Where's my dream president?

When I look at the presidential candidates fighting in the primaries, I’m scratching my head; where’s the president we so desperately need? I can’t seem able to see him or her.

We need a president not driven by religion but naturally able to lead us and inspire us towards rebuilding this country. A leader that can constructively engage congress in a bipartisan fashion, set expectations and put them to work for us. One that sees that the first order of business is to re-balance the budget, mop up the foreign debt and start addressing entitlements like social security and Medicare.

A president who’s willing to start meaningful political campaign finance reform and kicks the lobbyist out of Washington, wean Congress out of “pork,” farm subsidies and undertake an in-depth tax simplification. It would also be nice to do away with the electorate college and start making every citizen’s vote count. We also need someone who has the courage to address our health care concerns and make an effort to catch up with the rest of the industrial nations on this chapter. Likewise, our commander-in-chief should make sure that the FDA, FTC and other critical agencies are properly funded, well staffed and can do a much better job. Immigration is more than just a domestic problem, it is one between poor and rich countries and must be addressed to respond to our national priorities, but also in concert with what goes on in the rest of the world.

On the international front, we must have a president willing to constructively engage other nations. This starts with the United Nations, Israel, Iran, Russia, China and India among many. Make resolving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis the top priority, demand results and if Israel stalls, cut subsidies and put real pressure. At the same time, get us out of Iraq as soon as humanly possible, straighten out Afghanistan and put Hamid Karzai on notice to diversify from drug trade into something more sustainable and less harmful to the rest of the world. Demand that Israel, Pakistan and India dismantle their nukes and work towards a meaningful reduction of nuclear weapons among all remaining players. He or she should also stop supporting failed regimes that accommodate us and if there's some extra time left, engage Cuba so it naturally falls into the brotherhood of nations friendly to us.

On the planetary front, our new leader finally got to start taking care of good old earth and lead by example. This is the next president’s opportunity to rally all Americans around a new challenge aimed at developing new energies instead of making a nostalgic return-trip to the Moon and pushing all the way to Mars.

As I now look towards space, where’s that candidate?