WHO WANTS TO BE THE PRESIDENT?

• Author: KELLEY, TIMOTHY
• Position: Brief Article

MOST YOUNG PEOPLE DON'T, BUT FOUR PRESIDENTS AGREE: IT'S THE GREATEST JOB YOU CAN HAVE

Any kid can grow up to be President, but amazingly, most don't want to. In a recent survey, 62 percent of 12-to-17-year-olds said they weren't interested in the world's most powerful job, while only 17 percent actually wanted it. What gives? Isn't being Commander in Chief of the world's most powerful country cool enough? Wouldn't cheering crowds and squads of servants at your beck and call be a kick? We asked four people who would know--Presidents Gerald Ford (1974-77), Jimmy Carter (1977-81), George Bush (1989-93), and Bill Clinton (1993-now). (Former President Ronald Reagan has Alzheimer's disease and has withdrawn from public life.) In exclusive interviews with UPFRONT, they tell why they first wanted the job, and--once they got it--what they found most rewarding.

GERALD FORD

WANTING THE JOB: "I had no ambition to be President. My sole political goal was to be Speaker of the House. However, my ambition was changed when Vice President Agnew resigned and I was nominated by President Nixon and confirmed by the Congress to succeed him. And then, of course, when President Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, all of a sudden I became President. It was almost overnight. So I really didn't have any plans, even at that late date, because I was totally dependent on what Mr. Nixon was going to do. I couldn't really start thinking about being President until I actually became President. And I had to be very careful how I handled it as Vice President. If I was critical of President Nixon [then under fire in the Watergate scandal], the press would have said, `He's just trying to get the job.' And if I was uncritical, they would have said I was a patsy for President Nixon."

THE BEST PART OF THE JOB: "The most rewarding thing was the feeling that what you did or didn't do had an impact on the lives of 260 million fellow Americans. It's the ultimate responsibility for any American. And as I recently told a group of teenagers, even a person from a broken home can become President. My father was very abusive, physically and mentally, to my mother, and she took me when I was two months old by train from Omaha, Nebraska, where I was born, to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and eventually divorced my father and remarried, and I took my stepfather's name."

GEORGE BUSH

WANTING THE JOB: "Immediately after I had stepped down as Director of Central Intelligence in 1976, I distinctly...