SENSE OF THE CITY Barbara for Queen, Clinton for Prime Minister

Whatever you mean by family is what we mean by fam-ily values,” said Barbara Bush at the GOD-excuse me, GOP-convention last month in Houston.

She sounded sweetly reasonable and tolerant, succinctly stating the American belief that we should live and let live when it comes to our most personal choices. Government does not define family; families define family.

Too bad Mrs. Bush’s husband and other Republican leaders don’t believe in what she said. If they did, we wouldn’t be smack in this blizzard of nonsense about ’”family values.” But with so many Elmer Gantrys and Church Ladies scurrying about trying to get George Bush and Dan Quayle elected as National Nannies, it’s clear that Barbara Bush’s statement was just more of that tired old good cop-bad cop routine-the lace hankie and the brass knuckles.

The Republicans have some solid issues-congressional reform is just one- but they fear that issues alone won’t win one for the Busher. So they play the character card. Who’s the best husband and grandfather? Who loves small towns and Little League the most? This May berry-worship insults our intelligence but. schmaltz aside, we know that character is not irrelevant to leadership. And yet…how much should it count? Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin, another speaker at the convention, argued that character was paramount: “You can’t be one kind of man and another kind of president. “

Oh? Can’t you? Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson broke several Commandments, but their partisans argue that all three were effective presidents. Personal character must be placed in the scales of our judgment, but how much should it weigh?

I posed that question to the brilliant Dr. William May, the Cary M. Maguire Professor of Ethics at Southern Methodist University. If this election is all about who’s good and who’s bad, and whose leadership will make us a better country, then May-a graduate of Yale Divinity School, minister, Ph.D in theology and author of numerous books and more than 100 articles on ethics and religion-ought to know something about both. His thoughts shed some light on the problem of presidential character.

Moral behavior is more complex than we think. Like all of us, a president must deal with what May calls temptations and quandaries. Temptations, which demand a choice between clear-cut right and wrong, are easier. You cheat on your taxes or you don’t. You sleep around on your spouse or you don’t. We tend to focus on a candidate’s track record with temptations, but most of a president’s decisions. May notes, deal with quandaries in which there are many competing goods. War is wrong, sure-so do we send ground troops into Bosnia to stop it? How many American lives is that peace worth?

The “good” person may not be a good leader. “Remember, Hitler was a teetotaler and vegetarian, very disciplined in his private life.” May says. “But his policies were demonic.” May points out that American Protestantism, which grew out of small rural towns, has given us a keen awareness of personal vice and virtue. But America today is a largely urban superpower, and May fears that we’re obsessed with personal moral blemishes at a time when the rest of the world is looking to us for leadership. As for the “family values” theme, May agrees that the family is beleaguered, but he insists that real leaders must do more than merely stand as role models of the “nice family.” Ethics is not simply about private behavior, but responsible public policy.

We might be better off with a king and a prime minister. May isn’t holding his breath for this reform, but he makes a thoughtful point: The British monarch serves as the ceremonial head of the nation, rising above partisan battles to symbolize the unity of all Britons regardless of political stripe, In that role, spotless personal behavior is highly important. The prime minister, on the other hand, is responsible for the nuts and bolts of policy decisions, many of which will be highly divisive. And the P.M. isn’t necessarily a moral exemplar for the nation: Winston Churchill, recall, was “a prodigious drinker.” By contrast, our president not only fulfills a symbolic function, but is also the policy leader of the nation. “That makes it a very rough job and creates all sorts of temptations for a president who can read a speech and stir a nation.” May says. ’”It’s no accident that we’ve had an actor for president.”

When I recall Ronald Reagan’s beautifully moving speech at Normandy on the anniversary of D-Day, I know he was performing (I choose the word carefully) a valuable service for America. And when I see Bill Clinton display his awesome command of policy details-I think I’ve got the answer: Reagan for King, Barbara Bush for Queen. Clinton for Prime Minister. Now there’s a ticket.