I’m Not Running

“It’s the home of the brave, the land of the free, where the less you know the better off you’ll be.”—Warren Zevon, Disorder in the House

I’ve gathered my supporters—all three of them—here today to make an announcement:  I’m not running for President.  I know this comes as a shock and a major disappointment.  I know you were prepared to work hard and GO ALL THE WAY WITH RANDY B, but after a lot of soul searching I’ve decided I am too old, too white, too male, and too lazy to throw my hat in the ring.  Running for office is a lot of work. Who needs it?

While I’m not willing to go through the fire of running, I think I’d make a great President.  I would appreciate the perks—flying off on AF One to play golf every weekend, free limo rides, state dinners, making executive appointments, and all that other stuff.  I would even try my hand at policy.  Here are a couple of examples:

Immigration:  Our Current Occupant says our country is full. He’s wrong.  We have labor shortages in many sectors—health care, landscaping, roofing, and retail to name a few.   We need to streamline our green card process to allow foreign workers to come to the U.S. to do the jobs citizens can’t or won’t do.  And while we’re at it, we should allow the people who came here as children—the Dreamers—a legal path to citizenship.

Health care:  We start with the premise that everyone should be covered.  There are many ways to accomplish this.  Some would promote Medicare for All.  By the way under the current Medicare structure there is still a role for the private health insurance sector under what is called Medicare Advantage (part C).  Or we could find a way to subsidize people so everyone could afford coverage.  For those who say that would cost too much, know this:  we currently spend twice as much per capita on health care as other developed countries.  The money is there.

Gun safety:  You can’t buy a bazooka, a machine gun, or now even a bump stock.  While gun safety legislation will not prevent all murders, there are common sense things we can do to reduce the carnage:  Universal background checks, red flag laws to keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have them, and bans on the sale of assault weapons.

I believe the majority of Americans would support the above policies.  I also know there are powerful forces that would resist them.  The main resistance is fear:  fear of the Other, fear of Socialized medicine, and fear that the government will take away your guns.  As another great president, FDR, said:  the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.  In my administration we would use that mantra as well—on weekdays. Weekends are for golf.