Campaign promises....

amother

Bisque

Sun, Nov 20 2016, 12:09 pm

If I had a job interview for a teachers position, and during the interview I claimed that I would be able to save the school money by implementing a teaching style that will not necessitate an assistant, I will improve the reading skills by 3 grade levels in a single year, I will communicate with all the parents every week, I will have several programs to help children with social issues and anxiety, ect. The interviewer is quite impressed and gives me a contract. Now that I'm hired I actually have no intention of doing anything I claimed during the interview, I only said those things to get the job. Isn't that exactly whay politics is? Trump made wild claims about prosecuting Clinton, building a wall that Mexico will pay for, bringing back the coal industry which experts say is impossible, renegotiate with other countries and put tariffs in imports essentially starting a dangerous trade war, full repeal of obamacare, (trump already acknowledged some parts he'll keep, it just sounded good on the campaign to shout that on day 1 he will get rid of it) and several others. The candidate and moreso his team realize that these are absolutele lies. Trump has no intention of keeping these promises. It's just a means to get elected and then it's to bad. This is not a anti trump post. A whole list of bogus campaign promises Hillary made could also be mentioned. I guess I'm just venting how this blatant lying is totally acceptable under the guise of "it's politics".

WhatFor

Sun, Nov 20 2016, 12:39 pm

Yup. Pretty much every politician does it to varying degrees.
I don't know how we can regulate that, but I think at a certain point, the onus is on the voter to use their brain and assess whether the candidate is making sense. If someone has not laid out a single realistic plan and makes conflicting promises within the same speech (I'm going to increase natural gas production AND coal production. Yay!) then the onus is on the reasonable public to use their brains and figure out that this person might be spinning yarns.
Then they have to decide whether they prefer that person to the other candidate regardless.

DrMom

Sun, Nov 20 2016, 1:08 pm

I look at it this way: A candidate's campaign promises reveal his/her "hashkafa," the direction s/he *would* go it s/he were unencumbered by any other circumstances.

I assume candidates will only deliver on some percentage of their promises.

Every candidate needs to negotiate with Congress (well, unless s/he simply invokes executive orders for everything), or deal with unexpected crises which will derail his/her agenda, etc.