'Is This A Comic Book Version of a Presidential Campaign'?

Now THIS is a Comic Book Version of a President!

With that question, CNBC contributor and recent (but never again probably) GOP Presidential Debate interviewer John Harwood may have cemented the reputation of modern American media as being completely 1) biased; 2) incompetent; 3) petty or 4) (add in whatever pejorative statement you want to make about what used to be one of the most important parts of our democratic republic: a free and impartial press)

The 'comic book version' of a presidential campaign has come mostly from the media side of things. They have chosen to portray current GOP front-runner Donald Trump as some sort of buffoon and second-place runner Dr. Ben Carson as an idiot while they saluted Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton as a Queen-in-Waiting for Her Coronation for having 'such a great week' during her Benghazi hearings.

Even though it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that she really did lie about the attacks on the embassy there and tried to put the blame on an actual cartoon about the Prophet Muhammad in the last weeks of the 2012 election campaign of President Barack Obama.

Talk about 'comic book' versions of campaigns! The media is writing them!

So while CNBC perhaps had the worst week ever in terms of covering presidential politics, we thought we would try to help sort out the men and women from the boys and girls so you can actually try to make the right decision for who you want to be in the White House from 2017-2021 and possibly until 2025 to lead this great nation of ours.

1. We strongly believe that the best person to serve as President of the United States of America should be determined not by performances, either good or bad, on contrived media appearances but rather based on their records, experience, intelligence and integrity.
   
   Charisma can only take a President, and therefore, the country only so far.  A solid understanding of basic economics, fiscal accounting and federal budgeting, monetary policy and foreign affairs and military strength are far better than just plain 'charisma'.
   
   Electing a President based solely on how they handle 'gotcha' questions from current American media moderators, who are asking such inane questions as 'What is your greatest weakness?' in the first place solely to drive up their rankings, not help pick our next President, is exactly the wrong way to go about perhaps the most important thing we do as a country every 4 years.
   
2. Former Florida Governor Jeb! Bush put out a comprehensive plan to shore up Social Security and reform Medicare to more of a premium support plan last week, even though you may not have heard about it amidst the clutter of the other news of the week. Take a good look at it and see what some of the things are that need to be changed in our nation's largest retirement security plan and largest health care plan of any kind in the nation. We have been writing about such things as raising the retirement age gradually over the years and means-testing the entitlement programs for the past 7 years now so that billionaires such as Warren Buffett and yes, Donald Trump don't have full access to the same benefits a lower-income retiree would receive.
   
   It just doesn't make any sense.
   
3. Ohio Governor John Kasich unveiled his plan to balance the US federal budget within 8 years of his presidency which we have every confidence he would put 1000% of his time and effort into achieving since we sat right next to him on the House Budget Committee in 1993-94 when the whole process to balance the federal budget since man walked on the moon started and then culminated in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act that did indeed balance the budget from 1998-2001.
   
   Heck! We have already pointed out that just keeping the US federal budget from growing over a 3% annual rate overall would balance the budget by 2022 without any tax hikes or budget cuts or any changes at all! Just having a President in the White House who would be willing to work and compromise with Congress and the Senate to produce pro-growth policies that would allow the US economy to start roaring ahead at a 4-5% annual rate instead of the anemic sub-2% per year growth we have had for the entire Obama presidency would balance the budget through increases in tax receipts alone during the same period of time.
   
   So we are all for the Kasich approach. Absent any other reason, that is one very good reason to consider voting for Governor Kasich in our humble opinion.
   
4. Donald Trump's tax plan would certainly help the US economy rebound and explode but it would also increase the federal debt by another $10 trillion according to the Tax Foundation.
   
   President Franklin Roosevelt, when asked why he appointed a 'crook', Joseph Kennedy, to be the first head of the SEC after a career of manipulating stock trades before the Great Crash of 1929, said with a wry smile: 'It takes one to catch one'
   
   We don't think Donald Trump is a 'crook' in the Joe Kennedy mold. However, he does know how to manipulate the US tax code with the best of them which probably makes him as much of an expert on how to close loopholes as any of them which is probably a positive for him.
   
   But we know we don't need another $10 trillion of debt to be piled on our children or country on top of the $20 trillion we will have the day President Obama leaves office on January 20, 2017.
   
5. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has put out numerous statements on entitlement reform as have a few other serious potential nominees.
   
6. We don't have time to list every candidate's platform or proposals but urge you to bypass the news media as much as possible and go directly to the source of any candidate's plan and read the core documents themselves. Every candidate website has them and every plan has its advocates and detractors that you can read just by googling the plan.

These are the real issues we would rather hear candidates discuss in important forums rather than their 'weaknesses' or whether fantasy football should be legalized or not or whether they picked on some kid in kindergarten recess way back in their day:

• How will our next President deal with Russian expansion under Vladimir Putin? 
• How will our next Commander-in-Chief deal with the scourge of ISIS and Al Qaeda in the Middle East to protect and defend innocent people as well as strategic US interests in the region and protect the right of Israel to exist as a nation? 
• How will our next President help lead the next true economic expansion where some of the close to 20 million people who are either unemployed, underemployed, part-time employed or who have dropped out of the workforce because they couldn't find a job over the past 7 years can actually find a job and re-enter the workforce?

Try to be the voice of reason and adulthood when you are discussing these very weighty decisions with your friends, families and colleagues over the coming months.

Don't get caught up in the trivialization of our nation's most important collective vote every 4 years by our nation's media and political commentators and talking heads. For goodness sakes, don't let the media make the decision for you as to whom they think you should vote for for President based on some non-consequential or trivial issue such as 'what their weakness is' or what their position on fantasy football is or whether or not they are worth $10 billion or $4 billion or $2 billion in net worth.

Try to be smarter than them all. Cause you are.

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