Presidential Challenges

dirtypablo

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As we approach another election, I have been thinking about how we choose a president, and how we got to the point that our choices are Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The process of choosing a president based on TV advertisements and debates seems quite silly to me. I think that we could get a much better idea of who the best candidate is through a set of tests and challenges. The tests could be general knowledge, and US specific knowledge. For example, basic questions on science, math, and the geopolitical state of the world. I'm not expecting these guys to know tensor calculus, but I would certainly like to know if the guy I'll be voting for doesn't know how to compute an average, what 15% of 50 is, or what causes the seasons. Similarly, questions based on the US like what is the estimated population? What is the average income in the United States? What percentage of people have used unemployment in their lifetime? Which areas in the country have the highest levels of crime and poverty? What about per capita? How have those statistics changed over the last 20 years? And so on. Once, complete, we are given all their answers and scores.

They could be given challenges that require more than a 3 minute answer - there is a nuclear meltdown in Pennsylvania. What do you do? At each step along the process, introduce new variables/outcomes and have them respond - this could be a month long process where for 2 hours once a week we get to watch the candidate attempt to handle the issue. Of course, this isn't a perfect solution, but it certainly seems better than our current one.

I was thinking about this, then thought about what it would be like watching Donald Trump and Joe Biden go through this process. As a US citizen, knowing the rest of the world would see, it would be quite embarrassing - maybe its not a good idea and they should just argue on stage instead.
 
POTUS doesn't really need to know all the details. You want a leader who can collaborate with intelligent people, manage, delegate and who has a strong moral compass. I'd also appreciate someone who wasn't greedy.
 
POTUS doesn't really need to know all the details. You want a leader who can collaborate with intelligent people, manage, delegate and who has a strong moral compass. I'd also appreciate someone who wasn't greedy.

Sure - I am not expecting them to know everything. But I would certainly like to know if the guy who will be the leader of the free world understands 8th grade math. And the leader/delegation part goes along with the challenge - they could do the challenge with a team. And I agree being able to lead and delegate is more important than raw knowledge - but I don't think we really see any of that with the current system.
 
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It should based on how much they bench. Out of those Two,whomever puts up the most LB’s get my vote.
 
Who wants to be a President.

Politics would get thrown into it. Things like: who gets to select the questions? Who gets to select the topics? Why are their more science questions than religious? Etc etc.
 
I think the problem is we have a two party system. If one or both of the parties are being controlled by the extreme Ideology of a party we become more divided and the pendulum of power starts seeing from one extreme to the other, until one side wins out. I believe we are seeing that play out right now in US politics.
 
I tend to like a system where the federal government sets aside an amount of money for all elections then depending on the make up of the House and Senate, money is distributed to each party based on what percentage each party holds in Congress. Then the parties decide on which people to finance per an election. This is for everything, President, House and Senate.

VP should be a individual position that is voted on. VP role should also have a more set role.
 
I think the problem is we have a two party system. If one or both of the parties are being controlled by the extreme Ideology of a party we become more divided and the pendulum of power starts seeing from one extreme to the other, until one side wins out. I believe we are seeing that play out right now in US politics.
Hmm, it’s almost like a two party system is by design...
 
Just pick a president at random, would probably be less wars.
 
Typically academic and professional history suggest that candidates have above basic knowledge / skill testing abilities. However, this particular crop of dem candidates aside of Yang / Pete and Bloomberg seem to have a lacking understanding of Math, Science and Technology.

The final two candidates in Biden and Sanders may be the most lacking understanding of modern technology out of the entire bunch - I think if we are going to be ok in electing people of advance age, they should have adequate knowledge on the subject
 
I tend to like a system where the federal government sets aside an amount of money for all elections then depending on the make up of the House and Senate, money is distributed to each party based on what percentage each party holds in Congress. Then the parties decide on which people to finance per an election. This is for everything, President, House and Senate.

VP should be a individual position that is voted on. VP role should also have a more set role.

The party currently in power gets more money? That doesn't make sense.

The VP role used to go to the loser of the general election.
 
POTUS doesn't really need to know all the details. You want a leader who can collaborate with intelligent people, manage, delegate and who has a strong moral compass. I'd also appreciate someone who wasn't greedy.

You forgot "Owns the libs"
 
Recycle all the TUF coach's challenges. Put it on PPV.
 
I thought this was going to be about pushups and Facebook ratings. Colour me disappointed.
 
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