Want to be President?

I've got the secret formula for anybody that wants to be president in 2008. It doesn't matter if you are Republican or Democrat, all you have to do is separate yourself from the idiots inhabiting Washington DC and simply express common-sense solutions to the problems no other politician is talking about.

Here's the very simple platform that will win you more voters than anybody, if you can just break through with the message.

Fix Illegal Immigration: Beef up border security and simply get the government to look at the documentation submitted by employees when they go to work for a company. See a fake social security card or green card, go get the illegal and deport him/her. Catch a company employing illegals "off the books" - hit them hard with huge fines. It really can work.

Fix Offshoring and Trade Deficit: First of all, push legislation that forces domestic companies to pay any employee they lay off to replace with a foreign worker or contracting firm a minimum 1 year's severance at full salary, plus pay their benefits for 18 months. Voila, no more jobs going overseas!
Then, get tough on trade policy. If China wants to import their goods, they have to have their own markets open to ours. If they keep blocking those efforts, impose tarriffs and hold up their products at the ports. Boom, our trade imbalance starts to rebalance.

Fix Healthcare: Push a realistic plan that helps save healthcare costs and makes it available to the uninsured for a reasonable cost. If you've read my healthcare-related stuff here, you already know what I think needs to be done.

Fix Social Security: This one is the proverbial third rail - touch it and die. However, there is a gathering storm there that has to be addressed somehow. I think the way to fix it is to attack it from multiple angles, including rewarding people for contributing more to IRA's and 401K's, incenting employers to offer more and better pension plans, opposing trends like the current famous United Airlines problem where companies are allowed to walk away from their pension plans, etc. Basically, there are lots of great opportunities to turn this third rail problem into a positive for a presidential candidate.

Be friendly to people of faith: Express opposition to the stupidity of the ACLU in their attempt to remove all expression of religion from society by supporting free and open expression of any religion anywhere, as long as the religion doesn't preach horrible stuff like murder, suicide, rape, robbery, etc. Profess a practical and level-headed point of view on the big moral issues of the day, like abortion and gay marriage. Couching the abortion issue in terms of making the goal that we should remove any reason for a woman to abort would not allow anybody to call you names without looking evil themselves. Use my argument about Gay Marriage, that it's discriminatory against other family units! Leave marriage to the churches and between a man and a woman, but let everybody else have whatever living arrangements they like as long as it's not illegal or contributes to some disease epidemic. (Oops, AIDS might be a problem there).

Those are the major things, I think. Any takers? I would support anybody willing to run on this platform, regardless with what party they associate. I just fear that our candidates are already bought and paid for, and I'm really scared that we're going to get Hillary in 2008. Heaven help us.