A Mental Game about the US Presidential Elections (sort of)

With the US Presidential Elections just around the corner, I've been playing this little game on my mind. The challenge is to come up with a person, outside of those currently running, who I think is most qualified to be the president. This leaves out anyone who at least has a greater than 0% chance of winning the presidency (i.e. McCain, Obama, Nader, Barr, Biden, Palin, etc).

Now, I understand that the US has this thing called the democratic process, which is basically similar to how my country chooses its leaders. And that the question of who the best person is to lead the country is answered through the collective decision of the citizens. But, to emphasize, this is just a game I've been playing so I don't want to argue for or against the futility of this mental exercise.

How did I come up with people to consider? Simple. I just narrowed down the list of people who I read about, listened to, and/or watched in the news and the internet. Evidently, my biases came into play. But who isn't biased anyway?

I didn't include people who I previously haven't heard about prior to this political season despite how highly they are regarded by supporters - just because it was "too late in the game" and I didn't want to learn about them just to expand my list which would have led me to exhaust my mind and ultimately bore myself. This rules out the likes of Pawlenty (Republican) or Kaine (Democrat) who were thought to be solid picks for Vice President by a lot of people. I tried to zero in on someone whom I already have some (previous) knowledge of.

To cut to the chase, I singled out someone who I believe has a very impressive record both in the business world and the government. He also has a good grasp of issues within and beyond his direct domain of responsibility. I've heard him talk about domestic issues, immigration, energy, global warming, and the current financial crisis and I'm always interested in what he has to say. I can't think of anyone who would be better than New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

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A quick note on the elections. As an outsider to these issues, I closely followed both the Democrat and Republican primaries. Back then, I was all for Obama and McCain in securing the presidential nominations. I thought they were the most impressive of all the candidates in their own respective parties. Amidst the back-and-forth mudslinging between the two, I'm still glad that they were the ones chosen by their parties.

Here's to hoping that America chooses wisely on November 4th. As they say, the US president is also the most powerful person on earth and the de facto leader of the free world.