The Poet as Politician

Hey, here's a good one...question, I mean...

If you were running for President, what would your platform be?
The truth is, I almost ran for President a few years ago. In the mid-nineties a friend of mine and I hatched a plan to see if a team running for President and Vice President via the Internet, with no party backing (or is that hack-ing?), could make a showing. We spoke with some people and there were some political professionals who said that it might be possible to demonstrate the power of the World Wide Web to circumvent established barriers in a democracy.

Why didn't I? My wife torpedoed the idea and I had no desire to make such a bold move without her full backing. She was concerned about the exposure and about the possible risk to our children through some of the nuts out there (which I understand, completely).

The platform was going to be a technocratic Jeffersonian vision of America, with emphasis on the voice of the people in making future decisions and an increased role for research and development in all aspects of governmental spending. I have a very sharp vision of the role of the Government: It is to do for people what they cannot normally do for themselves. People can make decisions about many aspects of their lives, but for things such as building roads and national defense, they need the concentration of resource that the state and federal governments provide.

My personal views can and do differ from my political views, and politcal leaders do have to understand there is a dichotomy in this exercise of leadership. For instance, I am not altogether comfortable with the notion of abortion, there are no easy answers (on a personal level), but on a political level, in the absence of a philosphical, theological or biological mandate, it must be allowed for and I would be a strong, vigorous supporter of Roe v. Wade.

I would support more funding for research, for education, for social services, but with an eye towards, not just spending to spend money, but on the smartest ways to spend the money. Building a state's worth of new schools costs less than one high-tech stealth bomber...and even one of the greatest military men in history, President Dwight Eisenhower, warned us about the slippery slope of making America's economy dependent on merchants of death. That's why we have lost our educational leadership in the world.

Besides, as you are supposed to "Campaign in poetry..." you can bet your ass we would have had the nicest speeches.

Maybe I'll actually revive the campaign notion, although now we are no longer at the fragile joint of history as pertains to the internet, the Digital Renaissance is well upon us and now corporations could, with a fraction of a percent of their budgets, run their own web campaigns on issues to stunt or obliterate any candidate lacking a pre-existing National organization, into dust and irrelevancy. Plus my own sloppiness in my personal life over the last decade has made me vulnerable...it would be too easy to discount the message by mocking the messenger.

However, if there is some eccentric cabal of wealthy donors who want me to run...you know where to find me. Hey, six questions down...four to go...I am getting into this...