Candidate qualifications

[James R]

For the purposes of the above poll, assume that the hypothetical candidate is otherwise well-qualified for the role of President of the United States.

Select all options which you agree with.

I am trying to get an idea of some of the factors which influence people in their choices.

 

[Godless]

Well you know James, a small minority of us do have more concern with their policies, other than their apperance, or religious creed, it is the media, which try and cloud the issues, with the constant apperance, and religious creed of some individual.

I rather have a President who is an atheist, it is the most logical mind. However do to the overwelming majority of theists, this will never happen, unless they lie about it.!.

Godless.

 

[Undecided]

I want to see a female, atheist, single president, it's a change of flavour you know.

 

[Angelus]

Me too. And she should be attractive and open to dating poor programmers.

 

[Tiassa]

Originally, I looked at the votes and ended up with only "Mormon" unchecked. I thought about this for a minute and wondered why. Then I checked the box. Though I don't expect any Mormon candidate to ever satisfy my needs, I cannot rule out the possibility.

Edit: Also, I unchecked the bit about the United States. Normally, I would call "sovereign territory" outside the United States (e.g. born on a US military facility in Japan) but I'm including that territory according to the US Constitution.

 

[James R]

Interesting. I would really like to hear from the people who did NOT select one or more of the options.

For example, if you said you would NOT vote for an otherwise well-qualified female President, I would like to hear your reasons.

So far, about half the respondents to the poll say they would not vote for a religious person, almost regardless of the particular religion. I would like to know why.

Also, what would be wrong with a person born outside the USA, if the law was changed to allow such a person to become President?

If you're interested, Americans have been polled on this kind of thing before. In a recent poll, apparently 49% of Americans polled said they would not vote for a well-qualified atheist. It seems the sciforums demographic is different, but then, we already knew that. Here there seems to be a bias against religion, rather than for it, as seems to be the case in the general population.

 

[Angelus]

I voted for all except the following.

Jewish
Mormon
Catholic
Muslim

I don't believe anyone suffering from mental disorders in which they believe in imaginary magical beings should be allowed to lead a country.

 

[Undecided]

So far, about half the respondents to the poll say they would not vote for a religious person, almost regardless of the particular religion. I would like to know why.

I voted for the atheist option, the reason why is because of the tinge of religion that I fear in Government. I am a catholic, but to me having a deeply religious president will become too much of a ideologue, Bush is just that same man. Deeply religious and very much into the idea of the Christian right which scares me, if you want to know why. Watch just one of these:

http://www.thegospel.org/Pages/JVIM.asp

You'll see why American Christianity scares me.

Also, what would be wrong with a person born outside the USA, if the law was changed to allow such a person to become President?

I personally do not like nationalism, and nationalists. But I understand where the argument against what you said comes from. How is it logical that someone who was not born in the country do whatever is necessary to protect said nation? For instance what if the president has to go to war with a neighbour or with his own country of birth, or employ sanctions, etc? There is a massive conflict or potential conflict of interest. To have a foreign born president goes against the essence of what is nationalism.

In a recent poll, apparently 49% of Americans polled said they would not vote for a well-qualified atheist.

Americans are the most faithful people in the modern western world. They have a innate distrust of anything that is not capitalist, religious, and is not uber-nationalistic. Americans have been conditioned to dis-trust anything remotely near the Left/Liberal spectrum.