Is my title an oxymoron? Well, yes, because it does not distinguish between political sense and common sense. Allow me to explain the difference with a few examples drawn from the American presidential campaign.

The Clinton Email Controversy

Factual premise: The FBI recovered 30,000 emails from Secretary Clinton’s last server and some 20,000 other emails from previously abandoned servers and from recipient’s emails routinely deleted from Mrs. Clinton’s server. They read every single email they recovered or tracked down on recipient’s email files. About 2,000 of these emails were posthumously classified by “other” agencies (Pentagon? N. S. A.?). Amongst those emails reviewed, 110 were classified at the time they were sent/received. The email chains on these emails were as high as 52 recipients. Of these emails only eight (or seven, according to Mrs. Clinton) were marked classified as “Top Secret.” Four of these were found to be incorrectly classified according to Mrs. Clinton. In addition, three documents were classified with “partial markings,” according to the FBI, or “inappropriately marked,” as termed by Mrs. Clinton. So, out of 50,000 emails, there may have been one clearly identified classified document that passed through her server and through other email accounts in the State Department (depending upon whether there were seven or eight “Top Secret” documents before deducting the four incorrectly classified and the three with “partial markings”).

Political sense: Mrs. Clinton has jeopardized national security and deserves the pseudonym of “lyin’ crooked Hillary” and should be “locked up.”

Common sense: If an urgent or classified matter of national importance needed to be sent to the Secretary, her decision to maintain a private server placed her subordinates in a compromising position. This decision is what Mrs. Clinton regrets and has termed a mistake. Her statement that she trusted her professional associates to determine the appropriate classification is an apparent dodge of the FBI Director’s accusation that her actions were “extremely careless.” That dodge makes political sense in the midst of a campaign. But it begs common sense. The broader issue, however, is how poorly the various agencies determine and maintain security classifications. They seem to operate in a context where there is no uniformity and little consistency in the handling of sensitive material. Mrs. Clinton was part of this inter agency problem which, I suspect, has been around for a very long time.

The Trump Campaign Style

Factual premise: Donald Trump is a successful and accomplished businessman who says whatever is on his mind. He is not “politically correct,” demeans the use of a teleprompter, and therefore, unlike many established politicians, is authentic.

Political sense: Mr. Trump is an outsider with the business acumen to create jobs, to enrich average Americans, to shake up the self-serving Washington establishment, and to “make America great again.”

Common sense: Mr. Trump’s son says that his father is “a blue collar billionaire.” But, as John Stewart recently stated, “that is not a thing.” Though CEOs I have known do care about their employees, they direct their companies primarily from the bottom line, that is, the corporate ledger. Companies succeed by selling more products/services than servicing debts and meeting operating costs. Mr. Trump’s bankruptcies represent failures to do so. Moreover, the penalty for this type of failure falls mainly upon creditors and employees, both blue and white collar.

Mr. Trump says he will shake up the establishment because he is a premier deal maker. His success in leveraging municipalities’ investments and the tax depreciation schedule to finance his real estate projects is evidence of his deal making prowess. But he is no Lyndon Johnson who spent years in the Congress mastering the legislative machinery and learning what levers to pull with his associates to attain his goals. How does Mr. Trump’s deal making skills translate to Washington? In truth, he is a neophyte with little knowledge of how the government works and, apparently, not much familiarity with either the separation of powers or the Articles of our Constitution.

Mr. Trump’s campaign slogan seems to address the plight of white middle class blue collar workers. It somewhat narrowly resonates with Bernie Sander’s concern about income inequality. The middle class worker’s income has not kept pace with his/her productivity. The poorer classes, which still harbor more minorities, have even less upward mobility. Wealth in America is disproportionately amassed by large international corporations and a few billionaires, much as it was before the Great Depression. But Mr. Trump is no Franklin Roosevelt. His plan to eliminate the estate tax, to lower the tax rate for the wealthy, and to make child care a deduction instead of a tax credit offers no benefit to the vast majority of Americans. The question for Mr. Trump: for whom will he make America great again?

And, finally, though authenticity is welcome and sorely needed in our elected representatives, it is not predictive of performance in office. In fact, it has no value without character. The question voters must ask themselves is whether Mr. Trump has the strength of character—the discrimination, the compassion, the composure, the self-discipline—to lead our nation.

Media Coverage of the Presidential Campaign

Factual premise: The media has become apoplectic with political commentary, polls, and daily coverage of every word or action of the candidates.

Political sense: Every gaffe, political strategy, and polling results have a bearing on the outcome of the Presidential campaign. Its daily progress will determine the winner. The press’ job from this perspective is to predict who that will be as it breaks down the contests each day and even in each state.

Common sense: There are journalists who do not follow the campaign like an inning by inning baseball scorecard. Rather than a game to be won or lost, they analyze the expectations of the electorate, the shortfalls of government institutions, the needs of national security, the nation’s progress towards the goals set in the Preamble to our Constitution, and the effectiveness of the candidates’ proposed agenda to address these concerns. From this vantage point, they can educate the electorate and provide the one service that justifies their labor.

I readily concede that both the media and the candidates feel compelled to a course that makes political sense. But somehow we Americans have to navigate through the media myopia and the political demagoguery to determine which candidate we trust to administer our institutions, our military, and our foreign policy. We have just one task: to select the candidate we trust to govern us wisely in accordance with our Constitution and our “general welfare.” That task is just simple common sense.