I hope my views are clear by now about my preference for the next president of the United States.

If not, then I’ll lay it out in plain English: I do not want the next president to be a fringe ideologue with an overly aggressive agenda that has no prayer of being enacted.

That would rule, according to what we’ve witnessed to date, the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, two U.S. senators who’ve become champions of the Democratic Party’s progressive movement.

That would leave in no particular order, say, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer. I won’t include Tulsi Gabbard and Deval Patrick in that mix, because I think Gabbard needs to drop out of the race and Patrick, well, he isn’t making any noise at all.

My strong preference is to elect someone who can succeed Donald Trump who will be able to forge bipartisan coalitions, who knows how to legislate, who has a deep understanding of government and who adheres to policies that reflect more of a mainstream point of view.

The Democratic nominee, first off, needs to be able to defeat Trump this fall. I don’t know yet how he or she will accomplish that feat. It remains a tall order, given the immense power of presidential incumbency. I have maintained over many election cycles that incumbent presidents remind me of heavyweight boxing champions: To defeat an incumbent you’ve got to knock him out.

Will any of these contenders measure up to the huge task at hand?

In a normal election year, with a normal incumbent seeking re-election, it would appear to be more attainable than one might think. Trump’s campaign rally riffs are intense studies in incoherence. This individual cannot string cogent sentences together. I listen to him, try to grasp what he is saying and damn near every time I come away scratching my head, wondering: What the hell did this guy just say?

Donald Trump is far from an ordinary politician. He plays to his base exclusively. He fires ’em up with his untruths, his insults and innuendo. He makes patently outrageous statements that in a prior era would have doomed any normal politician. Talk about a Teflon politician. This guy embodies the description.

I want the next president to restore a healthy measure of respectability to the nation’s highest, most exalted office.

I want someone who knows how to govern and someone who understands that good government requires compromise. A fire-breathing extremist does not fit that important description.