Would Moses win an election?

They tell a joke about a fellow who came off the boat from Europe, looking for a job. He found out that they needed a Gabai (sexton) in the Shul. When he got there, he was informed that he would need to know how to read and write in order to fulfill his duties. Unfortunately, as he was illiterate, he was not accepted.
Swallowing his disappointment and pride, he went into the rag business. He started out with a little pushcart on the Lower East Side, and, little by little, he built up his business. Within a few years, with much Siyata DeShamaya (Heavenly Assistance) and wise investments, he became a millionaire.
He opened up a bank account, but still he couldn’t read or write. He would sign his name with an “X”.
Once, one of the tellers who knew this wealthy man was shocked to see him signing an “X”. The teller exclaimed, “If this is how successful you are without knowing how to read and write, imagine where you would be if you did know!”
The wealthy man responded, “If I knew how to read and write, then I would be the Gabai in a Shul.”
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So would Moses win an election? Definitely not! I’m not talking about being elected for the presidency or some other top notch job; that is a given. But even winning election to the board of a downtrodden Shtibel with walls peeling and leaks dripping, reverberating with sounds of a comedic mix of English and Yiddish known as the Yinglish language – this too would be impossible.
Why am I so convinced? Well, Moses had it all wrong. First and foremost, he was very honest – a horrible trait to have in politics. Second of all, he was an ex-convict who sat in prison for ten years. Third, he was married to an immigrant. Fourth, he was 80 years old when he entered the political arena. And if all that weren’t enough, he was unknown to his people, having grown up in the palace and never really suffered with his brethren.
Oh, and to top it all off, Moses was a horrible speaker. At age three, his lips had been burnt and his speech was forever impaired. He stuttered terribly. Imagine a leader with no lengthy orations full of promises and visions of a better world (I promise to solve the crisis in Iraq and the Middle East…) and verbal attacks against his opponent.
I’m sure you’ll agree that, in modern times, Moses would be the ultimate schlimazel and remain unemployed for lack of ability to hold a proper position.
Yet this man is until today considered the greatest leader of all times! It was Moses who led two million people out of their slavery and sustained them for forty years in the desert.
It was Moses the stutterer – he and only he – to whom spoke G-d to face to face. Never before and never thereafter, has a human communicated so openly with his Creator. It was only through his convincing speech after the Sin of the Golden Calf that G-d was persuaded to rescind His decree to annihilate the Jewish people.
So here we have Moses, the greatest prophet of all time. And we have Moses, the worst orator of all time - an oxymoron?
Perhaps it is time we reconsidered our understanding of leadership and the qualities it demands. What defines a true leader?
The answer I’ll leave to you. It’s something we should think about.