American kids grow up hearing that anyone can become President and 43 people have done it so far so as the Presidential race begins proper in Iowa tonight, just what do the American kids of today have to do to get the keys to the White House tomorrow?
Most obvious is be male and white as all have been men and 42 of the 43 different men have been white.
Holding a law degree is an advantage as out of the 43 presidents, 25 have been lawyers and make use of the razor as America has only had five presidents with facial hair and the last one was 99 years ago.
Mostly, what you need is money and lots and lots of it.
All of the candidates aiming for the White House in 2012 are extremely wealthy, not one of them has less than a couple of million dollars loitering in their personal bank accounts which puts them all in the 1% that the 99% have been protesting against recently.
The chances are that Obama will stay in the seat and his personal fortune of $10m means he can continue to understand the pressures of the 4 million Americans who earn below, or equal to, the minimum wage who struggle to pay their bills each month.
The favourite among the Republicans is Mitt Romney who has a personal wealth of $250m which of course won't deter him from feeling the hurt of the 45 million Americans living in poverty.
A surprise second choice is Dr Ron Paul who is worth $5m and as a doctor, who better to understand the worry of the 50 million Americans who cannot afford Health Insurance.
Rick Santorum may be worth $2m and live in luxurious Penn Hills, Pennsylvania but his real concern is probably the 672,000 homeless Americans.
The 13.5 million unemployed Americans can be assured that if elected, they will be in the thoughts of Newt Gingrich who has amassed a fortune of $30.1 million although he hasn't actually ever been unemployed or had to pawn his jewelery to pay for food.
Likewise Jon Huntsman who is worth $71m but you know despite having no experience of the depressing situation of having his house repossessed unlike the 1 million + Americans in 2010, he will be doing all he can to alleviate your pain.
Less likely to be top of the tree come the end of the year are Michele Bachmann with an estimated wealth of $2.15m or Rick Perry who has a healthy $3 million in his bank account but rest assured Americans, that whichever of these incredibly wealthy people you vote for, they will be doing the very best they can for you because who better than a member of the multi-millionaire 1% to empathise when you lose your house, savings, job or fall ill.
7 comments:
Great points there. I think it's ironic & amusing that Romney gets a bad rap for being 'too close to Wall Street'... The reality is that they'll all govern for Wall Street and the same old financial interests (just as Obama has), but the difference is that Romney doesn't pretend (as much) that he won't. He doesn't seem to indulge in as much phoney banker-bashing on the stump as the rest of them.
I think those Tea Party characters are the most deluded. 'Alternative' are they? 'Anti-establishment'? Ha! They're about as as alternative as Coldplay, and as anti-establishment as Tim Henman.
Of the available Republicans, Romney definitely seems the least... hmmm... what's the word?... oh yes!... Mental.
Although I did like the moment when he challenged Rick Perry to an impromptu $10,000 bet during a debate... instantly showing that this sort of coin is pocket-money for him (and that's not particularly 'de rigeur' right now is it?)... and also... erm... I thought Mormons weren't supposed to gamble? (or is that just the JWs?... Mormonism is fairly anti-fun too).
So, entertaining campaign, isn't it?... y'know with all these politicians feeling they have to make out that they're not really politicians...
Even some of the names are fun. 'Mitt'... 'Newt'... superb... we just have boring old David and Nick.
lucy,
being wealthy seems to be a must. and why shouldn't it be, after all the nation was formed to enable economic freedom not found anywhere else in the world at the time. however, you don't have to be born wealthy to become president - truman, ike, lbj, reagan, clinton, obama are examples.
q
They all seem a bit loony toons and that's without Palin sticking her oar in. Looking at the people up against them, Obama and Biden must be dancing around the Oval Office high fiving each other.
Much more entertaining than our boring election campaigns.
My rather convoluted point q was the same one as i aim at Dave and George & the Tories here, the people running things have no experience of what it is like for everyone else. None of them, yours or ours, have ever had the same concerns or worries and wouldn't it be better to have people in charge who have some idea of what their population is going through and it seems without money, you are never going to be in a position to challenge for PM or POTUS.
As far as PMs go, I realise D-Cam was ‘to the manor born’, but I wouldn’t say that his four predecessors were...
Bliar – middle-class, I think his Dad was some kind of academic.
Brown – middle-class, son of a Minister of the Church.
Major – working class son of an elderly music hall performer, lived in Brixton, he was unemployed for a while.
Thatcher – middle-class grocer’s daughter, her first job was as a chemist.
I suppose that only Major, out of that lot, knows what it’s like to really struggle in life (in a financial sense)... but would you say that this influenced his Premiership much?... In the same way that you could hardly say that Thatcher did much to advance the cause of women during her 11 years in charge, I’m quite sceptical about the theory that people who have ‘been there’ will necessarily do a better job.
lucy,
i get it. i dont agree with you. in my life half of the presidents are well aware of what it meant to be middle or even low income. lbj's family was freaking poor. and while his ranch (15 miles from where i live now) was nice, it was also near his childhood home which was a hovel...
q
Love this! I may have blogged about this too, I can't remember. lol
Always happy to see fellow female bloggers EJ. Even happier if they are politically minded lefties. We need more of us spouting off.
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