Every person I admire for their social or political ideals and history would have failed miserably as President, since the system surrounding them is set up to prevent the accomplishment of anything close to what they championed. In many ways what those folks achieved was only possible outside the system.
Off the top of my head if I had to think of US presidential candidates whose ideals and history of activism I (mostly) really admired, I'd say: (bhsup, avert your eyes)
Ralph Nader
Eugene V. Debs
George McGovern
Jesse Jackson
Dennis Kucinich (wants to auto-correct to zucchini)
Probably missing a few there. If my list was expanded to just any public figure my list would be pretty long...
Also I don't really admire him very much, so remove that from the question and I'd say the best leader we never (recently) had was Al Gore, solely on the basis that he was not George W. Bush.
Gorbachev.
Wallenstein was also one of the most hated people of the war for his extensive and ruthless looting, if I recall, and that's saying something.I am thinking of Wallenstein.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_von_Wallenstein
Able politician and military genius from Bohemia who would be practically undefeated through out the Thirthy years war but who even before was assasinated on kaisers order lost his life to syphilis.
ehm...Wallenstein was also one of the most hated people of the war for his extensive and ruthless looting, if I recall, and that's saying something.
Wallenstein's particular genius lay in recognizing a new way for funding war: instead of merely plundering enemies, he called for a new method of systematic "war taxes". Even a city or a prince on the side of the Emperor had to pay taxes towards the war. He understood the enormous wastage of resources that resulted from tax exactions on princes and cities of defeated enemies only, and desired to replace this with a "balanced" system of taxation; wherein both sides bore the cost of a war. He was unable to fully realize this ambition; and in fact his idea led to the random exploitation of whole populations on either side, until finally, almost fifteen years after his death, the war had become so expensive that the warring parties were forced to make peace. In any case, Wallenstein's idea inspired many, among them, Colbert, to "pluck the goose with a minimum of screeching".
I am reading Gorbachevs memoirs and I think the dude is just phenomenal. To be able to climb up the power ladder of communist party to politburo and then do what every dissenter of the regime could only dream of by taking practically U-turn on every policy of the country is simply phenomenal....
I'm curious. What actually speaks to you in favor of a Jesse Jackson presidency? I'm not seeing it at all.
Great civil rights career, worked with MLK, championed "race unification" and cooperation concepts that focused on similar economic plight of all races rather than some of the more polarizing civil rights leaders of the 60's, 70's, and 80's, has a surprisingly successful and ballsy record of international hostage negotiations and peace negotiations in international conflicts, had an awesome Presidential platform in the 80's (he was into single payer UHC before it was cool, he is the Hipster of healthcare reform)... I could go on and just recite his wiki page as one long fabulous resume but I won't. Actually out of that entire list he probably had the most "chops" of anyone to actually be a leader. He was unfortunately marred in the 80's presidential runs, his son has stained his legacy quite a bit, he has a few bad/stupid quotes out there that he has since apologized for, and as a black national figure being one or two degrees removed from shady people and/or criminals is much harder to deal with than as a white national figure (yeah I said that, because it is true) so his reputation has (unfairly IMHO) been tainted.
Like I said as my initial qualifier in the real world, no one on my list probably would have actually been effective as President since the ideas they had that I like (single payer, reduced defense spending, increasing social safety nets, creating more job programs for the poor, rolling back Regan tax cuts, etc.) became pretty hard coded into the establishment and almost everyone (democrat and republican) had an interest in blocking those sorts of radical reforms. But if you strip away that unfortunate reality and just look at what he could have accomplished if the system around him would have supported it, it would have been interesting, at the very least.
Amongst the "bad/stupid quotes" were the following:Great civil rights career, worked with MLK, championed "race unification" and cooperation concepts that focused on similar economic plight of all races rather than some of the more polarizing civil rights leaders of the 60's, 70's, and 80's, has a surprisingly successful and ballsy record of international hostage negotiations and peace negotiations in international conflicts, had an awesome Presidential platform in the 80's (he was into single payer UHC before it was cool, he is the Hipster of healthcare reform)... I could go on and just recite his wiki page as one long fabulous resume but I won't. Actually out of that entire list he probably had the most "chops" of anyone to actually be a leader. He was unfortunately marred in the 80's presidential runs, his son has stained his legacy quite a bit, he has a few bad/stupid quotes out there that he has since apologized for, and as a black national figure being one or two degrees removed from shady people and/or criminals is much harder to deal with than as a white national figure (yeah I said that, because it is true) so his reputation has (unfairly IMHO) been tainted.
The OP means leaders that haven't come to power though had/have a shot at doing so. Such as Jean-Marie Le Pen, for instance...