Tag: candidates

Categories
culture politics

Building a Community

I have been thinking about my desire to serve in an elected capacity. I said before that I did not know where I would want to serve, but I am beginning to narrow the possibilities down. I realize that what I would like to accomplish by serving in an elected capacity is to help build a community. That means that I would want to stay close to a specific community. While I think that I have the capacity to serve as a public official at any level of government, I am realizing that my interests are more tailored to serving locally. That could be serving at a city or county level, or as a representative for a community at the state level.

I believe that there is more to “community” than just the political/government aspect. A community is defined by the way that people interact with each other and work together on those things where they have a common interest. Building a community therefore includes establishing the means of interaction between the members of the community.

I can see that it is going to take a while for me to capture and process all my thoughts on this subject. Suffice it to say that there will be more here on this theme as I develop this train of thought. Please feel free to jump in and correct my thinking or point out things that I should be considering about the nature of community.

Categories
politics

June Candidate List

It’s that time again when I review my current status on candidate endorsements. In the last month I manage to finish the whole list of candidates plus one who was not on the list a month ago. Despite all my work, the list this month is as long as the list last month:

  • Mike Huckabee
  • Alan Augustson
  • Wayne Root
  • Joe Schriner
  • Jon Greenspon
  • Charles Maxham
  • Bob Hargis
  • Fred Thompson
  • Daniel Imperato

The sad thing is that once you consider that two of the candidates on the list last month should not have been on the list (one was not running for president and I forgot that I had already covered the other one) you find that the list is actually longer at the end of the month than it was at the beginning. I have quickly glanced at all the candidates on the current list to make sure that they are all supposed to be on the list. Based on that quick review I am hoping that I can cover a large number of these candidates in a short period of time.

I’d like to get done with this soon so that I can review the endorsements and give some clarification on my positions with regard to the candidates. Not all my endorsements are equal and I want to get through all the candidates before I try to explain who I think are the best candidates and not just who is qualified enough to deserve votes.

Categories
politics

What Makes a Good Candidate

I have begun to think about what attributes a good candidate should have. It started with the thought which has long prevented me from seriously considering running for public office, which is that I am not flashy. People do not pick me out of a crowd for any reason unless they know me. That made me wonder how I would try to appeal to people if I were running for office. The answer seems blindingly obvious now, I would let people get to know me, and try to get to know them. That would mean meeting with people in small groups where we could interact personally.

At first I thought this would rule out a large campaign. While those campaigns are known for the advertisements and flyers and speeches to crowds of thousands, I think that a candidate with a good organization could focus his time on meeting individuals while his organization took care of the advertisements and arranging the speeches to large audiences. In fact I think that the candidate would be better able to inspire the kind of grassroots campaign that everyone talks about if they focus their energy on inspiring individuals by letting people get to know them and feel connected and committed to them.

The more I think about it, I realize that the people that make the worst officials (in my experience) are those who lose touch with the people they are supposed to represent. In some cases they never really knew and understood their constituencies in the first place.

Does anyone want to add their thoughts on the subject?

Categories
life politics

Potential Candidate

I think I would make a great elected official. That is, I think I have the qualities that I would like to see in candidates and elected officials at all levels of government. I’m intelligent and interested in learning a wide variety of new things, I care about our government and society, and I like to find solutions that are good now and beneficial to future society.

One of my core perspectives when I discuss issues was perfectly stated by Jason Black while I was talking to him yesterday – I always have the underlying question in all my thinking, “what can we do about this from where we are?” One answer to that with regard to political issues is to get involved. Laura and I have talked about this for some time and concluded that we want to do that.

I have decided to actively explore my options with regard to running for public office at some time in the future. That is a nice vague announcement. Initially it means that I will continue to share my ideas about current issues of the day in hopes that I can get a sense for what ideas resonate with other people. I have been asked before if I would consider running for office. (I have asked others the same question about their willingness to run.)

I will be looking to figure out whether local people are interested in the areas of local politics that I am concerned with. I will want to know if people in my state are concerned about the same issues that concern me on the state level and if the like my perspective on those problems. I will want to discover if, by some chance, my perspectives on our national political issues resonate with a wider audience.

So let me know what you think about my ideas and the issues that I cover. Am I right, or wrong? Are the issues I consider relevant, or superfluous? Do I deserve votes based on those ideas?

Keep in mind, on the local level that more is happening on the state and national levels at any given time. Unless I start to hone in on local issues I will likely have more to say about things at those larger levels. This is not meant to reflect greater interest in those levels of government – only to acknowledge that they provide more fodder for commentary.

Categories
politics

Political Prognostication

A random train of thought today brought me to a very interesting destination. Let me preface this by saying that I am not among the ranks of those who would have anyone but Hillary for President although I have no intention of voting for her at this time. For all those in the anyone-but-Hillary camp here’s a hopeful prediction. This is the one and only real chance that Hillary will have to become President of the United States. If she is not elected in 2008 she would be facing an incumbent in 2012. Beating an incumbent president would be much harder than winning what is essentially an open seat in 2008 – unless the next Republican president was as unpopular as George W. Bush has become.

If she were to lose the Democratic nomination and the Democratic nominee were elected she would not even have a chance in 2012 (unless she were to become a Republican -which will never happen) and by 2016 she is unlikely to have the kind of support that she has enjoyed during the last decade. Also by 2016 she will be 68 years old which is older than nearly all the presidents we have ever had. So in reality this is her only real shot at moving back into the White House.

The other side to this story is that if Hillary were to be elected in 2008 she would be a very safe bet to serve two terms because she is smart enough politically to avoid any mistakes which would make her particularly vulnerable as an incumbent.

So my prediction is that Hillary will be President from 2008 – 2016 or else she will never be President.

Categories
politics

Candidate Announcements

This 2008 election is already shaping up to be a different animal from previous presidential elections as far as how campaigns are run and how the media is involved. Over at Oval Office 2008 comes the suggestion that a candidate could make “an announcement previewing his pre-announcement of his intent to announce that he will announce.” I’d say that pretty well covers our news coverage of presidential candidates. That caused me to chuckle because those who follow politics pretty well know who is (or will be) running and those who don’t follow politics almost certainly don’t care this far in advance. The only reason I care about the announcements is that I use that (or rather, the formal FEC filing that goes with it) as the line of demarcation between those I study for endorsement and those I don’t.

Categories
life politics

Yes, I’m Still Alive

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here and I am going to work harder to change that. Things have been very busy at home and at work lately. Right now I would like to give a few projections of what is happening and will be happening with me and the blog.

The candidates have been filing in and I have not kept up. Here is the current list of candidates and the order in which I will be making my endorsements (this is based on the order they filed to the best of my knowledge): John Edwards, Christopher Dodd, Sam Brownback, Christine Smith, Joe Biden, and Duncan Hunter.

I am personally taking a more active interest in local and state politics right now. I am actually going to meetings on current issues, such as the Mountain View Corridor highway that UDOT is looking to build. I believe that politics should be more local and less national so I am trying to make my own actions (and commentary) reflect that belief. I will be posting more on those issues, although I will still be covering national issues and races as well. The limit is that I will not cover races that I can’t vote in – so no coverage of a controversial race for governor in another state even if it is making headlines around the nation.

I have also felt the need to move from blogger again. It’s time to revive my personal site so I will be moving to WordPress again and have it hosted at davidjmiller.org. I already own the domain, but it has been dormant for a while. I’m not going to rush the move, I want to import my posts from blogger, but I may move forward without that.

I am actually considering the possibilities of participating with parties and/or candidates at some level and I may finally be ready to donate somewhere. That’s a huge change for me. While I love talking/writing on the subject I am ready to do more than just pontificate.

So, life is great right now despite my silence here. I am hoping to export the energy that I am finding from that to help make a difference in the things that I have always talked about.

Categories
life meta politics

Holidays

I’m guessing that it will be normal for me to post less often during the holidays. Hopefully 10 day breaks will not be normal.

Besides the obvious Christmas festivities and work, I have been doing very good with my running until this week. Sometime on Christmas day my right ankle began to hurt. I went running on the 26th and, although running was fine, I noticed that my ankle got worse. My Achilles tendon began to swell some so I have been staying off it for the last few days. I don’t know how it happened, but I have to assume that it is related to the running. Hopefully resting it this week will allow me to get back to training sooner than if I pushed harder. I’m going to give it a try with a short run tomorrow.

I’m still trying to find the balance of what I write about here. I was doing lots of candidate endorsements before the break, but I want a better balance. I have found that there are two new candidates who have filed with the FEC since I last wrote. I guess I had better get caught up again because it looks like we are likely to have even more in the coming weeks.

Last night I got a call from my Grandpa and we got to catch up. I had not talked to him for a few months as he has been busy with his new wife trying to keep up with their combined 48 grandchildren. I don’t know about her grandchildren, but I realized that of his 24 grandchildren half of them were married so we’re all getting spread out a bit.

I can only imagine how busy it would get trying to keep up with 48 grandchildren. Anyway, it was nice to catch up with him, that’s why I decided to do a little catching up here.

Categories
politics

More to Come

I just discovered a good listing of candidates and potential candidates for 2008. The real surprise came as I saw that there are two Republicans, two Democrats, and two Libertarians who have all filed with the Federal Election Commission as candidates. That is the standard I use for choosing when a candidate should be researched for endorsement purposes. The list also states who has formed exploratory committees and others who have shown that they are seriously considering candidacy.

Of the six official filings, I have covered one candidate so far. While I will not list the party of any candidate that I endorse, I feel that it is only fair to cover these first six candidates without grouping them in parties. I will jump from party to party for the remaining five candidates. Thereafter, I will endorse (or not) candidates in the order that I discover that they have filed for candidacy with the FEC.

I have also concluded that I may choose, in some third-party cases to research candidates for endorsement before they file with the FEC. In any such case I will clearly state that they have not filed for candidacy.

Categories
politics

Endorsements

I had not intended to suspend posting until I had done some research on the governor of Iowa, but that is how life played out so here, after four days, is some insight into the endorsement process. I freely admit that, even as an independent voter, I am not free from bias. The first time I hear about a candidate choosing to run for president I will probably have an idea, based on their position and what I have heard previously, of whether I expect they will receive an endorsement from me. For example, with Governor Vilsack I had heard very little about him which suggested a lack of showmanship. The fact that he was a two term governor of a state which was not known to be particularly liberal or conservative suggested an experienced public servant who was not a polarizing force. I would initially guess that I would endorse such a candidate.

On the other hand, I will openly admit that most third party candidates are likely to have a harder time getting an endorsement from me based partially on the wacky ideas I have heard from a variety of third party candidates over the years. My experience suggests that the majority of third party candidates have an agenda or a specific issue and lack the propensity to work with others. On top of that, most of them don’t honestly expect to have a shot at winning and it shows in the way they campaign to their niche supporters.

At these early stages of campaigning, my endorsements have the possibility of changing as a result of new information. That being said, I am not at all opposed to getting through the primaries with candidates in each party that I endorse. In fact, I hope that the candidates who win the primaries from each party are candidates whom I can endorse.

One final caveat, when I endorse someone it should not be construed as an endorsement of a party. I never vote for a presidential party, I vote for a president. If I endorse Governor Vilsack it says nothing about the Democratic Party. If I endorse Governor Bush it is an endorsement for Bush, not for the Republican Party. (Honestly I do not expect Jeb Bush to run. I used him as an example because I do not want to suggest an endorsement for a candidate who has not yet chosen to run. In the case of Governor Vilsack, I will be posting the results of my research presently.)