Just for fun, I’m going to design my own president, a hybrid of the qualities that I have admired in a few recent commanders in chief and some I’ve extracted from our history books.

First, I want a president with the character of Jimmy Carter. He or she will truly care about all Americans and would gladly pick up a hammer and a box of nails and help build housing for the poor and the downtrodden. I’d like him or her to have Carter’s faith, too, not necessarily institutional faith, but a belief that he or she has been granted the privilege to be the leader of the free world by a higher power. Winning the election puts the president in the White House to serve the nation and to inspire us to be the best Americans we can be.

I want a president like Abraham Lincoln, someone who lacked the advantages that wealth can offer, a self-made person who can empathize with an average paycheck earner. Humble roots won’t allow the perfect president to wow us from a stroked ego or a political resume. Give me a president like Abe, who gave the money he made as a youth to his father and learned to appreciate the value of a dollar earned and a dollar saved.

Lincoln battled depression much of his adult life with his sleepless worries regarding the deaths of men from both sides of the Civil War. This made him human, but a human strong enough to still govern with diligence and sensible authority. I admire someone who is sensitive about the lives of the people he presides over, even those who oppose his politics.

I want a leader with the official presence of Ronald Reagan, a man who spoke with a decorum that the highest office in the land should command. Politics aside, a president should carry himself or herself presidentially. A child should be able to see the president walk by him and be in awe that this man or woman acts with the dignity and the respect that comes with the most prestigious office title in the world.

I’d like a leader with the mettle of Theodore Roosevelt. Sidney Milkis, professor of politics at the University of Virginia wrote that a president must have the moral fiber to take on big business and lobbyists. Roosevelt was known as the “Great Regulator,” a man who confronted powerful corporations to protect the welfare of society. He went head to head with wealthy financier J.P. Morgan who had violated an antitrust act and created an industrial monopoly. Despite being a Republican who, by party line, supports corporate goals to increase their profits, Roosevelt spearheaded a lawsuit against Morgan that forced the tycoon to dismantle his company. My president would support the small-business owner, the backbone of the American economy.

Unlike his or her predecessors, this president will deliver the State of the Union Address in front of a live audience of American citizens chosen by a lottery system instead of congressmen and women who hoot and holler their party lines.

Here’s another major detail the citizens of this country deserve. We must be given the absolute truth. Before any speeches or debates are aired on TV, an objective third party would get to confirm the delivered facts so that there are no twisted or untrue statistics used as political propaganda.

This one’s a biggie. My president wouldn’t need to have all the privileges of a good family. I’ll take a Herbert Hoover type. He was an orphan who worked as a mining engineer before entering politics. Let’s add an Andrew Jackson quality, too. As a child, Jackson was a bully, but only to protect his younger and weaker friends from other bullies.

Another significant quality in a president is he or she must address the uncontrollable rise of anger in this country. Give me a leader who will tackle the problem from the ground up and help build unity. We need someone to help calm our hearts like Franklin D Roosevelt did with his fireside chats.

Discuss a different topic every month. First, it might be gun violence. Every day in America, more than 100 Americans are killed with guns and 200 more are shot and wounded. The effects of gun violence extend far beyond these casualties. It shapes the lives of millions of Americans who witness it, know someone who was shot, or live in fear of the next shooting. Another topic could be the alarming suicide rate. Nearly 49,000 Americans took their own lives in 2018.

I wouldn’t mind a president with young children like John F. Kennedy, who would provide working parents affordable or free child care and lower college tuitions so our young adults don’t graduate six figures in debt. Give me one who would also sign a bill for the construction of more vocational schools so the academically disenfranchised can learn hands-on trades.

Build an economy that doesn’t demand that people spend more time on their jobs than they do at home. In the United States, 85.8 percent of males and 66.5 percent of females work more than 40 hours a week. Many are stressed by their jobs and are not there because they love to work. The average American has fewer than five hours of free time a week.

I’ll accept a president who didn’t even get my vote, if his or her on-the-job performance proves to me that I had pulled the wrong lever in the polling booth.

Well, there’s my perfect American president created out of my imperfect mind, a composition of eight other former title holders. Of course, I’ve set the bar very high, but then again, as Americans, shouldn’t we all do the same?

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com.