What, Not Who, Are You Looking For In A Presidential Candidate?

[Dinger]

Not necessarily in this order:


I am looking for someone who can and will end the fiasco in Iraq.
I am looking for someone who can and will restore the Fairness Doctrine.
I am looking for someone who can and will win the election.
I am looking for someone who can and will hold * and his fellow criminals accountable.
I am looking for someone who can and will restore honesty, integrity, and transparency in the voting process.
I am looking for someone who can and will impeach the felonious five on the USSC, as
well as others who have destroyed the Constitution.
I am looking for someone who can and will make universal healthcare an American nstitution.
I am looking for someone who will be a true uniter.
I am looking for someone who can and will restore our country's image to the world.
I am looking for someone who has foreign policy experience.
I am looking for someone who is anti-war, because they have seen firsthand what war really is.
I am looking for someone who has a humble background.
I am looking for someone who can and will restore the U.S. Constitution to it's pre-* state.
I am looking for someone with bipartisan appeal.
I am looking for someone with diplomatic experience.
I am looking for someone who is a true progressive, liberal Democrat.
I am looking for someone who believes that everyone had a right to a college education.
I am looking for someone who will honor our veterans.
I am looking for someone who will not discriminte.
I am looking for someone who can and will make the minimum wage a true living wage.


More to come, I'm sure . . . . .

[yes2truth]

1. Someone who will do the job exactly...

the way I want it done. And I say that as one who is the quintessence of modesty and who is filled with the milk of human kindness towards others throughout the fruited plain and across all of the ponds.

[demommom]

10. yes2truth

:wow:

Good luck with that!

[soothsayer]

2. those things, plus will protect the middle class (not continue to destroy it)

bring jobs back from overseas (tax incentives should work, as kerry suggested), who has strong environmental leanings, etc. On edit, also who will have a TRANSPARENT gov't (let them even release kenndy assassination documents, UFO stuff---EVERYTHING!)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. I'm looking for someone who thinks outside the box

One who realizes the interconnectedness of all things.

One who is not afraid of new solutions to old problems

One who can inspire the nation to take bold steps into the future

One who walks their talk

One who is rooted upon the foundation of the Constitution.

[Cyrano]

4. It will never be a perfect world. But I think the one who can most effectively

work toward making many of these things come about is Al Gore.

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

5. Why do you need someone to have been a war veteran?

I don't get it. You don't need to go to war to know that it sucks.

[Dinger]

7. But You'd be A Lot Less Likely To Send Soldiers Into Combat If You've Seen The Devastation Yourself

Too many chickenhawks in bu$hland if you ask me. They seem really willing to send OTHERS to their death so that they can profit$ from war. They have absolutely NO idea what it is like.

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

9. Not true at all

Some men become hardened by war.

[Dinger]

12. Yes, SOME Do, But Not All

Some actually learn from the experience. They learn it is wrong.

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

13. You don't need to go to war to know that n/t

[Dinger]

14. No You Don't

But it sure helps.

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

15. No it doesn't

That attitude promotes war actually because you give it a sort of prestige, a "reluctant warrior" vibe.

[left is right]

6. One who is a person of integrity

and swift-of-mind, capable of answering any spin or smear quickly and forcefully so that the repukes' catapulted proganda will have no affect

[many a good man]

8. Leadership

I want someone who will lead this country to a restoration of the ideals it was founded upon.

I want someone who can make America a global leader in human rights, environmental sustainability, international law, and justice.

[MissWaverly]

11. I am looking for an "FDR"

FDR because he had polio at one point had to eat in the kitchen with the help. You can learn a lot about
civil rights, minimum wage and the basic integrity of the American worker/tax payer by eating the kitchen
with the help. Too many of our congressman are horrified about the "common man" and would rather have
a posh luncheon with their favorite lobbyist (who is paying) and ordering the house wine.

[Pyrzqxgl]

16. That sounds like a start.

How about a little more support for our Artists, our traditional craftsmen and craftswomen, our traditional & Roots musicians
& our traditional musics (folksong, blues, jazz, & vintage music of all sorts). Our music & musicians get more support in Europe
& Japan than they do here.

[frogcycle]

17. capable of rational thought

analysis of facts, reasoned decision-making

[More Than A Feeling]

18. Four things.

Clean Elections Act
Employee Free Choice Act
Universal Healthcare
Begin the Iraq withdrawal

I will be happy voting for any Democratic general election candidate who will do those four things.

[illinoisprogressive]

19. Not looking but, found it fun to read. cool post.

[smalll]

20. I'm looking for -

I am looking for someone who can go through the white-hot flames of criticism at the most public and media-frenzied levels without ever breaking down, or rarely even breaking a sweat.
I am looking for someone whose "negatives" everybody already knows, so that when the Repubs fling mud at her it'll be too old and dry to stick.
I am looking for someone whose selection by the Democrats will highlight the "haters" on the right rather than those on the left.
I am looking for someone who looks more presidential, more regal, more Helen-Mirren-like than any of the other candidates when they stand up there side-by-side at debates.
I am looking for a smart, disciplined, hard-working candidate.
I am looking for someone who gaffes less often than Jesus himself.
I am looking for someone who knows how to election.
In short, I am looking for someone who's in it to win it, and whose steady hands will ensure that the Democratic Party won't find a way to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory one more time.

I am looking for someone like that, whoever she may be. :shrug:

[welshTerrier2]

21. corporate America versus We The People

the OP provided a very comprehensive laundry list. every item is a good one. but still I feel that something BIGGER is lacking

the right question most certainly is NOT "WHO". the OP nailed that one very nicely.

but the right question may not be "WHAT" either.

i see all of the items in the OP as symptoms of a bigger disease. What is it that is causing all of those items to not be the way they should be today?

In a nutshell, BIG MONEY. Ask yourself this: is there any real possibility for a candidate financed by BIG MONEY to not be responsive to what that BIG MONEY was spent on in the first place? Does anyone really believe that money is being spent because of some kind of sense of right and wrong or some kind of ideological vision? I think such ideas are incredibly naive. In fact, I doubt anyone on DU actually believes this mega-money from corporations is donated without some serious strings, make that serious rope, make that serious steel cables attached. And I for one do NOT accept that idea that only republicans dance to the tune of the ones that paid for the campaigns. BIG MONEY = BIG INFLUENCE. If it didn't, they wouldn't spend it in the first place.

So, what's the underlying cause of all the symptoms we've identified and how do we pick a candidate accordingly?

Ask yourself this: what industries are walking away with the biggest rewards from US Government policies? It's easy. Defense. Big Oil. Big Pharma. Big Insurance. oh, and did I mention Big Defense?

So, my answer is that I look for a candidate who is willing to cut the defense budget in half. Why such a radical notion? Because I see our country dying from within. We cannot continue to procure and use a wildly disproportionate share of the earth's resources. All empires have crumbled. Do you really believe the US is immune to what I call the "leveling effect". We need to transfer funds from unnecessary defense systems and move it to the clear and present danger of global warming and rapidly decreasing supplies of global oil sources. We need to use those funds to build real mass transit leading to a 50% reduction in auto use in the very near future.

We need real national health CARE. We cannot allow a system that rations health care BY PRICE to remain in place. We cannot allow a FOR PROFIT (read against you) system where INSURANCE COMPANIES put shareholders ahead of the American people. And right there on the same page, right there depriving Americans of the most fundamental necessity is Big Pharma.

And finally Big Oil. Our entire foreign policy, our entire imperialistic foreign policy, our entire foreign policy that sends America's fighting forces abroad to procure oil for private commercial gain, must be re-engineered to build real alliances and global cooperation that puts people ahead of greedy, profit-seeking Global Corporate Government.

Thus, I seek a candidate who does not have HER hand out to K Street. Yeah, or his hand either. I seek a candidate willing to see the farce of wasting money we don't have on wasteful defense systems when MUCH BETTER CHOICES could be made. AndI seek a candidate who is willing to make the tough calls and not be busy trying to "look tough on defense" when bloated defense budgets are tearing at our country's fabric. I seek a candidate who receives no sponsorship from Big Defense and no sponsorship from Big Insurance and no sponsorship from Big Pharma and no sponsorship from Big Oil. Any candidate who fails those tests is a corporatist puppet.

And any candidate who is a corporatist puppet, regardless of what goodies they promise from the OP's laundry list, will not deliver the goods to the American people. They'll tell us they feel our pain. They'll point to the ravages of our country's shortcomings. Deep inside the halls of Congress and the WH, far from the bright lights of the TV cameras, when the real deal is on the line, when it really counts, when real change is put before them, they will repay those who paid their way and they will surely betray We The People as they always have. As Deep Throat so succinctly put it: "Follow the money." Then you'll know.

[flaminbats]

22. a candidate that will become a bipartisan icon..

since Nixon was President, Democrats have been elected to clean up the mess..not to lead our country in a direction which others would seek to follow.

Carter was elected to clean up the executive branch after Watergate. Clinton was elected to clean up the budgetary and economic mess left behind by Reagan and Bush. but FDR was elected to implement the New Deal and win WWII, not merely to clean up a mess left behind by Hoover and Coolidge. Truman was elected to pass universal healthcare and redefine our country's approach toward the Soviet Union. Eisenhower won by embracing Truman's Cold War policies and supporting civil rights. Kennedy and LBJ won by ending segregation and passing the policies of the Great Society.

what I look for in a candidate is someone who will redefine pro-life not as trashing aborted embryos, but as a providing universal healthcare and curing disease. who supports peace across the globe..not a war on terrorism or terrorism on warfare! when people vote, they shouldn't associate being pro-life as opposing any form of abortion, but as helping those who are living yet cannot survive alone. I want Republicans to associate themselves with the morality and goals of our next nominee, but must distance themselves from neocons and social darwinists in both parties in order to win!