If you could create the perfect politician (in your opinion) in a lab and have him/her run for the presidency, what traits would they have?

I agree with most of the above. For me the essential traits are integrity and courage. If you’re taking checks from investment bankers, fossil fuel companies, anti-union CEOs, Health insurance companies, big Pharma, the defense sector, pro-Israel lobby, etc. then I can only assume that THEY are your employers, not the people. It’s disqualifying.

Interesting list of criteria. But very easy to get down in the details.

MY contrarian view:

1. To be a politician, you must be corrupt. Because a good portion of any politicans time and energy is spent raising money for reelection. Which, therefore, is selling out your ideals for the sake of dollars and relection. Politicians are high class prostitutes.

2. To be a politician, you must have a huge ego and vision of your self-worth. And anyone like that, who anoints themselves a savior is someone who has lost any claim to being a ‘regular person’ or a someone that I can communicate with. Personality counts for a lot of a politician’s appeal. And I can’t relate to people who are full of themselves.

3. Politicians have to either be stupid or dumb themseleves down. If they’re too smart and too introspective and intellectual, they’re considered ‘elitist’ and not in touch with the commoners. Someone who thinks too much is going to tie himself/herself into knots.

So the best we can get in politics and government these days is a stupid egotistical crook.

Just look at the House and Senate. Q.E.D.

I’d go with someone like Isaac from the Orville.

Possessing superior intellect and cognitive capability, a matter of fact attitude, recognizes and upholds the logic of mutualism, and is a robot.

Your description sounds like you’re thinking of “perfect” in terms of having traits you think most likely to be voted for by most Americans?

My perfect would be based on their policies and character, so, more like Bernie Sanders, but younger, and more environmentalist.

Bernie labeled himself a democratic socialist, which alienated a lot of people. I really like Bernie and agree with everything he stands for, but I think he ran a pretty weak campaign. The way he presented his ideas were kind of erratic and overly defensive. The way a politician frames their ideas and policies is important.

“Perfect politician” is surely an oxymoron. You can be perfect or you can be a politician but not both. But you could be a moron.

I meant perfect to you. Obviously it’s impossible for a politician to be perfect. This was just a hypothetical question. If a politician fit all of my criteria and policy stances, that politician would have run a perfect campaign, in my opinion.

@elbanditoroso “To be a politician, you must be corrupt. Because a good portion of any politicans time and energy is spent raising money for reelection. Which, therefore, is selling out your ideals for the sake of dollars and relection…”

If Democrats embrace this political perspective and don’t demand accountability and integrity from their representatives, then you can look forward to many more Republican victories. You’re going to look back fondly on the Trump years (the way establishment Dems have done to Bush 2.0) when we have President Bobert, VP MTG and Secretary of State Hershel Walker… After all the Republican message is “Government doesn’t work and it can’t work, therefore give everything to Bezos, Musk, Koch brothers, and the Walmart heirs and embrace neofeudalism.”

When you tolerate failure and corruption and self-sabotaging of the policies they campaign on, they only serve to make the Republicans look like they’re right. Government can and has worked in the past. There have been and are politicians with integrity who don’t take donations from super pacs and shady donors.

I guess in terms of positions, I would want someone who reflects my preferences. But I’ve learned over time that I’m sufficiently out of the mainstream that most of the people who reflect my policy preferences….are also kooks. Not all. And not the ones I tend to like. But enough that my first criteria is—- Not A Kook. This considerably narrows the field and is why I usually end up in ‘Lesser Evil’ mode. :(

I often describe myself as a ‘moderate small-L libertarian’ in that I am a moderate social liberal, but also a fiscal conservative and capitalist. So I would be looking for someone in that general policy space. But I understand that in a representative democracy, you’re never going to get someone who is a perfect proxy for yourself.

Complete honesty. That covers everything.

I don’t think it’s possible to have a perfect politician. You would have to be rid of greed and self-interest. Being completely honest and hard-working won’t get you anywhere in the political world. You need capital and you won’t get it being honest. The only way possible is to let politicians run without the need for money for campaigning. The good ones usually lose because they don’t seem mean enough. Voters make the perfect politician impossible because many don’t vote on the issues. They vote with their own personal feelings.
I know this doesn’t answer your question, but my point is there is no such thing as the perfect politician because even if they mean what they say, they end up bending for the ones holding the purse strings or they go nowhere.

You could have a perfect politician, but he would never get elected. What we really need is a perfect electorate.

Being a politician is an inherently dirty job. They have to choose among competing interests. In the short term, somebody is always going to lose, even if that loss is justified by long term gains.