the atlantic….
from CONOR FRIEDERSDORF @the Atlantic…..
Yesterday, I made a plea for better questions for presidential debates. Here’s what you came up with:
1) Can you describe legislation which you think would be good for the country if only it could be legally enacted, but which is unconstitutional?
2) What lessons do you, as current (or potential) commander-in-chief, take from America’s war in Iraq? If you think the war was a mistake, how will you conduct our foreign policy to avoid a repeat of that experience? If you still stand by American intervention, why was it a good idea?
3) Wade Michael Page, Nidal Malik Hasan, and Robert Bales were either currently enlisted or military veterans. The rate of suicide by veterans is at an all-time high. As the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, what specific steps would you take to deal with the mental health crisis affecting our soldiers and veterans?
4) In your job as POTUS, you will be responsible for managing one of the largest annual budgets in the country. I am curious how you would manage one of the smallest. Pretend for a moment that you lived in Oregon where the minimum wage is $8.80/hour. Imagine that you are working full-time for minimum wage. Your annual income, before taxes, would be $18,304. This would give you a monthly salary of $1525.33 (again though it would probably be less as no taxes have been deducted). If you were so lucky as to find an apartment for $650/month and rode the bus to and from work everyday, that would leave you with $787.83 for ALL of your expenses. How would you manage that budget? What would you do, if anything, to get assistance?
5) Government serves as a risk-sharing mechanism. Our tax dollars are pooled to protect individuals and communities against unforeseen catastrophes be they medical, environmental or financial. Is this an appropriate function for government? By what principles should the appropriate breadth and subject-area of this risk-collectivization be defined? Are there specific areas where the government is providing “too much” insurance? Are there areas where it is not providing enough?
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Interesting questions – for an interview at Atlantic f.ex…… as a national debate.. nah.. not the most important issues by far….
bring on bain, taxes and medicare!!
I’ll give my answer to question #1 – Eliminate the electoral college
It is outrageaous that state such as WY and VT have so many electoral votes. Furthermore, it is outrageous that the political campaign surrounds almost exclusively around only about 12 states. Why should independent voters matter so much more in Florida than they do in Oklahoma?
well we have the EV’s right now…..
There is a guy that comes on here to push the elimination of the EV’s thru state vote…..
I believe the number of states they need to test the theory out is down to a small number….
Don’t hold your breath though…
The old argument for keeping the Ev was that it forced candidates to conduct national campaigns
And that a straight popular vote would mean candidates would ignore smaller Statesin favor of the large ones
That has pretty much fallen by the wayside
I mean what Democrat is going to campaign in Utah?
What Republican is going to campaign in Massachusetts?
One thing that might hasten the ECs end however would be if Obama were to lose the popular vote but win the EVs
I would then predict that all that “constitutional scholarship”we heard from GOPers in 2000 would rapidly fall by the wayside and a strong bipartisan effort would be made to get rid of the EC
He, he , he
If THAT happened Jack
They’d have call out the militia
The GOPer’s would want to succeed
A Democrat might not campaign in Utah, but a Republican might. And a Democrat would certainly be willing to campaign in MA.
It is probably true that the rural areas would be ignored relative to the urban and suburban areas, but at least candidates won’t be going to Nashua NH on multiple visits.