What would your ideal candidate for public office be like?--Al

-- Al Schroeder (al.schroeder@nashville.com), September 05, 2000

Answers

The most important qualification for a leader is: Being able to choose his assistants based on their competence, not on their ability to flatter. This is where Bill Clinton excelled, despite his very stereotypic politician faults otherwise. I've seen way too many politicians bring in their old classmates and drinking buddies in jobs they were not really prepared for, only to have them leave in scandals later.

-- Magnus Itland (itlandm@netcom.no), September 06, 2000.

There are a lot of issues that I care about, but if I had to prioritize I would narrow it down to the environment and public schools. If we don't clean up the environment other human rights issues won't matter anymore, since there will be no place for said humans to live. Obviously teachers care about public schools, but I think much of the rest of the population is in denial over how bad some of our kids have it-and how there's a beaurocrat around every corner trying to take away every program that could help them. So I would like to see some major focus on those two issues.

-- AJ (joijoijoi@hotmail.com), September 06, 2000.