Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Picking Presidential Candidates

13 Comments

Some thoughts on our terrible system.

It’s not just picking candidates — in general, the skills set needed to win an election doesn’t overlap with that needed to actually be a good president, and there’s no better example of the principle than the current resident of the White House.

13 thoughts on “Picking Presidential Candidates”

  2. No news there. That was why the founding fathers created a electoral college. The idea was the members of the electoral college (pillars of the community) would select the presidents. Pity that was tossed overboard and electors became only “symbolic” of a numbers game.

    1. And they expected that in general no single candidate would muster 270 votes, so the matter would be decided by the House. I sometimes think the US would be better off with a powerful Prime Minister who is appointed and dismissed by the House, and a much less powerful President who is elected by the governors.

      1. Martin,

        Or have the president and vice-president selected by the House and confirmed by the Senate.

  3. Every system has its faults but overall ours works pretty good. Want to see a revolution? Then take up TM’s idea and have unelected elites pick the president. Ya, like that system wouldn’t get abused.

  4. Too many degrees of separation between voter and leader and you would get something similar to the Soviet system. The same old people in the same jobs over and over again.

    1. It’s not just the number of layers, it’s also the amount of power you want to trust a single individual with. I’m a member of a political party that wants a directly elected Dutch PM and directly elected mayors (yes, oddly enough, we don’t have that), but I disagree with this policy. A directly elected PM or even mayor is far too powerful for my taste, so I would prefer parliament / the city council to appoint and dismiss them. I have no problem with a corrective referendum or recall elections, since they empower the people rather than office holders. But even there you have to be very, very careful, because a majority shouldn’t just be able to impose its will on a minority.

  5. You’d probably do better by sticking a pin in the list of registered (insert party name here) voters than the present system.

    It’s a real problem with any system that has democracy as part of it. (Yep, I know the USA is a republic, but democracy in the sense of the leaders being chosen by the people.) Actually, it’s probably a problem with all political systems. What is? The problem is that the sort of people who want political power are precisely those who can’t be trusted with it.

    Actually, I think that a system like that of 19th Century Britain is probably the best. Two houses, one of which has total veto power over laws passed by the other and which is chosen by a completely different method – and a completely apolitical, unelected head of state, with veto power and to whom the armed forces are sworn, as a backstop.

  6. We had a better system. Woman and children didn’t vote.

    I’d go even further and restrict it to first born. Why? Because you want the traits found there for selecting leadership.

    1. I’d exclude from voting those who receive a living by government check. Remove one group that is purely parasitic, and another with power by virtue of their position that can turn parasitic.

      I’m also not a fan of plurality elections.

  7. ken – I can think of all manner of possible restrictions (compared with the present) on voting rights, and BTW I don’t agree with women not voting.

    Age restriction – at least 21, maybe 25. The “no representation without taxation” restriction – nobody getting a net income from the State gets a vote, with the exception of active combat-branch military personnel and first-responders. The Heinlein solution. Literacy requirements. And so on…

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