Let's Explore This - Why Shouldn't People Running For President Engage In Hypotheticals?......

[global1]

Seems to me I would want to know how a potential president would handle a situation and would like to evaluate my candidates on that basis. I don't want to wait around until something happens and see the president stare blankly and continue reading My Pet Goat while the nation is under attack. We American people shouldn't have to deal with something like this again.

So I say - ask the hypotheticals and lets see how the candidates would handle a situation.

The only ones that don't want to engage in hypotheticals are those that are worried how they would be evaluated given their answer. They use the fact 'that a person running for president shouldn't engage in hypotheticals - so they won't be placed in a situation that will cause them problems politically speaking.

So what we get from presidential candidates is what they think we want to hear or what they want us to hear versus what they would do given a certain situation.

I believe that they are using the hypotheticals as an excuse for ducking the real issues.

I want to know what a person will do in a given situation. Knowing how they would handle a hypothetical situation seems to me a good indication as to how they would handle a real situation that comes up.

So candidates - what would you have done if somebody whispered in your ear that the country is under attack?

What would you do if you had actionable intelligence that Osama Bin Laden was sighted in the hinterlands of Pakistan?

What would you do if someone in your administration outed a CIA NOC?

What would you do if your AG was caught up perjuring himself?

Knowing the answers to these questions might have caused a lot of people to vote differently.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

1. I'm still waiting for a silent candidate.

[Fridays Child]

2. Hillary said that--right?

Jeez, that was a really, really bad thing for her to say.

[TwilightGardener]

14. Yep--Obama's such a naive silly, SAYING WHAT HE THINKS.

It takes years of practice to be calculating and purposefully vague.

[Milo_Bloom]

3. The only problem is the specifics...

Hypotheticals have one huge drawback, they are broad sweeping questions where the person giving the answer presupposes circumstances one might not consider.


2 people can hear the same hypothetical, come to 2 different answers and BOTH be acting correctly because they add (in their mind alone) specifics that the other person doesn't consider.

For example, "What would you do if you had actionable intelligence that Osama Bin Laden was sighted in the hinterlands of Pakistan?"

Let's apply some questions.

How good was the intelligence? What was the source? Was someone trying to have a rival warlord killed and labeled them as OBL to get America to strike? Are there international protocols and treaties to consider?

If a candidate answered the hypothetical honestly and stated that they would have to consider various things before acting, they would be labeled weak (but the reality is that there is more to it than just acting)... on the flipside if a candidate said they would go and get him, they will be labeled too reactionary for not considering things I mentioned above.

Hypotheticals, unfortunately are a lose/lose and that is why people avoid them.

[Skip Intro]

4. Isn't it akin to having a football coach, before the game, open his playbook for all to see?

just asking, it seems that way to me

I'd love to see all nuclear weapons (all weapons, for that matter) vanish from the face of the earth, but in present reality, what good is the deterrence if you declare you will not use them under any circumstances.

Regarding the "if he won't act, we will" in relation to attacking Pakistan without that government's permission, does it really make sense to tell the ally, and the enemy (declared to be there) what actions you will take in a certain circumstance, a year and a half from now?

Words have meaning, obviously, look at the reaction in Pakistan.

[AnotherGreenWorld]

5. I don't answer hypothetical questions = I don't want to answer THAT question.

I've heard her answer hypothetical questions before.

[illinoisprogressive]

6. Actually Hypotheticals are a good exercise and gage of a person

[rinsd]

7. "If someone raped your wife would you seek the death penalty"

Perhaps that hypothetical was before your time....

[Forkboy]

8. OUCH

I remember that one all too well.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. "Shouldn't engage in hypotheticals" = "You wouldn't like my honest answer."

[Forkboy]

10. While I wouldn't mind it I can see why they don't want to do so.

Look how their words on actual things get used,manipulated and twisted.Imagine if someone asked a hypothetical about...Pakistan say ( :) ) and you give an answer that goes over like a lead balloon...and then the hypothetical may never come to pass anyways.You end up taking a hit for nothing.

[FrenchieCat]

11. It's the recipe that is lethal.....of hypotheticals + media reporting of the response.......

It is sometimes called a "gotcha" question........when it is an hypothetical question thought up to provide the responder with the choice of choosing various lose/lose options.

Example of such a loser question: If China was to call in the U.S. debt, and at the same time Russia announced that it was installing Nukes in Venezuela to payback the US for installing missiles in Poland, what would you do?

The problem with this hypothetical is that it is a "stretch" that this would happen in the way described........simutaneously......and giving someone 10 seconds to come up with an answer is really not a proposition that most candidates would want to be faced with.

Being President has got to be a more "Thoughtful" job than having 10 seconds to decide how to handle a potential international crisis.

But maybe that's just me. :shrug:

[goodgd_yall]

16. I agree completely

I would think a president would ask the advice of advisors as well before coming up with a plan of action.

[earthlover]

12. Don't forget...it was BUSH who made refusing to answer hypotheticals his style....

More than anyone else, Bush has used this ploy of "not answering hypotheticals".

Of course, one obvious question is: is this something we as Democrats want to emulate?

Yes, hypotheticals give us a hint as to what a candidate might do in a real situation. We get to see his reasoning, see where he is coming from.

Just electing a president is a hypothetical exercise by the voters, they hypothetically speak through their ballots on who they think will face the next four years better. They may vote hypothetically on which candidates they think will do best on any of a number of issues...hypothetically, that is.

So is it asking too much of a candidate asking voters to make a "hypothetical" to elect them president, to answer a few hypotheticals themselves?

Smart or dumb, Obama actually led off with some hypotheticals about going after Been Forgotten in Pakistan. Seems to be quite the opposite view of most standard politicians, especially Bush, and we see Hillary doing it too.

Hypothetically speaking, I think this is a good thing for America for candidates to answer hypotheticals.

[sandnsea]

13. Pakistan isn't a hypothetical

Bin Laden is there. Al Qaeda is there can causing problems for our troops. Musharaff isn't our ally. Hypothetical had nothing to do with it and was just more obfuscating from the 'tough on terror' Dems because they're afraid they won't win unless they sounds just like the Republicans.

True hypotheticals, otoh, don't need to be answered. Especially the gotcha games like the ticking time bomb bullshit.

[earthlover]

15. There could be hypotheticals about Pakistan, for example....

"Let's say you have actionable intelligence that Been Forgotten and some of his colleagues are holed up in a location in Pakistan. Let's say Mussharav has been informed of this and has said to you privately he was not going to take them out. Your military advisors assure you that a swift action on special forces or perhaps an airstrike can take them out. What do you do?"

That is a hypothetical question. It is one basically posed by Obama, although not as clearly. Instantly, Hillary and Edwards chimed in that they, hypothetically, would take the same action as Obama.

Then the spin machine and echo chamber tried to paint Obama either naive or a war monger for even bringing up the hypothetical topic of actually punishing the RIGHT TERRORISTS for 9/11 instead of the wrong country.

[sandnsea]

19. That's daily reality

That's where the terrorists are. What's your policy on high value terrorists. That's not a hypothetical at all.

Hillary is afraid of being trapped so she's labeling everything a hypothetical. Obama has the courage of his convictions, so he doesn't have to play that game.

Have you watched his Kos Breakout Session? Truth is the antecdote to political lies. He'll tell his truth about foreign policy as many times as it takes for the rest of the country to catch up and get it.

[MrCoffee]

17. there's a reason they coach SCOTUS nominees not to answer hypos

if you're not worried that you're going to be evaluated based on your answer to a hypothetical, you're not campaigning. the problem with hypotheticals is that they're completely removed from any reality, or background, or nuance. if you want a cheap sound-bite of an answer they're fine. if you want a substantive basis on which to decide who to vote for, hypothetical questions are not going to provide it for you.

[rinsd]

18. Excellent post (nt)

[sandnsea]

20. foreign policy is not hypothetical

The only reason to say it is would be to divert attention from the fact that you aren't going to do anything all that different than what we've got now.

[earthlover]

23. Foreign policy IS working with hypotheticals....

Picture the Cuban Missile Crisis...our leaders were trying to figure out what to do. They of course figured into their decisions the hypothetical responses Russia would make if we did A, B, or C....

Come on....

If a person can't think hypothetically, he won't do well in foreign policy.

It was Bush's lack of thinking in hypotheticals that led him to this fiasco in Iraq. He obviously didn't ponder the hypothetical questions as to what would happen if there was not WMD's in Iraq, if we were not greeted with flowers, if it would not be a cake walk, and what would happen if it gravitated towards a civil war with al queda resurging in iraq of all places.

Diplomacy and foreign policy, and for that matter, war are all totally involved with hypotheticals. If they do A, we will do ABC. If we do A, will they do BCD? Etc. If you can't think in hypotheticals, you will wind up like Bush. Sunk.

[sandnsea]

26. foreign policy is a reality to deal with

not an abstract hypothetical about something that will never happen in real life. I agree with what you're saying. Foreign policy issues are real and we deserve to know what the potential President's views are. A blanket refusal to answer any foreign policy question as a 'hypothetical' is just not good enough.

[earthlover]

27. I think we are on the same page :-)

[Ethelk2044]

21. "Engaging in hypotheticals" got us into the war on Iraq.

Washington insiders planned the "what if" strategy along with Iraqi insiders to overthrow Saddam and control the country. That same scenario with the complete emphasis placed solely on the efforts in Afghanistan would have been the right call. All planning, no matter what the issues, contain hypotheticals and "what ifs" so Obama reasoning about Pakistan and Afghanistan was correct. He never said anything about attacking anyone, as many who spin wants you to believe. His philosophy is to engage the american people, let us know what the government is doing and not hide behind the Presidential seal and not let the american people what you think and keep secrets, unlike Hillary and the other Democratic candidates. We have Bush to cheer lead that and look where we are, the worst disaster in American foreign policy. :puke:

[earthlover]

24. Bush was the MASTER of saying he would not answer hypotheticals....he may have invented the word!

[Totally Committed]

22. I look at it this way: There are PLENTY of issues to get specific about.

If they can't answer a "Yes" or "No" question without equivocating, or come up with a plan for an issue important to voters, I don't want to hear their answer to a "What if?"

Tell me what you WILL do for me about something concrete. Tell me how my life will be better if you get elected. If you can't do that, then don't be thrusting your groin at other countries, or going on at length about exactly nothing.

TC

[earthlover]

25. Great Article in Slate about this topic....

Hooray for Hypotheticals
Obama doesn't dodge "what if" questions. Good for him!
By John Dickerson
Posted Thursday, Aug. 2, 2007, at 6:42 PM ET

Sen. Barack Obama
To hide the fact that they're hiding something, candidates elevate their refusal to a virtue. "One of the jobs of a president is being very reasoned in approaching these issues," Hillary Clinton said to a hypothetical question about sending ground troops to Darfur. "And I don't think it's useful to be talking in these kinds of abstract hypothetical terms." Two days later, Mitt Romney cried hypothetical when asked in a debate whether, in hindsight, going to war in Iraq was a mistake. To give the dodge extra weight, he criticized the question in Latin (calling it a "non sequitur"), on fairness grounds (saying it was "unreasonable"), and, finally, mathematically (labeling it a "null set"), as if to suggest there was some immutable arithmetic law that made entertaining the whole notion absurd.

These were not personal questions, such as the hypothetical posed to Michael Dukakis in 1988 about whether he would support the death penalty for a man who murdered his wife. Nor were they the late-night stoned variety of hypothetical. When someone asks a candidate what super power he'd most like to have, or whether Bruce Lee would win a fight with Muhammad Ali, then we can cry foul. The hypotheticals that candidates have been avoiding are the interesting, substantive ones. Anyone running for president should have thought through those questions, and if they haven't, we should know about it.

Fortunately, one candidate is answering hypotheticals. For the last two weeks, the Democratic political conversation has been consumed with hypothetical questions. Last week, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton engaged in a multiday set-to over whether they would meet with nasty dictators. This week, Barack Obama doubled down on hypotheticals by raising his own hypothetical situation in his sweeping speech on foreign policy. If he found actionable intelligence about al-Qaida leaders hiding out in the mountains of Pakistan, he said he would send in troops whether the Pakistani government liked it or not. When asked the next day about using nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said he never would use them. More....

http://www.slate.com/id/2171610/

[defendandprotect]

28. Like, eh . . . what to do with the Bill Clinton SURPLUS . . . ????

Or how to handle the peace-dividend?

Did anyone suggest that the right-wing neo-cons were about to swoop in and give us a new
Pearl Harbor???

What good are "hypotheticals"?

[Major Hogwash]

29. Bush said he wouldn't answer hypotheticals in 2004 - and now you know why!

because he lied his ass off about everything!