13. Media savvy (i.e. someone who will not allow himself to be set-up for media destruction a la Sarah Palin in 2008)
Respectfully, I suggest that being "media savvy" is chasing smoke. Savvy folks know that a) the media speaks ONLY for the media and b) the media will do its best to destroy ANY Republican candidate.
Over the years, I have read tens of thousands of anonymous reader comments on MSM and left-leaning news site discussion boards, ranging from LA Times to Salon Magazine and yahoo. Virtually ever time there's a pro-Obama or pro-leftist story, individual voices at a rate of about two to one, state clearly that they RESENT:
a) "liberals" and consider them idiots ("liberals" is the word most universally used, not "socialists" or "leftists" or "communists" or "statists" or any other semantically fussy alternative)
b) Barack Obama
c) the "liberal bias" of the mainstream media
Todd Palin stated recently that he thinks folks in the American "heartland" see through the liberal Hollywood's take on Chris Kyle and "American Sniper," and attendance in the theaters confirms his opinion. Palin KNOWS that most Americans ARE media savvy.
To me, a "media savvy" candidate will be one who understands that the leftist media presumes to speak for all Americans, but in fact speaks ONLY for the left-dominated media. To me, a "media savvy" candidate will understand no matter what, the media will use WHATEVER that candidate says to try to destroy them, and that MOST Americans will see right through it.
To me, the most important quality in a candidate is that the person have faith and confidence in Americans.
Clearly, the left in both parties, Republican and Democrat, hold most Americans in contempt. The left in both parties, Republican and Democrat, will cheat to get power, which is the embodiment of contempt for Americans, and the left also thinks Americans are too childish and stupid and immoral to take care of themselves and hence need government to oversee everything from health care to how private citizens and business interact with openly-declared homosexuals.
THAT is the contempt that the left in both parties has for Americans.
Reagan believed in Americans, he held them in high regard. I will be looking for that same confidence and wisdom in MY candidate for 2016, whoever it turns out to be.