Running For President

Let me set the record straight by saying that no, I am not running for president, nor will I probably ever run for president.  Its not because I don't have millions of dollars to spend on campaigning (which I don't), or because I have never thought about it (which I did very briefly), but because I don't want to become a politician.  To me, there are two kinds of politicians; those who cater to their constituents, listen to their concerns, and try their best to address those concerns, and there are those who might listen, but as soon as they turn around will re-direct their concern back towards their own self interest.  It seems that in order to become president, a politician must be one of the latter types, concerned only with himself and beating every one else in the polls.  There have been very few politicians over the years who have run a successful campaign based upon honesty and good will.  Almost every politician, while running for president (or even for a lower office), at one point or another seeks to undermine the opposition through negative ads, attacking their personal lives, or drudging up incidents from the long forgotten past that might take them down a few percentage points.  I know there have been some exceptions, some times when a presidential hopeful hasn't completely lambasted their opposition, but as a general rule of thumb, I find most presidential candidates to be despicable.  I don't think I would ever be able to stoop to their level of sophomoric actions just to become president of the United States.

But all of what I mentioned above requires money, and lots of it.  The only way to get country-wide publicity in the United States is if you have millions of dollars at your disposal.  TV ads cost ridiculous sums of money depending on when they air, as well as radio ads and a staff to reach out to all those who didn't see your face plastered on the television.  Yes, there are ways of raising money otherwise (such as the Super PAC), but those are largely dependent on how many people you know who can contribute large sums of money to finance a campaign.  If ever there was a disparity between who can or can't run for president, that time is now.  It is no longer feasible (not that it ever really was) for a person in the lower classes to run for president.  They could, don't get me wrong, but the chances of them actually getting elected are slim to none.  What a person needs now is national name recognition and in order to do that, you need money.  For its not just the presidential office that requires money to get into, it is also the Senate and GOP seats that cost money.  Even in statewide elections to see who goes to Washington D.C. as a representative, one needs to run a successful campaign, reaching thousands of people, in order to beat out their opponents.  That requires money as well.  And if one has enough money to run the ads at the state level, you guessed it, they must degrade themselves by picking apart their opponent, bad decision by bad decision.  Its the vicious world of the politician that I frankly don't want any part of.  (I am excluded anyway because of my lack of money).

So how does one of these candidates adequately represent the population when they are rarely ever in touch with them.  Granted, they tour the country, speaking to as many people as possible, shaking hands and kissing babies, but even then, how much of the population do they actually meet.  For the most part, the people they meet are supporters of them, their message, or a particular agenda they hold dear.  What about all the people who didn't come out to see them, that are in their homes watching the TV?  What about their concerns?  Any presidential candidate can say they speak for the citizens of the United States, but in reality, they speak for their supporters and special interest groups that fund their campaigns.  Any message they put forth can not be in direct contradiction to anything that their supporters believe, or they will lose their vote.  It almost seems that most presidential candidates must fore go their own beliefs and morals in order to adopt those of their financiers.  The moment they do that, however, their opponent figures it out and drags them down the dirty road of mudraking and wishy washy politics.  So much for integrity.  It is sad that a person needs outrageous sums of money in order to run a successful campaign.  I guarantee that there are more qualified people out there to be president who just don't have the money or the moral depravity to run for office.  It seems that if less money was needed to run for office, a candidate would rely less on their financiers, and thus be able to maintain a certain moral integrity.  But I don't see that happening any time soon.  As such, come November, we will have a choice of the best of the worst, and hope that they figure out how to run our country.