Think you got what it takes to run for President of the most powerful nation on earth?
Well, you probably do seeing as that bar has been historically set pretty low at times,
and with 2020 around the corner people around America are even now beginning to consider
their candidacy for the highest office in the land.
But just how does one get into the oval office and a chance to push the biggest, reddest
button in the world?
For starters you're going to need to make sure that you even qualify for the job, and
that means being a natural-born citizen of the United States- with 37,000,000 million
immigrants in the US that's going to knock out a sizable chunk of the competition.
Next you have to be at least 35 years old, which is bad news for Saira Blair of West
Virginia, who at 18 was the youngest person ever elected to state or federal office in
the United States.
Also not qualifying is James Tufts, who was 3 years old in 2012 when he was elected mayor
of the town of Dorset, a town with a population of 22.
Next you'll have to have made sure that you were a resident of the United States for at
least 14 years- so if you were born in the US as a natural citizen but took off to live
abroad, no dice for you.
We suppose the founding fathers thought that it might be dangerous to elect a President
who was heavily influenced by a foreign, potentially hostile, nation.
Be 35 or older, a 14 year resident, and a natural born citizen.
Meet those standards and you are free to declare your candidacy for president at any time,
although once you receive campaign contributions up to, or spend more than $5,000 you must
register with the Federal Election Commission- that's the agency that we in the US trust
to enforce campaign finance law and that helps keep foreign money out of our political system
so that candidates aren't compromised.
Of course it would be easier to simply make elections federally funded to ensure no funny
business, but think about all those poor lobbyists who'd be out of a job.
Next stop on your road to presidency is your state primary and caucuses.
Both help to narrow the pool of candidates from each political party.
A caucus and a primary works much the same way, a group of voters each cast their vote
for a nominee- however caucuses are limited to the parties voters are registered for only,
while some primaries, known as open primaries, allow a voter of any political party to vote
for the nominee they like best- however a voter cannot go to their car, put on a disguise,
and then vote in a second primary for another political party, that would be voter fraud.
Leading up to the primaries or caucuses though you're going to want to be on the road every
single day, you want to make sure your message reaches as many people as possible so you
can drum up as much support as possible.
You're also going to need funds to run campaign ads and finance your election team.
In a common sense system those funds would come from a federal election pool to ensure
candidates weren't compromised by lobbyists and to ensure a true democracy where poor
candidates weren't disadvantaged by richer candidates.
Instead though candidates are free to beg, scrape, borrow, and promise any amount of
favors and influence should they win the White House in exchange for cold, hard cash now.
So you're going to be putting in a lot of footwork as you move from fundraiser to fundraiser
and take meetings with special interest group after special interest group!
Remember to always be flexible with your principles, or just outright discard them!
All the while you're shaking babies and kissing hands- or is it the other way around... you'll
want to make sure your campaign manager finds out asap- you're going to be keeping your
eye on your political party's national convention.
That's the superbowl of party politics, and though a clear frontrunner is typically identified
early on, sometimes the national convention serves to confirm a single nominee.
At each convention- Republican and Democratic- there are a group of delegates which must
be swayed over to your side if you want a chance at your party's nomination.
These delegates are split into two main groups: pledged, or bound delegates are required to
support the candidate that the people gave the most votes to during their party's primaries
and caucuses.
Unpledged, or unbound delegates, or also known as superdelegates, are free to completely
ignore democracy and the people's votes both and simply vote as they see fit.
How do superdelegates fit into a democratic system?
They don't, are an affront to the very idea of democracy, and should be abolished immediately,
but we'll go ahead and tell you anyways:
In 1972 Democratic Senator George McGovern won the overwhelming support of Democratic
voters, but in the national election faced Senator Edmund Muskie who was the favorite
of the Democratic Party establishment.
McGovern however was so beloved by Democrats that he completely trounced Muskie, and thus
won the party nomination- only to go up against President Nixon in the general election and
give the Democrats one of their most humiliating defeats in history.
In the final vote, Democrats won only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.
Incensed and determined to never suffer such an overwhelming defeat, the leaders of the
Democratic party established a VIP category of delegates who would vote however they saw
fit, completely ignoring the wishes of the voters.
These superdelegates wouldn't even have to be voted into their positions, they would
simply be appointed by senior party leaders and end up making up 30% of the total delegate
count- ensuring some measure of control over who wins the nomination and that democracy
would be in no way served.
Though Republicans also make use of superdelegates, theirs are limited to only three per state
and obliged to vote for their state's popular vote winner.
To have a chance of winning your party's nomination at the national convention, you're going to
want to tow the party line and make sure you please as many delegates as possible.
However if no nominee has their party's majority of delegates going into the convention, this
can result in a brokered or contested convention, where delegates must vote for their candidates-
pledged delegates must vote for the candidate they are pledged to, but after the first round
of voting are free to choose any candidate if their candidate doesn't make it past the
first round.
The two national conventions are pretty much modern Thunderdomes- many men, and sometimes
women, enter, but only one will exit victorious.
Now you're ready for prime time- the general election.
This is the big show, and where every single embarrassing secret, gaff, mistake, and poor-taste
tweet you have ever posted will be put on full public display.
If the national conventions are thunderdomes, the general election is a 1 on 1 no-holds-barred
deathmatch, and at stake is the ultimate prize: presidency of the United States.
But it's not as easy as simply campaigning, talking to people, and spreading your message-
you're going to have to be strategic about your time and money.
That's because both are limited, and because the Presidency is not actually decided by
individual votes, but rather by a process known as the electoral college.
The electoral college is an institution held over from an early compromise made by the
founding fathers.
While most supported a popular vote election, many- most of whom already held some form
of political power- insisted that while they would grudgingly allow the peasants to vote
for each party's presidential nominees, a bunch of ‘normals’ surely couldn't be
trusted to vote for the actual president- that’d be preposterous!
Thus they believed that only the US Congress should vote for President, in a kinda-sorta-not-really
democratic way.
With a brand new nation already on the verge of collapse and England gleefully waiting
for a chance to strike should it, the founding fathers came to a compromise- the President
would be elected by an electoral college, with each state receiving a number of electors
based on how many members of Congress that state has, and with absolutely no constitutional
obligation to even vote for the person who won their state's popular vote!
US territories on the other hand would pay taxes but mind their own business and receive
no electors, how the founding fathers missed that bit of irony given the cause of their
recent rebellion is beyond us.
So with your money and time running out, you're going to want to prioritize which states you
actually campaign in- aiming for all the states that have the highest number of electors.
States with few electors, or those that polls show are heavily made up of the opposing political
party, are going to be very low priorities for you.
Come election day all your hard work is going to pay off, and the electoral college will
do its job by ignoring the votes cast by the people and deciding for themselves who gets
to be president!
Would you ever run for president?
Is the electoral college and superdelegates truly democratic?
Also, check out our other video Can a US president Go To Jail?
And as always this video don't forget to Like, Share, and Subscribe!
See you next time!