(04-28-2017 12:47 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(04-28-2017 12:21 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(04-28-2017 11:45 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(04-28-2017 11:25 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(04-28-2017 08:13 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Curious about what you think some of the questions should be, and which ones would have tripped Trump up.

Possibilities:
1. Do you think this is an easy job? (yes answer disqualifies)
2. Do you know any Russians, or anybody from another country? (yes answer disqualifies)
3. Do you speak with the gravitas of an erudite person? ( if you have to ask what this means, you are disqualified)

We have a verbal application now, called the primary system. Should we do away with that?

I sincerely hope you were just popping off and not serious.

I actually would have liked to have known what Trump knew about how government was organized and what each branch's powers were. From the debates it was obvious he was ignorant of this, but it was subtle.

Questions like:

What roles do you believe the POTUS plays in a functioning society?
What responsibilities and day to day tasks should the POTUS be responsible for?
How does legislation get passed?

Those are basic questions that tell you about, not only the candidates views on government, but also their fundamental understanding of how our government works.

I don't get why you responded in the way you did to my comment - do you think Trump is qualified?

The primaries obviously did not do a good job in being able to illustrate that Trump had a fundamental misunderstanding of the difficulties and complexities of being president, which is not good. So hey, why not try and supplement what already exists?

The first two seem to have no right or wrong answer.
The third I would expect every candidate to be prepped for.

I responded because any candidate would be prepped on how to fill out the questionaire long before he filed it out "himself", and I wondered what answers might disqualify him from running. IOW, more detail on your proposal, if it is a serious one.

Of course Trump is qualified - he meets both the birth and age tests in the constitution. Are there other qualifications not in the Constitution? Or should there be? High School Education?

In the sense that you mean qualified, I still think he is qualified, though not in the traditional sense of a resume of political offices held. Quite often that kind of resume is not a resume of accomplishment, nor an indicator of ability.

I guess Trump underestimated the difficulties - so what? Obama thought he could shut down Gitmo on the first day - apparently he underestimated that difficulty. Why must we insist THIS President be judged differently from THAT President? In any case, both Lincoln and Truman had detractors who felt they were not qualified. I personally felt Hillary was not qualifed. But many people do not share my personal preferences for qualification. For example, I prefer executive experience for my Chief Executives. Many don't.

OO - these questions would not be meant to be right/wrong. They would be meant to provide insight into a candidates understanding of the position they are applying for in a way that we don't generally see during a debate.

And I'm not holding Trump and Obama to different standards. There are always going to be legislative actions that are harder to get done once in office (Gitmo being a perfect example).

But I do not think any of our previous presidents thought that being POTUS was going to be easier than anything they were or could have been doing as an ordinary citizen.

But keep bending over backwards to try and defend the guy I thought you didn't like.

I must admit, I am liking him more now than when he was a candidate. As for defending him, I guess that means you were attacking him, and I am always for common sense and fairness. You don't have to bend over backwards for fairness. In this case, I said what I thought, which you see as a defense.

As for whether or not any of our former presidents thought POTUS would be easier than what they were doing, we don't know for sure, since Trump is the only one I know who has commented on it publicly, but I would guess most, maybe all, of them did not think it would be easier, since most of them were were Senators or Governors before being POTUS. On the other hand, none of them were managing a multi-billion dollar international empire successfully, so to some extent it is apples and oranges. Is being a Senator easier than managing a giant business enterprise? I think so, but then I have never done either.

I must also admit, I felt that Trump would find running the country to be very different from running his businesses. I guess he is finding that out.

Would you mind giving me some insights into the bolded?

Do you like him more in the sense that as a candidate you couldn't stand him, but now as president you find him tolerable? Or do you actually have positive feelings about what he has done, overall, in his first 100 days. I'm genuinely interested in this.