What the Candidates Must Get Right

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Donald Trump, Republican Party
This candidate has no place to go but up, but he has been known to pull off miracles, so he could fall even lower in the polls if he gives it a good try.  He has favored style over substance for too long for anything he says to make much of a difference.  Even his foul-mouthed, vicious slaps at various demographics are a matter of style, albeit thoroughly wrong-headed.  I get the strong impression that he's running to please someone, perhaps the lovely Melania.  So very silly.

Hillary Clinton, Democratic Party
Despite the years of being in the public eye, in some ways Hillary Clinton is a dark horse.  For me personally, I need to have clarification on the point of: is she, or is she not, beholden to Big Business?  I get the impression that the Clintons have bought heavily into the principle that it is Big Business that is the engine of US economic development.  This statement could be true in various degrees; It is not an all-or-nothing principle.  The thing to realize is that US Business cannot easily be destroyed (except, of course, by a freaky gamble in subprime loans, or something similarly really preposterous).  I need to know whether, when Big Business says Jump, Hillary will ask: how high?  Secondly, there's a lot of mystery over the functioning of the Clinton Foundation.  They should change its name, the entire Clinton family should get off the governing boards of it, and give it over into some trustworthy hands, e.g. Jimmy Carter.  (OK, if you don't like Jimmy Carter, then someone else.)

Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party
The candidate of the Libertarian Party is not entirely a died-in-the-wool Libertarian; he was a Republican, but as far as I can tell, a very rational one.  Unfortunately, Libertarians are not always consistent in what they espouse.  For instance, they ought to privatize all the highways, so that the government does not have to maintain them.  They could be expected to privatize everything.  What Johnson has said about public health care is a little vague.  What he has said about Federal Lands is downright frightening.  He has said that the US Wetlands, which the EPA has protected as well as it can, is "a mess."  This is cause for alarm.  On the other hand, he has come out in favor of firearms legislation, which is good, and if he puts forward an initiative, it would probably be one that is sane and rational.  He has said that the Libertarian Party is for privatizing Education entirely.  This is not good, and he must clarify whether he would push through this agenda if he were elected.  It is one thing to be for privatizing education in principle, and quite another to uproot the US system of education, and handing it over to for-profit enterprises.  The same holds true for health care.  On the other hand, opening up competition between insurance companies from the semi-monopoly that exists now would be something worth trying.

Jill Stein, Green Party
For the most part, Jill Stein has expressed views that resonate with me.  The surprising exception is about Vaccination, to which her response has been confusing.  As a former physician, she should be more knowledgeable about infant vaccination, and to be able to communicate her thoughts more clearly.  My theory is that she is wary of some sector of the population or the other, and so gives "innocuous" responses which are not satisfactory.
Clearly, infant vaccinations have saved countless lives, but just as clearly, some children have been severely hurt and even killed by vaccinations.  Some groups have theories that vaccinations result in autism, and various other conditions.  Thus far, the pro-vaccination sector has taken the view that a minute risk of bad outcomes is worth the enormous benefits of vaccination, particularly in situations where kids are concentrated together, e.g. schools.
Well, minute is not good enough, and we should work towards inoculations being 100% reliable.  Until that level of reliability is achieved, what should we do?  Why is that level of reliability not with us already?  Will inoculation manufacturers want to increase the cost of inoculations to guarantee reliability?  (They won't change the process; they'll just buy insurance.)  Jill Stein has just said that the problem needs to be studied more carefully.  The problem has been studied, but (for policy reasons, I suspect,) the conclusions have been vague.  If Jill Stein also wants to be vague, she could still let us know what the issues are, and once the studies have gone the length of what she would like to see, we need to know how she will decide.  This will give her good practice for when she's asked about closing down Guantanamo, or Waterboarding, or other interesting questions.

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