communists. They actually believed it to be the best option (at least initially).

If you believe that Socialism is the best option for America, then we'll have that discussion. Let's frame the present political debate as it really is. Not Obama vs. McCain, but Socialism vs. Democracy.

By: Nonna Joann Bruso
Nonna Joann Bruso is an author, but not a political analyst. You don't have to be a political analyst, to see that we no longer have a free press and we're in danger of voting away the rest of our rights. Obama's promises will quickly bring about a socialist government. Remember, Germany and Cuba voted for change and got more change than they bargained for. Forward, or copy and send, this article to your email list.