What does a candidate think?
I have had a remarkably low level of interest in the upcoming Presidential election. I've realized that I was more against the Bushies than for anyone else. It's not because I'm apathetic, but because the candidates are blurring. After all, they're all politicians, aren't they? That term carries a lot of baggage these days. It means "amoral", "cynical", "opportunistic" and sometimes "corrupt". Ever since the '60s, we've been inundated with one demoralizing story after another about politicians invading our privacy, taking bag money from lobbyists and invading sovereign countries for personal reasons.
I used to like to watch debates, figuring that's a great way to take the measure of a candidate, but the last two presidential debates were consummately boring. They ducked all of the tough answers and responded with gobble-gobble poli-speak instead of plain english. And I think that I know why. Each candidate is surrounded by so many hangers-on and staff that their output is no longer the result of an individual, but that of a group and committees rarely take strong positions. What would Hillary or Rudy say if they were completely and utterly by them self?
So I had an idea for something that might work. Put each candidate into a room with a computer for a few hours and have them answer random questions. No filtering up front, no nonverbals from handlers in the room--just the candidate and the Internet. That would be a more interesting test of what they really think, because after a while, they'd probably just open up a bit and say what they really think.
Isn't is sad that we can have a two year election road show and not really know what the candidates are like as people and what they really think?
Posted on June 15, 2007
