Ahh, sweet prudence, where art thou?

Sometimes I wonder if David Brooks and I are actually the same person and that the universe in which we live is radically different than it first appears such that I can simulataneously be a middle-aged writer for the IHT as well as a twenty-something high school teacher without having any memory of my alternate life.

Here's why: he says the very same thing I've been telling my students. That being, the most important element of a candidate for office is an experience wrought prudence that displays itself exactly as Brooks has written: "the ability to grasp the unique pattern of a specific situation. It is the ability to absorb the vast flow of information and still discern the essential current of events - the things that go together and the things that will never go together. It is the ability to engage in complex deliberations and feel which arguments have the most weight."

I'm looking for it in our candidates and unfortunately have not found it in either. Unless I become convinced otherwise, I shall be employing my democratic right this November by not voting for either candidate. I'm looking for prudence.