Politics Without the Politics or Politicians

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Let's hypothetically say there is a person, we'll call him John Q. Smith, that decides he wants to run for a political office. However he has decided that he doesn't want to play all the political games, he wants to leave politics out of his race.
He is going to run strictly on the issues. He is only going to say what HE is going to do if elected. He is not going to take part in bashing any of the other candidates. He isn't going to take money from special interest groups. He isn't going to tout party lines. He's not going to try to appease to any specific ethnic group just to get their vote.
How long could a candidate like this last?
What kind of chances would a candidate like this have?
Would you vote for a candidate that left politics out of it?

 

Well, IMHO he'll lose. Right from the start.

The general public on a whole are idiots. Rats in a maze who will go straight for the stinkiest cheese. It would be nice to think that someone like that could be elected, but for every person who would vote for them, there are two more distraced by the shiny promise of lower taxes and reasons why not to vote for someone.

So, while he may get some votes, the uneducated masses will put their stupidity in and vote for the guy with a pretty smile and good hair.

 

Sadly, I must agree with Jaguar.

I mean, that I find it saddening. hehehe.

The problem is that idealism isn't rewarded, rather it is taken advantage of. The masses are easily swayed by slogans and quick promises. I see it in this country. People will absolutely hate a government, but come the election, they will promise to drop taxes, and boom. They get in again. It's hard to retain any faith in the political system and the voters this way.

 

I agree with Jag.

I mean, just look at the kind of crap that's popular these days - Jerry Springer, Howard Stern, "reality"-based T.V. shows, etc. People like garbage - the dirtier, the better. A politician such as one that Elios describes would get lost in the shuffle.

 

More than that - his opponent would most certainly not follow the same rules. He would level cheap shot after cheap shot, and since Mr. Smith is above petty politics, he won't answer or address the accusations. People will assume that his silence means it's true and tend to believe almost anything that's hurled at him. He wouldn't get very far.

 

Well there you go. If he's not looking to appeal to as broad a variety of people as possible, then even in the best case scenario, only his niche group is going to vote for him.

In that case, even if the other guy wasn't mud slinging, the fantasy candidate would still lose, as the other guy is making promises to as many different voter profiles as possible.

Edit: actually a better question might be, if the candidates under our current party system participated in a, "nice clean fight with no punching beneathe the belt." - who would win?

Heck, maybe mud slinging is the right thing to do. After all if the average voter is as ignorant as you (I, we, everybody) thinks they are, then the opposing candidate actually has something of a duty to point out what's going wrong now, as the voter can't be expected to find or understand it themselves.

 

And to add to what has been already said...not only will John Q. Smith lose the election miserably, but he will subsequently be convicted of embezling money from the orphanage where he molests children, and filtering the funds through a radical hate group comprised of military deserters that is plotting to disrupt the baseball season by the continual streaking of obese terrorists. His memoires, written from prison, will confess cheating on his taxes, his wife and at Scrabble. He will be shot in the back while attempting to retrieve a frisby near the gate of the prison.

 

You know, he doesnt actually have to be a conservative politician Hacken'. He might just be a decent human being.

 

Conservative? Not sure where that came from...I must have a reputation.

I was only hyperbolizing the statement made by DR et al that John Q. Smith would be totally slimed by his unethical opposition to a point where he would never recover...not only lose the election, but perhaps even his career.

Not saying that there is no such thing as a decent human being involved in politics, just that that decent human being better be savvy, strategic and a little ruthless or they'll go back to selling Hundais.

 

Hack - that was a joke from Takara. And a funny one.

What I meant by my statement is that a man who doesn't play politics will fall victim to it. The nature of politics is that no one can run on the issues alone. You have to take stands, you have to appease some group or another, you have to defend yourself when attacked. If you don't, voters will follow the man who will, if for no other reason than he's louder. It's simply not possible to avoid politics, and I can't think of a time in human history when it was.

 

D.R., I had actually considered your original point when I made my first post, but I figured he/she could simply refute what the other was saying without sliging mud back. But that would have the effect of always putting him/her on the defensive, and I'm not sure that would be any good.

And Takara had his tongue planted firmly in his cheek.