The Outsiders

Scott Hardie | July 1, 2016
What is the appeal of the outsider president, the candidate with litttle or no experience in public service? I've heard outsider status mentioned as an appealing trait so often without explanation that I am confused. If you were hiring someone for an important job, wouldn't you want someone with at least some experience in a similar position? And if the qualities of an outsider do have some appeal, are they not outweighed by the benefits of prior experience?

Samir Mehta | July 1, 2016
[hidden by request]

Steve West | July 1, 2016
I've always felt strongly that politicians on a congressional level or less should perform their duty of public service and get out (as in limiting their service to two terms) as opposed to making it a career. The president (already limited to two terms) is ideally selected from a pool of candidates not limited to career politicians. Cronyism can still exist in an outsider candidate's political machine but the amount of pandering required of party mannequins can only be reduced by selecting a candidate who has no agenda other than the country's best interests. Where to find such a candidate? Certainly the field of business is intriguing only from a leadership perspective. Experience in dealing with foreign leaders is over-rated. Managing a large corporation (without driving it to the verge of bankruptcy) is no easy feat and it's financial success paired with employee satisfaction can be related to presidential duties if only on a micro level. I just want someone like Harry Truman who installed the "The Buck Stops Here" plaque on his White House desk. I want someone who takes full responsibility for all actions and statements emanating from the White House and is unafraid to base his/her decisions on their gut feel for what is best for America.

Scott Hardie | July 2, 2016
I can't wrap my head around anyone thinking being president would be easy. Sure, it comes with obvious perks and luxuries. But for four to eight years (ten if you count campaigning), it's a 24/7 shitstorm of impossible decisions, brutal criticism, packed schedules, crushing responsibility, and intense exposure. But then, I can't understand how people think being a teacher or a doctor or a lawyer would be easy. I don't know how they think being an athlete or an entertainer is easy, or a media celebrity like a Kardashian. You have to work your ass off for years to reach the top of any field, even a frivolous one. Just because it's not blue-collar labor does not mean that it is easy. Has the Internet contributed to this? We see people get famous singing on YouTube and writing funny tweets and we think anyone can do it, when even those "grassroot celebrities" have practiced hard for years to hone their skills. I know someone who wants to be a professional video game player because PewDiePie made $4 million "playing video games," as if everything that PewDiePie has built for himself is the same as my friend sitting on his couch playing Skyrim.

I guess I can't agree that term limits are automatically good. Some politicians are re-elected for a reason: They're good at the job and the candidates campaigning against them are inferior. Why cut ourselves off from good politicians just because some bad politicians get too comfortable? Shouldn't free-market principles apply to elections too? I could see giving some electoral handicap to incumbents to offset their inherent advantage, but to preclude them from re-election entirely seems arbitrary and injurious to the public. Besides, being a public servant at any level is damn difficult, and learning how to do it well and developing the relationships to do it well takes time. Kicking people out just as they're getting good at the job does not strike me as a solution to badly run government. But then, we don't seem to understand that we the voters are making government worse with our ill-considered impulses. Our reaction to lack of compromise in Washington is to "vote the bums out" and elect intransigent agitators who refuse to support anything other than their own extremist policies. I have a friend who's so fed up with government dysfunction that he keeps attending rallies promoting sunshine laws, without realizing that media exposure creates ammunition for intra-party challengers and makes congressional compromise that much more difficult.

Aaron Shurtleff | July 3, 2016
I don't want to de-rail, but I gotta ask real quick:

Samir: When you say you don't believe any of the reasons you put? For number 2, are you saying you don't believe the government is badly run, or that you don't believe it can't get worse?

More on topic, I seem to recall one of the knocks on Obama way back in the day was that he had limited experience in government, and we can all see how that worked out. (Cleverly phrased such that you can all infer what you want from that statement, depending on how you feel about Obama!) Which to me, seems at least a little pertinent.

As far as term limits, and Scott's additions, what if a particular candidate was prevented from serving more than two consecutive terms? That way, if you really liked someone, you could at least get an opportunity to vote him/her back in down the line? I guess you'd still be prevented from having him/her for one four year term, but it might help maybe. And maybe with new blood every eight years, we the people might see that the candidate we thought was doing a good job for us was actually coasting through.

To me, the attractiveness of the "outsider", form the people I see talking about it, is that they aren't as "in bed" with the lobbyists. It's hard to make real progress on the problem of the reality/perception of our politicians being bought and paid for when you have to work within a system that seems to encourage the behavior.

I don't know. This is why I try to avoid giving my two cents about these topics. But I love to have people tell me where I am thinking badly, so please do so!

Samir Mehta | July 3, 2016
[hidden by request]

Steve West | July 3, 2016
Let me be perfectly clear - Trump is a goddam idiot who will ruin this country if given free rein with his idiocy. I've stated previously how much I admired Peter Ueberroth but he's a little late now. Too bad Bart Giamatti is dead - I liked him as well. I want someone I can respect and admire.

Samir Mehta | July 3, 2016
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | July 3, 2016
On Obama's lack of experience: Good point, Aaron. I had only minor reservations about it back in 2008. After having far greater reservations about Marco Rubio's nearly identical resume in 2016, I have to admit a double standard.

On term limits: To me, they're only really useful when corruption makes it impossible for a figure to leave office. Vladimir Putin is a good example. Despite conspiracy theories that pop up every four years, we have mostly fair and mostly legitimate elections in this country, at least compared to parts of Africa and Asia, but it's always possible for a corrupt figure to become a permanent fixutre here too. (That's where I once expected House of Cards to go, with Frank Underwood plotting a change to the Constitution that would eliminate his term limits.)

On outsiders: Lobbyist influence is corrosive and too powerful indeed. But aren't relationships also the key to getting anything done, good things as well as bad things? Don't we want a leader who has established mutual trust and respect with some members of Congress? Here's an area where 2008 Clinton had an advantage over 2016 Clinton: As a senator, she was well regarded by her peers on both sides of the aisle, but all these years later, most of the people she worked with have left office. Then again, it's probably moot, as Republican opposition to Barack Obama was solidly unified and it could only be worse with Hillary Clinton. I do not look forward to another four years of gridlock like we've had, where Congressional Republicans block every single thing the Democratic president wants, but maybe Trump is such a cataclysmically bad candidate that Democrats will manage to take over Congress for a couple of years and actually get something, anything, done.

On business leaders: We have never elected as president a business leader with no public-sector experience, but we have elected state governors that way, and history has shown that they have both strengths and weaknesses. Here in Florida, former CEO Rick Scott struggles with allegations of corruption (illegal firings of staff who opposed him, ending prosecution after campaign donations were made, etc), and he seems monomaniacally focused on job creation. What to do about failing schools? Create jobs! Environmental decline? Create jobs! Nightclub shootings? Create jobs! (I'm not exaggerating. When asked about gun control and public safety after Pulse, he really did say he was going to keep his focus on jobs. Wtf? You can do multiple things at once, governor.)

On Trump: He's a piece of shit, as a potential world leader, as a candidate, and as a human being. I'm not at all an enthusiastic supporter of Clinton, but I'd vote for her a million times before him. If a genuinely decent, intelligent, and competent Republican candidate were in the running this year, including Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, they'd have my vote. Trump is way beyond unacceptable. Steve, you once wondered how Democratic Party could be so dumb as to select the nigh-unelectable Clinton as their candidate, but the Republican Party has certainly one-upped them, and likely forfeited the election with such a terrible choice, unless something drastically changes.

Scott Hardie | July 3, 2016
Paul Krugman, to no one's surprise, doesn't buy that businessman Trump can manage the U.S. economy.