Ten days ago, Scott Adams, author of the famous Dilbert cartoon series, beat us to the punch by naming Bill Gates as a possible (and serious) presidential candidate in one or two election cycles on “The Dilbert Blog“. His blog entry has since then traveled the net, and if an excerpt of this post deserves a place anywhere, it’s right here on Bill Gates for President dot net.
Scott Adams writes:
I think that in an election cycle or two you will see an atheist business leader emerge as a legitimate candidate for president. And his name will be Bill Gates.
By then, Bill Gates will have done so much good for the world through his charitable works that combined with his business success he’ll appear more qualified than any other candidate. His early bachelor life and some of his business practices will come back to haunt him if he runs, but he can still win with this simple slogan: “Who would you rather have on your side? He”ll confess to all of his past imperfections and say that presidents are poor choices for role models. He’ll advise you to look to your parents for role models while you let him run the country.
I doubt Bill Gates is considering a run for president right now, largely because it’s so hard to make a difference from that job. His charities will have more impact. But I think he’ll someday realize that the world needs a rational thinker in the top spot and no one else can win.
At least you’d know he wouldn’t be in it for the money or to speed up the Rapture. He has my vote.
The rest of his post can be read right here. All we can say is: “way to go Scott!”.
13 Responses to “Scott Adams beats us to the punch”
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Thanks for the inlink Scott! Let’s spread the word!
It is a good idea. If I wasn’t Canadian, I’d be all over that.
I gave you guys from link love: http://engtech.wordpress.com/2006/11/30/bill-gates-for-president/
I share the view of Scott Adams and yours. He would be an excellent president according to me. Btw, Dilbert pwns.
Has anybody asked Bill if he’d be interested in running for President?
Is that so relevant? I mean, we all know he’s not planning to run for president any time soon, but it’s the debate we want to see…
Someone actually did ask Bill Gates if he would be interested in President. Donny Deutsch asked this of Bill Gates on his show The Big Idea, and Gates responded that he has no interest in being president, and doesn’t even think he’d be good at it.
Now that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t make a great president, or that he won’t ever run. If I had a nickel for every time someone has vowed not to run for office and declared candidacy a short time later…
The ideal candidate is one who isn’t power hungry.
Let’s look at Bill’s advantages:
He is used to working through committees.
He’s used to handling a massive operation.
When problems inevitably crop up, corrections are made and distributed quickly. The problem is not swept under the mat and denied.
He would be impossible to bribe–what do you offer the President of the most powerful nation on Earth who is also the richest man on Earth?
Unlike previous super-rich candidates, Bill has a record of philanthropy.
Finally, can we really trust a world without Bill as president? Consider that M$ could be the world’s 10th nuclear power (retaining South Africa and disregarding North Korea’s firecracker). Far better to bring him into the fold now.
A friend of mine just pointed out–with most governments on Earth using M$ systems, bill can offer a credible threat up front–back down or revert to the Stone Age.
The best warrior defeats his opponent without engaging. I think this would demonstrate that effect well.
Maybe he could change our national language to BASIC.
“But I think he’ll someday realize that the world needs a rational thinker in the top spot and no one else can win.”
Whaaat ???
The man is an atheist and his wife is catholic, they got married in a Catholic church and they both support birth control… seems pretty irrashional not to mention all the illegal goings on at MS and the monopolizing and killing of of competiton.
He is not a man I would want running this country. Talk about only the rich elite being in power… eewww
I don’t necessarily think Bill Gates would be a good choice for President. (Though he’s probably not any worse than anyone who actually ends up running.) Being rich is not a big deal. Most people who run for President or hold any kind of public office are actually making a lot less money than they would in the private sector. As a resident of New Jersey, I’ve seen Jon Corzine practically buy a Senate seat and then the Governorship with his own money and I don’t know that it makes me feel that much better than if he had taken campaign contributions. Being rational is good, but a President needs to inspire, too. Jimmy Carter is a fairly rational guy and he gave the country “malaise.” Ronald Reagan was not the most rational guy and he gave us “morning in America.” On the being unselfish point, again there is the Jimmy Carter comparison, great humanitarian, not so good President. And as for management, being President is a lot different than being head honcho at Microsoft. As President, you need to be able to work with Congress and (to a lesser extent) the Supreme Court as fellow powers in the land. When is the last time Bill Gates had to share power with anyone? And who in Congress is going to want to make things easy for a guy who basically bought his way into the White House and didn’t pay his political dues so to speak? Not a recipe for success if you ask me.
Also as far as Microsoft is concerned, they often seem to take at least three tries to get a lot of their products working properly. Yeah, maybe that’s not any worse (and perhaps better) than most of the folks in Washington, but wouldn’t it be nice to get someone who gets it right on the first try on occasion? Having Bill Gates for President might just result in a “blue screen of death” for America.
“Bill can offer a credible threat up front–back down or revert to the Stone Age.”
Or they can switch to Linux, which lets people make their own decisions for their computers and the data on them.
“Finally, can we really trust a world without Bill as president?”
Can we trust the leader of the world’s largest monopoly and user of horribly unfair business tactics as our leader? Just because he bought out the media doesn’t mean he’s the right choice.
Great. support a candidate who believes proper business practice is to flood the market with his product, and buy out as many competitors as possible, patenting software (how many people can make an e-mail client?), raping ’standards’ into something different from what is established, and then claiming anything else with similar functionality or purpose is a ripoff of its product, though much of the ‘ripoff’ material existed before hand, or was created independently.
I could go on, and introduce the speculation about the MS/Novell deal and how it seems all to easy now to make ‘open source’ software with closed source code, only to sue over it years down the road, and use it as proof that anythign open and free is theft.
But I’ll stop here. I’ll let you all decide your own manipulator … erm … I mean … president.
he wouldnt be as bad as most, and would be better than a lot