As a 25 year old with very little interest in hard-core politics, I wonder why a person my age would ever consider running for office and be a "career politician". There have been a lot of great points brought up in this thread, and I guess I'm making more of an effort to educate myself on the matter. I can tell you I voted Obama as an 18 year old in '08, because I bought into the "Change" marketing campaign. I voted for Romney in 2012 because I felt that a strong business background could help kick start the economy back to where it was.... The salaries mentioned earlier by Dave were eye-opening for Congress and the President. It's not a humble brag in your previous post, there are numerous careers out there that make more than they do.. Glunn's idea about having more televised debates for the lesser knowns out there - I can get behind it, but it's getting harder and harder these days to see the truth in those debates. The Republican debates lately I feel like are 100% for TV ratings, and they are saying outlandish things so they can be covered by every media outlet. I suppose they COULD be that crazy with their values, and if that's the case, god help us all. I don't have any solutions to offer up. As a new person in the field, I find all of this to be insane. All I'm looking for when I vote for the next president is the values I believe in, and the rest will all be white noise. However, I will still read a site like this to find political commentary over a Facebook, CNN, Fox News, (pick your poison) As a person just learning the ropes, those are way too hostile of environments to learn anything.