She’s one of my favorites. I’d like to see her get a little more experience in Congress first, but she would have my vote, too.
Well, when you wrote “qualified candidates” in your OP, I read that to mean qualified by your OP criteria. Just as well, it’s a good thing Mad Cawthorn isn’t in the running for a while at least.
No shit, Sherlock! Why didn’t someone think of her sooner?
Scared me for a second. 
I thought that was sarcasm-y and that you’d named her in one of the first responses that I accidently missed (I thought for sure I had scrolled through all the responses first).
I would add Colo. Gov. Jared Polis. He’s 46, he served in Congress, and he’s been reasonably successful as governor. In my book, he’s qualified for POTUS by any traditional measure of experience.
There used to be a phrase “the senatorial curse.” Since Obama, I don’t hear it anymore. But I still think it true that governors have a better chance of winning in November because of not having had to make controversial votes on national issues — and because Congress is unpopular.
I didn’t know Polis had been a House member. That’s unfortunate.
On the plus side, DeSantis was also a House member.
That and Governors have executive experience, which is more aligned with the Presidency than congress/senator experience, in the mind of many voters. Aside from Trump, in the last 60 years I can’t think of a GOP candidate who was not previously a Governor winning the White House? There have certainly been GOP Senators as Presidential candidates, but they have not prevailed in the elections.
Yang. Yang. Yang. for UBI
Not really. If your cut-off is 60 years, there have been two elected GOP presidents who were governors (Reagan and George W Bush) and three who were not (Nixon, George H.W. Bush, and Trump).
Though, Nixon and GHW Bush had both been Vice-President, so that’s another avenue to getting some governmental “executive experience.”
Geez, I really need to stay out of history discussions…
Republicans scoffed at Pete B running, you think they’d back one of their own who’s let and also touches other men’s crotches and dresses in women’s lingerie run the country? Hah. He’s got Lindsay Graham beat when it comes to expressing his deep inner sexuality.
What relevant experience does Yang have?
On the Dem side (and if he thought he was up to it) I’d vote for Jason Kander.
Too much personal baggage, plus the California taint. He’s reasonably secure in CA, but probably not electable as a presidential candidate.
As a complete aside, it’s interesting to me how the “preferred” office from which to run for President has changed over time. In the early decades of the Republic, the Secretary of State was seen as the natural launching pad for future Presidents. Post-WWII major party nominees have skewed heavily toward Governors and Vice Presidents. We may be seeing a slight trend away from that in favor of Senators and celebrity scam artists, but they may just be recency bias.
That is the most relevant experience for the job.
About half of British prime ministers are former foreign secretaries, including, ahem, the incumbent.
To the credit of the American people, the last time a former U.S. secretary of state ran for president, she did win the popular vote.
Hmm. Secretaries of State before 1841 that became president after the next election…
- James Madison
- James Monroe
- John Q. Adams
Vice Presidents before 1841 that became president after the next election…
- John Adams
- Thomas Jefferson
- Martin van Buren
~Max
I’m a big fan of Stacey Abrams. I know she said she wouldn’t run in 2024, but since the OP didn’t make any exceptions for someone making such statements, I’m going to include her.
Assuming he doesn’t end up in jail, and if he didn’t sell out Kashoggi, then I would suggest Jared Kushner. He was the most effective person in the previous administration and, in essence, is the most experienced young person in the nation. You might also note that he’s a Democrat (though, I assume that he would run as a Republican). You basically get to backdoor Democratic thought into the Republican party. You just have to pretend that he’s not a Democrat, feign terror, and drive the other side into electing a lefty.
But, really, all the best options are people that you can trust and - generally, that rules out most professional politicians (and Mr. Kushner).
The only reasons that I can think of to hire a politician are:
- They have experience political horse trading.
- They know people in government and how government works.
But, neither of those two things is entirely unique to politicians. And, you’re usually missing elements like:
- Experience running large organizations.
- Understanding of modern technology.
- Trustworthiness.
There are people who have experience running large organizations, who have to do a lot of horse trading and compromising, and who have experience with government.
If we were all being honest and doing our real, civic duty for the country, then we would be going through lists of people who have worked in the government, leading large organizations (the military, the FBI, NASA, etc.), managed businesses that work closely with government (military contractors, Google heads, Microsoft heads, NGO heads), heads of think tanks, heads of charitable organizations, etc.
We could easily put together a list of dozens of reasonable, honest, trustworthy people who would be competent and handily demolish any politician that you could name in terms of how likely they are to be able to do the job in a professional, apolitical, and fair manner. And, further, at least one of those among all the dozens is even liable to be electable given that you’ve got a large enough pool to choose from and only one needs to have charisma.
If that’s not how we’re going about recruiting - looking for what you need in your applicants and then actively head hunting them - then we’re probably doing it wrong.
If you were hiring a plumber, would you start by naming people that you knew from TV or would you first try to find people who know how to do plumbing? Are you more likely to hire a guy that you’ve heard of from a news article, or some guy that’s just been quietly doing exactly that sort of job all this time?
Is that all there is being President?
Honest question - could you provide us with some of his accomplishments? I don’t recall any reporting on them while he was active.