Miley Cyrus, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton

What do the world's most popular fifteen year old and the two Democratic presidential candidates have in common?

At least three things:

(1) You can't turn on television without seeing their faces. The never-ending Democratic primary season is almost certain now to continue on until June or later after Mrs. Clinton's Pennsylvania victory this week. Miley Cyrus is HANNAH MONTANA -- what more need I say, especially if you happen to be anywhere near a pre-teen girl.

(2) All of them are taking in a lot of money. Obama has been setting all kinds of political fundraising records. Mrs. Clinton's campaign claims to have taken in ten million dollars in new contributions in the 24 hours following her Keystone State triumph. Young Ms. Cyrus signed a lucrative book deal to write her life story. That presumes of course that a fifteen year old has lived enough life to have something to write about.

(3) All of them have some "image problems" which ought to concern them.
Obama's association with controversial Chicago preacher Jeremiah Wright coupled with his secretly-recorded San Francisco comments about bitter lower-income voters clinging to religion, guns, and biases against people different from them have given ample opportunity for his political opponents to cast him as an out-of-touch elitist. Then he went bowling and racked up -- what was it, 37? -- that didn't help his image as a "man of the people." Most of the experts seem to think he has his party nomination sewed up, but these hits to his image may come back to haunt him in the general election this fall.

Hillary Clinton has her own issues with the electorate. I doubt I'm the only voter who wasn't very impressed with her "good ole boy" stunt of drinking beer and whisky in an Indiana bar. The ability to hold her likker isn't high on my list of priorities for qualities I look for in a President. This isn't her only problem. Polls show that a majority of voters think she is untruthful and untrustworthy. Her "sniper fire in Bosnia" story didn't help her image in that department. Wouldn't it be nice to have another George Washington in the Presidency -- you know, the type of person who "never told a lie." Apparently, Hillary won't fill that bill.

Young Ms. Cyrus has another kind of image problem. It seems that several risque pictures of her in various states of immodesty have been posted to the Internet. No, I'm not going to provide you with links to them; you'll have to search them out for yourself if you want to see them. The pictures aren't pornographic. They don't involve nudity. They are, however, something different from the wholesome image Miley, her parents, and the Disney Company have been trying to project of her. Ms. Cyrus and her managers need to take into account the fact that a significant portion of her fan base are young people whose tastes in music and television can be controlled by concerned parents. If parents don't see Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana as a suitable role model for their daughters, they can "just say no" and her popularity will take quite a dive.

We aren't going to have perfect presidential candidates and we aren't going to have perfect fifteen-year-old superstars. They are all human and they will all make mistakes. It isn't too much, though, to hope for people in the limelight who care about doing right and who genuinely want to present a positive image to the American public.

Too many times in recent years, we've been let down by those who raised our hopes and expectations that they would be different and somehow better than the ordinary.