My idea is to limit what you can spend to $1 for every person who voted in that election last itme. So if 70 million people voted in the presidential election, you can spend $70 million on the next one.
Allow only individuals to contribute to political candidates. No corporations, no PACs, no unions, nothing.
And for purposes of tracking both those, if it mentions a candidate or party by name, it counts as a poliitcal ad.

I'm not a fan of debates. I'm electing someone to lead, not debate. I just don't see where debating skills are what we're looking for. I want somebody who can run something, at least in executive positions. I like the idea of seeing if they can first run a campaign on limited resources.

This will probably get treated like a sound byte and I'll get pilloried with it, but I don't care. In terms of the things I'm looking for, the candidate in 2008 that was best qualified to be president was Palin. She had run a business, she had run a city, she had run a state, as CEO of each. Yes, it was a small business, and it was a small city, and it was a small state (at least in terms of population). But that's way more CEO experience that Obama, McCain, and Biden had combined. I think that's clearly more of a commentary on how weak the field was rather than an endorsement of Palin. I don't think I'd want Palin to be president, but she was more qualified than anyone else on either ticket.

Our system has found a way to give us one bad presidential candidate after another. Does anyone really believe that the most capable people to lead the free world are George W. Bush, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and John McCain? But those are the choices we've had. Does anybody have any of them on your list of the ten most competent and capable people in the world? I certainly don't. I can't imagine any of them threatening to break into that list. I don't even know which one might if any of them would. That's not what we need, and the results we are getting reflect that.

(02-25-2011 04:50 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  My idea is to limit what you can spend to $1 for every person who voted in that election last itme. So if 70 million people voted in the presidential election, you can spend $70 million on the next one.
Allow only individuals to contribute to political candidates. No corporations, no PACs, no unions, nothing.
And for purposes of tracking both those, if it mentions a candidate or party by name, it counts as a poliitcal ad.

I'm not a fan of debates. I'm electing someone to lead, not debate. I just don't see where debating skills are what we're looking for. I want somebody who can run something, at least in executive positions. I like the idea of seeing if they can first run a campaign on limited resources.

This will probably get treated like a sound byte and I'll get pilloried with it, but I don't care. In terms of the things I'm looking for, the candidate in 2008 that was best qualified to be president was Palin. She had run a business, she had run a city, she had run a state, as CEO of each. Yes, it was a small business, and it was a small city, and it was a small state (at least in terms of population). But that's way more CEO experience that Obama, McCain, and Biden had combined. I think that's clearly more of a commentary on how weak the field was rather than an endorsement of Palin. I don't think I'd want Palin to be president, but she was more qualified than anyone else on either ticket.

Our system has found a way to give us one bad presidential candidate after another. Does anyone really believe that the most capable people to lead the free world are George W. Bush, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and John McCain? But those are the choices we've had. Does anybody have any of them on your list of the ten most competent and capable people in the world? I certainly don't. I can't imagine any of them threatening to break into that list. I don't even know which one might if any of them would. That's not what we need, and the results we are getting reflect that.

Smarter people aren't willing to degrade their ideals to the lowest common denominator, which is needed to appeal to the largest section of voters. People that want to tell the truth don't get elected. The people we elect are people that should probably be in sales. It's too bad.

I think anybody running for president that has a chance of winning needs to talk to all the living ex-presidents, or as many as possible. Spend time on that instead of showing up in every podunk town for a year and a half to display their salesmanship. It's valuable insight you can't get anywhere else. At least prepare for the expected so they can hit the ground running and have reasonable expectations of what's possible. And there's no excuse to not have a good understanding of foreign affairs.

(02-25-2011 09:58 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Oh, and the fact that they have lifetime job security because in public schools they can’t be fired for even the most egregious incompetance



I laugh at this part. It's just flat ass wrong.

The key words here = "lifetime", "can't", and "most egregious".

Yes, I agree that public school teachers do not, literally, have "lifetime" job security. And yes, they "can" be fired for the "most egregious" incompetence.

That's a very sweet deal compared to most lines of work.

Just this week I was talking to an individual in the IT field. Very respected and more-than-competent in his work. He was fired after 4 years on the job as a result of one (1) complaint on a $12,000-order. My point is not he deserved it or did not deserve it; rather the point is simply this: Times are hard all over. The gravy train has left the station; I doubt very much that will come back again in our lifetimes; the taxpayers are p*ssed at everybody right now and are not going to just cheerfully accept the old arrangements as they have typically been set-up over the last couple of generations. Most government workers -- whether they are "overpaid" or not -- will have two practical choices: (a.) deal with it, or (b.) find work in the private sector.

(02-25-2011 09:58 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Oh, and the fact that they have lifetime job security because in public schools they can’t be fired for even the most egregious incompetance



I laugh at this part. It's just flat ass wrong.

Go watch the movie, "Waiting for Superman". It's now available for rent at RedBox. You might change your opinion about teacher's "job security" after seeing it.

(02-25-2011 09:20 AM)DrTorch Wrote:  or the mechanical engineer's $29.76 or the chemist's $30.68.

Damn, chemists are lazy, given that the average mechanical engineering salary is 20-50% higher than chemistry salary, depending on experience