Could someone from the middle class or lower run for office?

This was inspired by the "Florida legalizes bribery" thread: In this age of the Internet, where people can reach an audience of millions simply by making a You Tube account and talking into a camera, would it be possible to finally give the middle class or even the working class a chance to run for office?

If we had a fixed time limit where they could make their case, even as low as a month to cover all their talking points, and compensate workers who have to miss work to run their campaign, it could be done. Have everyone start a You Tube account on September 1. Let them post as many videos as they want talking about what they would do if they became President until October 1. Play them, repeat them, and analyze them all over the media until Election Day. Vote. We'd also have to have a budget, of course, since our goal is to avoid plutocracy. It need only be enough to get a decent camera and produce quality videos. College students can do that. Say, $1000? $2000? It can't be much more than that.

I think this system would be a lot simpler, fairer, and less exhausting for all involved than our current system. What do you guys think? Is it at all feasible? I know it would be near impossible to change the current system, but do you see it working out even theoretically?

If tons of people did that, nobody would really have much of a way of standing out.

And if I had to rely on Youtube Commenters and upvoting my videos to win... Blegh..

edited 31st Mar '11 10:40:06 PM by Barkey

@Barkey: What do you mean you don't want the internet to decide the fate of our nation?

Youtube only provide one way communication, you need politician to answer question from one another and from journalist too. otherwise it's just rethoric.

theoretically possible of course, remember Alvin Greene from SC Senate Race. he didn't even campaign. voters apparently chose based on alphabet.

edited 31st Mar '11 11:39:18 PM by PhilippeO

30% of this country already doesn't vote on the presidential election day, even with highly polarizing opponents such as Obama and Mc Cain.

I shudder to think how bad voter apathy would be if we switched our election system to youtube videos.

I can't see it being viable. Everyone would just get squashed by the republicans and democrats anyway.

Ha. No.

The truth of the matter is no one in power believes that 'ordinary' people are fit to run. There are too many obstacles to allow that to happen. Gerrymandering, ad buys, ax jobs by news magazines...

I heard some guy from Illionis who ran a pizza shop became a congressman.

This happens all the damn time in local and state elections.

See, I originally thought the Tea Party could be this sort of thing: I also heard of a dentist who became a representative. Can't think of his name or his state off hand though. Aside from these sorts of scattered anecdotes, I think it's a simple matter that ordinary people don't know the "game" of politics enough to get anywhere.

Indeed, pretty much the only way for this to work would be for the person to win a local/state election and then hopefully get some name recognition.

edited 1st Apr '11 8:21:28 AM by Linhasxoc

Not sure what everyone is talking about. Barak Obama was middle class.

He might have started that way, but I don't really consider Lawyer to equate to Middle Class.

There are lawyers and lawyers. Some are multi-millionaires who represent international corporations, some scrape a living working for criminal defendants on public funding or immigrants facing deportation. We're not all rich.

Constitutional Lawyers though? I'd think most of their cases would be rather big.

Still, rather humble beginnings for a President regardless.

edited 1st Apr '11 1:39:34 PM by Barkey

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure why the Tea Partiers hate Obama so much, since he's really kinda the epitome of what they advocate.

He started out as lower middle class, worked hard, and earned his position. Quite literally the embodiment of the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality of the more extreme Republicans.

What? Lawyers used to basically define Middle Class and this guy was a civil rights and housing lawyer. Clinton was a son of a salesman and law professor before politics. Reagan's family was dirt before and then we all know he made his money as an actor. Carter was a peanut farmer but he was a successful one and he was from Georgia so I guess that makes him landed gentry. Ford went straight from the navy into politic. Nixon was from a Quarker farming family but he became a lawyer for petrol companies.

I'm getting a strong pattern of lawyer and of going into politics and of people who actually are mostly working or middle class in origin but, gosh, it turns out that people who become president turn out to be ambitious.

OK, so I just checked and I'm ninja'd: the lawyers who are rich are those with clients who are rich, a guy who works on housing laws dealing with urban neighbourhoods probably doesn't fall under that. Especially not the period I just looked up where he was in charge of a community project whose entire budget was just $70,000.

Re: Why do Tea Partiers hate Obama so much despite "being the epitome of what they stand for".

Lawyers are universally reviled no matter who they are or what part of the political spectrum they reside.

The real reason is Obama is quite frankly an empty suit. A follower, a rubber stamp for whatever the left's agenda is at the time.

The Tea Partiers would respect him a hell of a lot more were he a leader on issues instead of a dithering blockhead. (Seriously, it took 2 weeks to decide to crappily charge into Libya with no plan and no goal.) You can respect someone who stands for something even if you disagree, you cannot respect someone who does not stand for anything and is easily indecisive.

His problem, is that he's trying for bipartisanship in a very sharply divided political climate. You can't take a firm stand on anything when you have half the people in congress fighting you at any given moment. He's trying to cut deals to appease the other side, and it's not working. It's not entirely his fault that both sides are full of squabbling children that he has to hand candy to.

edited 1st Apr '11 2:45:29 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

^ This is basically what I've gathered on him.

I will say this; he is a soft leader. Note that I never said weak. He could have crushed the republicans on issue after issue with his political position. Instead he tried to work with them and the Republicans reacted in classic style; they stalled him until they could work up enough support to undermine him.

Now, there's not a whole lot he can do. He gave the Republicans too much breathing space and they reacted like rats up against a wall, throwing everything at him; and the cat, or donkey in this case, came off worse.

edited 1st Apr '11 8:44:36 PM by GameChainsaw

I'm not actually sure I want the lower classes running for office, insofar as "the lower classes" means people who aren't heavily educated. I mean, half the point of living in a republic is so we can have other people make the decisions we don't know enough to make ourselves.

edited 1st Apr '11 8:50:50 PM by feotakahari

Not living in NJ, I can't speak for them. But Chris Christie has gotten as far as the governorship and may be preparing a Presidential run — all on the basis of sounding like my middle school gym coach.

Whereas the worst thing an intellectual bias ever brought us was, I dunno, Woodrow Wilson.

Who was a total fascist.