Now Cuban is considering running for President?

The threshold has now been set very low.

Bamaro said:

The threshold has now been set very low.

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The threshold was set very low when (take your pick).......we elected a guy who had spent a grand total of 143 days in the US Senate and did not a single thing to distinguish himself other than he was a handsome, articulate black man.......we elected a guy whose primary asset was his last name......we elected a peanut farmer with all of four years as governor......we elected Nixon twice........we elected a name without political experience because he'd liberated Europe......

I mean, we could go on forever here man....

Displaced Bama Fan said:

So who would you rather have as a President? At some point, leadership is a must.

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I would contend being an effective leader should be the number 1 qualification to be President.

Displaced Bama Fan said:

So who would you rather have as a President? At some point, leadership is a must. I'm not saying Trump has the right mindset, but running a company, running a large military organization, governor...I think all those lend some credence to having "experience" at an executive level and making key decisions. It certainly doesn't mean someone who's never been in an executive position can't succeed, I just think that experience is prudent.

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You make some good points.

I think the problem with our whole setup of politics, though, is that this country pretty much always votes on the basis of the ECONOMY......and there's almost nothing a President can do about that by himself. The only "real" reason we have a President is because you have to have a point of contact, someone responsible for ultimate PEACE and SAFETY objectives - and for obvious reasons that person must be a civilian. A President can do a whole lot more good (or worse - bad) in the area of foreign policy than he has actual effect on the economy, yet we historically vote on the basis of the pocketbook.

Richard Reeves (the JFK biographer) said it well years ago when he rightly pointed out that there is literally NOTHING that really prepares a person to be President of the USA, it's technically not a job you can have had prior experience that this job is easier than the old one.


In the TV age, the bottom line is providing inspirational leadership. The whole "we need a businessman" approach is a demonstrable failure even without Trump as President. Businessmen who are successful are dictators who don't have to go through Congress, the Supreme Court, or the American public to do things. Barack Obama - for all of his lack of relevant experience as an executive - understood this. The man could give a whale of a speech. So, too, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.


This is going to be controversial (and I'm not even advocating it) but the fact is that Ronald Reagan may well have had more RELEVANT experience for actually being the inspirational leader of the free world than anyone in the television era. Because he had served as the governor of a large state, he had appointed judges and thus understood how important they could be to validating his legislation (note: FDR as the NY governor was Reagan's model for this). He also had been a negotiator as the only union President ever to get elected Chief Executive (while we can argue things like his 'union busting' of his own folks, Reagan was a better negotiator on his worst day than Trump on his best). Because he had been an actor, he could very easily memorize a speech and perform it theatrically, the best example being his demand to "tear down this wall."

What I'm saying is, the man (love him or hate him) probably had more 'training' for what goes into the Presidency in the modern age than any of the other guys around him. He also had been in the Army Reserves, even though he never served in WW2. Of course, he had major deficiencies, too that caused him no end of trouble, most notably he wasn't exactly the kind of guy to inquire as to HOW something worked (it is to his credit that the one thing he DID ask about was three days into office he traipsed down and met with the chairman of the Federal Reserve to ask about the right-wing solution of getting rid of the Fed - and he never asked again).


It just seems to me that someone who has demonstrated some success in the PRIVATE world AND has held some sort of executive authority that does things similar would constitute the most relevant experience. Such a person would then have at least a cursory knowledge of both private and government enterprises. For example, GHW Bush was highly qualified under that criteria - military man, successful oilman in business, Houston rep, chaired the national party, CIA director (foreign policy experience)......Donald Trump was not and neither were Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, G W Bush, Al Gore (who basically grew up in DC), or several others we've had lately.


But now to show you the problem......Mitt Romney meets my criteria almost perfectly, doesn't he? Successful business guy, ran a successful Olympics, governor of a large industrial state.........and I actually do think he would have been successful because he was at heart a pragmatist......but he kept alienating people.

As far as Eisenhower......I didn't live through his Presidency, I only know what I've read. In fact, he appears to be one of those guys we need, a guy who didn't "want" to be President but was "willing" (he ran mostly to keep the....by early 50s standards.....Robert Taft from winning). And let's be honest - the time probably was a tad bit desperate with a war in Korea so soon after the Big One that the nation turned to a general.


Just my thoughts DBF.

selmaborntidefan said:

The threshold was set very low when (take your pick).......we elected a guy who had spent a grand total of 143 days in the US Senate and did not a single thing to distinguish himself other than he was a handsome, articulate black man.......we elected a guy whose primary asset was his last name......we elected a peanut farmer with all of four years as governor......we elected Nixon twice........we elected a name without political experience because he'd liberated Europe......

I mean, we could go on forever here man....

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True but who expected it to go as low as a game show host.

I know this is crazy talk, so ready shoot aim, but sometimes I think we would be better off without any party affiliation. We are polarized by them and they are both playing us like a fiddle.

The problem with parties is that the goal is more about winning the election than to honor promises, and it has people hacked off.

bama_wayne1 said:

I know this is crazy talk, so ready shoot aim, but sometimes I think we would be better off without any party affiliation. We are polarized by them and they are both playing us like a fiddle.

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Party affiliation is a form of mental illness, maybe it should be a disqualifying one.