While speaking with family members recently about the surprising success of the Robert Kennedy Jr. campaign, my brother commented, “To be president you have to make a lot of speeches and be a talented orator. Someone with a voice like Robert Kennedy just isn’t going to be able to hack it.”

Initially my response was to agree and drop the idea entirely. However, after ruminating on it for several days, the following thoughts occurred to me:

First, we’ve had two presidents in the last seven years, both with perfectly “normal” speaking capabilities, yet both have managed to say all the wrong things to our nation and have contributed to the political divide that now exists between us.

Next, I remembered the Old Testament story of Moses. After being told by God to go into Egypt and deliver the Israelites from slavery, Moses hesitated. His response was, “Send someone else. I’m not a good speaker.”

God assures him by saying, “GO…I will help you speak and teach you what to say.” Moses then went on to lead hundreds of thousands of Hebrews out of the slavery and brutality that they had endured for hundreds of years.

What if he had refused to go? How many lives would have been destroyed? The rich Jewish history and culture that exists today would be erased because of his personal insecurities.

I don’t know everything there is to know about Robert Kennedy Jr. and I can’t make promises about America’s future. But what if in our search for our next president we focus less on HOW they sound and more on WHAT they’re saying. Between now and November maybe the question we need to ask ourselves is this: Could a man with a broken voice be the one to heal our broken country?

Laura Johnson

Ogden