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Have you ever considered running for elected office or accepting appointed public office?

Have you ever considered running for elected office or accepting appointed public office?


  • Total voters
    19

Xelor

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Have you ever considered running for elected office or accepting appointed public office?
  • Yes - elected office
  • Yes -- accepting appointed office
  • No -- elected office
  • No -- accepting appointed office
 

Skeptic Bob

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Nope. Way too many skeletons in my closet. :)
 

NeverTrump

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Have you ever considered running for elected office or accepting appointed public office?
  • Yes - elected office
  • Yes -- accepting appointed office
  • No -- elected office
  • No -- accepting appointed office

I have considered it before. I have a pretty unique story to tell about myself and I would definitely want to get some gov't experience first before I'd try anything. I'm a policy wonk, so I would love to work for the state dept/UN or something similar. AOC definitely has me thinking about it more than I should be. That's far from my career path atm. I don't have any connections to make that happen. I would however, like to be appointed to some gov't technology position laying out policies or managing projects. That would be one of my dream jobs. But hey, if I get desperate enough in my job search perhaps a congressional seat will save my dead-end career. :mrgreen:

Who knows, maybe booker will lose the 2020 election in a humiliating manner and my time will come.
 
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Kal'Stang

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Have you ever considered running for elected office or accepting appointed public office?
  • Yes - elected office
  • Yes -- accepting appointed office
  • No -- elected office
  • No -- accepting appointed office

I have thought about it yes. However I know that I would never get elected. Particularly since I have a criminal record. But I do believe that I have some policies which would help this nation, particularly in the long term.
 

Checkerboard Strangler

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No way. I'm a recovered (recovering, former) drug addict.
I imagine that would be just the tip of the iceberg.
 

Peter King

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I have thought about it yes. However I know that I would never get elected. Particularly since I have a criminal record. But I do believe that I have some policies which would help this nation, particularly in the long term.

If someone has good ideas and he is rehabilitated I would easily vote for a person with a criminal record. But that is just me, with my social democrat mind that thinks almost everybody deserves a second chance.
 

eohrnberger

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Not just no, but no way in hell.
Just look how the media and other politicians treat them, baseless and false accusations, essentially slander without repercussions.
I have no need to drag myself or my family through that slime filled gutter.
Forget it.
 

MovingPictures

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I have thought about it yes. However I know that I would never get elected. Particularly since I have a criminal record. But I do believe that I have some policies which would help this nation, particularly in the long term.
You have a criminal record?

I like ya' now!
 

Perotista

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Have you ever considered running for elected office or accepting appointed public office?
  • Yes - elected office
  • Yes -- accepting appointed office
  • No -- elected office
  • No -- accepting appointed office

No. I like my privacy. Besides, opposition research would have a field day with my youthful GI days in places like Bangkok, Vientiane and Saigon.
 

MovingPictures

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If someone has good ideas and he is rehabilitated I would easily vote for a person with a criminal record. But that is just me, with my social democrat mind that thinks almost everybody deserves a second chance.
The only difference between people like myself and Kal, is we were lucky enough to not get caught, when we broke the law.

We're not responsible for the people we were years before, unless you did a particularly heinous thing.
 

Perotista

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Nope. Way too many skeletons in my closet. :)

Exactly. What I did at times 50 years ago would eliminate me immediately. Nothing illegal. At least where I was. But good times.
 

Hawkeye10

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Years ago, but it is a very ugly scene and life.

I am not licking my chops to be a part of it.

Plus they would not want me.

I am too dangerous.
 

upsideguy

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Nope. Way too many skeletons in my closet. :)

No "fixers" on your payroll? Seems a cool $130,000 will make the incident with the porn star go away; a little more for the Playboy centerfold.
 

Hawkeye10

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No "fixers" on your payroll? Seems a cool $130,000 will make the incident with the porn star go away; a little more for the Playboy centerfold.

Nondisclosure agreements are no longer to be trusted, people are not that good anymore that they can be expected to keep their word.

WE USED TO BE BETTER
 

Rexedgar

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I’m betting that a pediatrician wishes he had remained in his chosen field this evening..........
 

Bum

I survived. Suck it, Schrodinger.
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Nope.

The idea isn't even remotely appealing.
 

Jetboogieman

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Once upon a time I thought it was what I wanted to do.

Obama taught me better, that politics takes idealism and a desire to do good, eats it, digests it and ****s it out for it to be flushed and end up pumped into the ocean to kill a few fish.

I've become pretty cynical in my old age.
 

HumblePi

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I have thought about it yes. However I know that I would never get elected. Particularly since I have a criminal record. But I do believe that I have some policies which would help this nation, particularly in the long term.

I would prefer voting for a person with a criminal record if they're rehabilitated and pointed in the right direction with the right goals. I think that's more logical than electing someone of dubious character that does criminal stuff after being elected.
 

Crosscheck

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Nope. Way too many skeletons in my closet. :)

It is amazing how many here have responded that they have too much on their back pages to run for an office.
But who really has a clean slate?

I think once they saw the military made me see a military psychiatrist due to some of my actions I would be immediately eliminated.

Normally I don't think it is right to speak for everyone but it appears we are the people parents warn their kids to stay away from.
 

HumblePi

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Nondisclosure agreements are no longer to be trusted, people are not that good anymore that they can be expected to keep their word.

WE USED TO BE BETTER

I think that anyone that has a history with a bunch of non-disclosure agreements part of that history should be viewed with a side-eye and a second thought given to voting for them. Who the hell needs a non-disclosure unless they're trying to hide or cover up some dirty business that's illegal or immoral.
 

SDET

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While I'm inspired by Trump's ***** grabbing, as a fellow ***** grabber, I wouldn't have the nerve to run for office.
 

Xelor

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The short of why I considered but haven't ever pursued public office/service in government is that I'm not an emotional masochist.

  • I thought about running for elected office and some years back was asked to do so by some fairly serious players in politics.
    • I decided not to run for elected office because I know myself quite well and better than the people who asked me to run.

      I don't have the patience to be a good politician, which requires one to be sincere, and my take on sincerity simply wouldn't sit well with the general public for they'd find much of what I advocate contemptuous insofar as they wouldn't cotton to my holding them to same standards to which I hold myself. Politicians simply can't win people's approbation by telling them ugly truths and insisting they collaborate to alter themselves because those truths are existential.
    • I won't toe a party line. I won't go out of my way looking for "opportunities" to be critical or laudatory, but when due cause to be either lands before me, I don't hold back.
    • I think in politics the company one keeps reflects on oneself, and by simply attaching a political party to my name, I'd have had to, at least implicitly, "keep company" with a good number of folks whom I find repugnant. There's not then or now a good reason for me to willfully and knowingly do that.
  • I never considered taking any public appointment I was asked about accepting.
    • I once worked for someone else, and I didn't like being beholden to their model of how things must be done, and that was in the private sector. There's no way I'd have thrived having do so in a governmental setting. It wasn't so much that their approach was bad, per se, but rather that I felt I had a better way and I wanted to implement it.
    • I'm also not a sort who forbears procedural "red tape" in executing on policy, and government has tons of it.
    • I'm also one who ascribes to the principle that "rules exist to guide leaders'/principals' behavior, not to bind it." That philosophy too doesn't comport well with government service.
    • I won't toe a party line.
At the end of the day, I wanted to (and remain so) (1) perform my undertakings to the best of my abilities and as well as it is possible to perform them, and (2) live and behave the way I want to, not in compliance with scads of others' dicta. I'd have had to compromise both those things to serve in government, and I simply wasn't willing to do so.

There was also the matter of on the occasions I was asked to consider public service, I had bills to pay, and none of the positions paid enough for me to continue to afford myself and the lifestyle to which I'd made my kids accustomed. I damn sure wasn't willing to turn my life and my kids' lives "upside-down" because others thought I'd be a good public servant.

There are many things I could do and do well, but politicking isn't one of them. I'm okay with that.
 

Hawkeye10

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I think that anyone that has a history with a bunch of non-disclosure agreements part of that history should be viewed with a side-eye and a second thought given to voting for them. Who the hell needs a non-disclosure unless they're trying to hide or cover up some dirty business that's illegal or immoral.

"If you have nothing to hide then you should have no problem hooking your brain up to THE BORG HIVE".












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