Presidential Approach

Last time I explained what a president can actually do. Next I want to talk about my own approach.

As I said before, my primary goal would be educating the people about what being a president really means, mostly as I figure that out myself. I would try to make it a point to talk about what's going on through my experience, starting from my campaign experience, and theoretically ending up with an explanation of my day-to-day activities from the Oval Office. Think of it as a presidential Almost-Daily blog.

As noted in my previous post, the powers of a president are limited. So, my personal stance as being pro-choice, science-friendly, immigration-friendly, eco-friendly, etc. won't really matter unless Congress agrees. As such, while I would definitely promote my own ideas as much as possible, the most important thing is to make sure that the government is still functioning. That will involve acknowledging their power and authority.

Acknowledging Congress is a major part of getting things done as president. If you try to act independently of them, circumventing them when possible and blocking all of their motions, they will get resentful and hostile. That does nobody any good. Compromise is important. It's better for everyone if the president and Congress share the responsibility for the government, for better or for worse. (Of course, a president must also be careful not to be bullied by Congress, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt going in.)

My campaign will involve a $0 budget. I'm not campaigning to win, I'm campaigning as an experiment--it will be a sincere campaign, prepared for the possibility of winning, but I'll be content even if it just gives people something to think about.

In debate, I'll always keep in mind what a president can actually do when answering questions. As someone outside of the political machine, I can afford to answer questions directly and sincerely, even if it might hurt my cause.

I have a vision of myself visiting occupied countries and talking to the people there, getting their opinion on our presence there. I'm personally not sure why we should be getting involved in everyone else's affairs most of the time like some kind of global police, and I imagine many foreign countries are resentful of that approach. However, I'm interested to hear from actual people about it. If the US presence is appreciated, I'm all for helping people out. On the other hand, I can't help but feel that at some point they're going to need to help themselves, and the US presence is merely a crutch.

I don't want to be afraid of visiting these places to talk to their people. Hostile places are dangerous, and history is full of well-intentioned martyrs. I wonder if that's something I could even do...

I also have some mental notes about research, education, and more, but I'll save that for another time.