I don't want to be governor, and I never, ever, never wanted to live in the White House. No way, Jose'.

I never wanted to be elected to anything. I always said the only thing I would run for was the county line.

Here's why. No matter what side of the political aisle you fit, today, we all agree these hot shot jobs are not so hotshot. Leaders at the national and state level discovered what it means to be on the horns of a dilemma called COVID-19. Here is the problem. National public health experts point to the thousands of deaths caused by the COVID virus. They explain that closures and social distancing kept the numbers down.

On the other hand, these closures have almost shut down the nation's economy and triggered unemployment statistics to levels not seen in a generation or more. What are our leaders supposed to do?

Let's go back to basics: Politics 101. A politician’s main job is to get elected: period, paragraph, end of the story. Unless a politician is elected and stays in office, he/she cannot function.

When you are out of office, you can no longer affect policy. And there are no grand events, no ribbons to cut, no adoring crowds to cheer, no fat salaries, no fawning lobbyists to pat you on the back as they pick the taxpayer's pocket.

So, our political leaders must do whatever they can to get elected or stay elected.

Then came COVIDGATE.

In a crisis, the first thing a political leader does is to ignore it. It will usually go away and soon be replaced by the next new shiny object. Right?

But you can't ignore COVID. People are dying by the thousands, and others are going broke. Pretty tough to ignore death and broke, especially when it is all over the papers, the TV, and the internet.

So what is the second thing he/she political leader might do?

The quick solution is to remember your teenage years and what happened when you messed up. When your parents, teachers or, gulp, Officer Friendly, pulled you up short, you gave the wrong answer. You didn't fess up and admit blame. You deny it. When that didn't work, you tried to shift the blame. “I cannot tell a lie. He/she did it,” you claimed.

That is the tactic we see being played out today.

The White House said it was a hoax, then claimed they were doing a great job as they try to shift the onus to the states. The states said they were working hard but are overwhelmed and need more help from the feds. Round and round we go.

Some on both sides would like to blame China, the probable source of the virus. It is easy to shift the blame to someone who lives on the other side of the world.

The other easy target is me – and the rest of the press. After all, it is easy to say: “If you idiots didn't write all these nasty stories, everything would be just fine. It is all your fault.”

I will never say my colleagues in the press corps are perfect. We are not. We make mistakes.

But those who blame us for everything are like the sports fans who blame the umpires or the scorekeeper when dear old alma mater loses the big game.

Do you think the press invented COVID, to sell newspapers or generate more ad revenue for TV stations? Wrong. As advertisers saw the bottom drop off their balance sheet, they chopped advertising. As advertising revenues plummet, newspapers and television have chopped payrolls and rethought business models. COVID is a great story, but will the press as we know it survive it?

Now governors on both sides of the aisle watch protesters dance on the state capitol lawns demanding the leaders cancel their stay at home orders.

Some protesters say their Constitutional rights are being violated, that the government has no right to tell them to stay home.

Hogwash. The government does lots of things we don't like, but we go along with them for the common good. We drive on the right side of the road and stop at red lights. If we ignore traffic laws there would be roadway carnage.

The shelter in place allowed us to avoid the carnage.

All that aside, leaders in Washington and the statehouse know that if they lift the stay home edicts too soon, they will be blamed for killing grandma and could be blamed for triggering a second wave of the virus. And if they don't act, the economic consequences could be just as bad.

For political leaders, there are no easy solutions. For the rest of us, ditto.

Stay tuned, friends. It is going to be a rough ride.

Be safe.