"Can An Obscure Author
Rise From the Shadows to Become President?"
from "In Defense of Rural
America"
By Ron
Ewart, President
National Association of Rural
Landowners
and
nationally recognized author and speaker on freedom and property rights
issues.
© Copyright Sunday, April
12, 2015 - All Rights Reserved
As published on
Newswithviews, April 8, 2015
This article is also
available on our website at:
Our last two articles hinted at the potential
run for president of the United States. We want to thank all those who
encouraged us to run and for the positive comments to our recent articles and to
our Presidential
Platform
. With the number of
responses in so far, it is running 20 to 1 in favor of us continuing to explore
the possibilities. In spite of this encouragement, we nevertheless must
face some unavoidable realities.
What gets a president elected in
the United States today? The answers only boil down to a few vital
elements. The first and most important element is money. Money buys
massive national exposure. Without the money, a candidate is done before
he starts.
Following money comes name recognition and a positive
political, military, or business history. Following name recognition comes
a candidate that espouses and effectively communicates cogent positions on the
issues that resonate with most voting Americans. Good
looks and likeability help a great deal and so does being able to articulate
where he or she stands on those issues, in dynamic and even hostile
environments. They must be quick on their feet and they must not flip flop
or make inane or stupid comments, as have so many candidates in the past.
Finally, they must exude confidence and a positive, personal aura and appear to
be in control of their emotions while under fire. Most voters are
attracted to strong, confident leaders. Sadly, even an articulate, snake
oil con man, promising to fundamentally transform America, can be elected
president, if he has most of the attributes we have listed.
But lets get to the money first. From one source we learn:
"Campaigning for US president can be a very expensive
proposition. Running a campaign to win a presidential primary can range in
cost from $50 million US Dollars (USD) to over $100 million USD. By
itself, this cost is already enormous, but there’s even more that must be spent
to run for president. Once the primaries are over and the nominees begin their
campaigns to win the general election, an additional $75 million USD is
typically spent."
The actual numbers run around $750,000,000 to $1,000,000,000
just for one presidential candidate in either party. It has been estimated
that almost $6 Billion dollars was spent in the 2012 presidential
election. There are some excellent graphs on how much money has been spent
in previous presidential elections at this link:
Then there is name recognition. Most presidential
candidates in either party come from past or currently held political positions
in the federal or state government. Being a governor of a state is a significant
step up to the office of president and a large number of previous presidents
were state governors. In addition to governors, we have had generals,
senators, actors and captains of industry that have run as a candidate, or have
been elected president. Successful candidates have either significant
experience in government, military leadership at the top level, or extensive
leadership experience in big business.
One of the major elements in getting elected is the position
taken by the candidate regarding the current issues of the day. Unfortunately,
the American people are so divided that the issues important to one constituency
group have no relevance to, or are opposed by another constituency group.
Adding to this dilemma is that hot button issues can change from one month to
the next, or even one day to the next.
One of the reasons why politicians flip flop so often is to
appeal to all constituency groups for their votes, hoping the voters and the
press won't notice. This leads to fabrications, lies and appearing
wishy-washy and weak, which then leads to the ultimate loss of trust and even
mind numbing embarrassment. The press just loves flip-flops and
inconsistencies, especially if they come from conservatives. They are raw
meat to the lion and delicious fodder for reporters and editorialists that
traffic in sensational journalism.
Likeability is a big factor in getting elected, even if the
candidate is inconsistent or flip-flops on the issues. Clinton's infamous
interactions with women throughout his entire lifetime didn't mean anything to
the voters. They liked him, even if he lied about those
interactions. The same goes with Hillary Clinton. If voters like
Hillary they will vote for her and it doesn't matter that she broke the law with
her official e-mail account, or hid, or deleted a bunch of e-mails on Benghazi
or fund raising from foreign donors while she was U. S. Secretary of
State. It didn't matter to the voters that Obama came from a
socialist/communist background, had questionable associations with highly
questionable individuals, or had little experience as a politician and virtually
no experience in business. They liked him and he said all the things they
wanted to hear, you know, like endless free lunches and taxing the rich.
The electorate is fickle and it will forgive the sins of the
candidate if they LIKE the candidate. Given that 47% of the people
eligible to vote don't vote and given that a huge percentage of those that do
vote want something from government, that percentage will vote for the candidate
that promises to deliver what the people want ….. for free, especially if the
candidate is likeable, thanks to the perversion of the U. S. Constitution by the
Democrats. Nevertheless, that doesn't say much for an electorate that
appears to be mostly shallow, hollow and just plain stupid.
Against this backdrop, how can an obscure author rise from the
shadows to become President of the United States, in light of these unavoidable
realities?
The odds against it are astronomical. It is readily
apparent that this author lacks several of the elements necessary to run for
president, much less be president. He has virtually no chance of even
being nominated, unless …..
Perhaps many of you have heard of the "wave" that occurs in a
stadium at sporting events. A group of people in one section of the
stadium, start to move left or right in unison. The next section picks up
the wave from the first section and it moves spontaneously, like falling
dominos, all around the stadium.
Ideas, concepts, rumors, or even horrific events can move like
a wave through society, especially in the world of the Internet. A picture
of a kitten doing something cute can receive millions of hits on Youtube in a
day and be further propagated by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and e-mail.
Such an event is almost wholly driven by emotion. A candidate coming out
of the shadows and saying all the right things and showing confidence,
leadership and integrity could trigger such a wave, however unlikely. If
our ideas, concepts and our platform resonated with a large enough core group of
people on an emotional level, those ideas could suddenly reach millions of
voters in a matter of days. From that moment on, the issue of name
recognition and possibly even campaign funds, could move towards resolution.
Interestingly, in the 24 hours after Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for
president, with much media fanfare, it has been reported that his campaign took
in over $1,000,000. This demonstrates the power of TV exposure, name
recognition and a message that resonates with a large group of people.
An Internet "Wave" is the only way our candidacy for president
could be catapulted into the public eye and the chances of that happening are
less than the chances of being hit by lightning seven times, or winning the
Powerball Lottery at 1 in 175,000,000. (By the way, there was a
man once that was actually hit by lightning seven times at different times in
his life, as improbable as that might be.)
So before you encourage us to pursue this effort, or consider
donating to the cause, we strongly suggest you take a hard look at the hurdles
and the insurmountable obstacles that stand in our way that we have described in
this article. Nevertheless, should by some of quirk of fate the "wave"
begins and grows, we stand ready for the challenge.
Many people have wanted to be president. Some have even
reached the primary stage. Very few go on to be president. Wanting
to be president is nowhere near enough. It isn't even a beginning.
In reality, it is nothing more than a fantasy.
Words are easy ladies and gentlemen. The "doing" comes
much harder. It would seem that there are way too many people in America
who are willing to write the words but way too few are willing to do the
"doing", or even the impossible. We were at least willing to try the
impossible and that is what our Founding Fathers and the Colonials did.
Were they better than we? Were they stronger and more determined? Didn't
they have more to lose, you know, like their lives, their fortunes and their
sacred honor?
Humor is the best defense against a frustrating or an
impossible situation and so we will end this article with a humorous description
of where America is today. Although somewhat colloquial, it is painfully
accurate.
"A man was musing the other day when he thought that over 5,000
years ago, Moses said to the people of Israel
, 'pick up your
shovels, mount your asses and camels and I will lead you to the promised
land.' Nearly 75 years ago (when welfare was
introduced) Roosevelt said, 'lay down your shovels, sit on
your asses, light up a camel, this is the promised land.'
Today, Congress has stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the price
of camels and mortgaged the promised land. The man was so depressed by
thinking about all this, along with health care plans, the economy, wars, lost
jobs, savings, social security, retirement funds, etc., he called a suicide
hotline. He had to press 1 for English. He was connected to a call center
in Pakistan. He told them he was suicidal. T he Pakistani got all excited and
asked if the man could drive a truck."
[We'd like to give credit to the author of this
story, if we could find out who it was.]
All humor aside, if America continues on the path it now
treads, brave Americans could be faced with the last alternative of
"having to fight when there is no chance of victory, rather than live as
slaves under a tyrannical dictatorship." (Winston
Churchill)
Someone whose heart and mind are buried deep in the
exceptionalism and greatness of America had better start looking seriously at
doing the "doable" or even the impossible. It might turn out not to be
impossible ….. under the miracle of the Internet.
Hopefully, this puts to bed any idea of our running for
president. Our attempt was merely to provide a contrast and a comparison
to those who are running on the Conservative ticket for 2016.
Your constructive comments are welcome
HERE.
This is the end of our articles about running
for president. Next week we will take on the militarization of America by
the federal government.
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NOTE: The
foregoing article represents the opinion of the author and is not necessarily
shared by the owners, representatives, employees, or agents of the
publisher.
Ron Ewart, a nationally known author and
speaker on freedom and property rights issues and author of this weekly column,
"In Defense of Rural America", is the president of the National
Association of Rural Landowners (NARLO) (http://www.narlo.org), an advocate and consultant for
urban and rural landowners and a non-profit corporation headquartered in
Washington State. He can be reached for comment at: info@narlo.org.
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