2023-10-12 Update:
The official campaign website has launched here: https://www.fialforward.com/
BabelBot (ChatGPT) Version:
The Path to a Historic Campaign
Dear Supporters, Family, Friends, and Neighbors,
Here’s a roadmap showing how, together, we can create a historic presidential campaign.
1. Our Starting Point:
As of last Wednesday, the campaign’s initial donations sit at $1,000. We are just starting, and your faith in this cause will drive us forward.2. Time is of the Essence:
The primaries start next February, giving us several months to ramp up. Though time is tight, with your support, we can reach millions.3. Online Campaigning:
The internet is a powerful tool. By sharing and discussing our message online, we can quickly spread our vision to a broader audience.4. Nationwide Engagement:
I’m keen on connecting with the diverse cultures within our nation. Unlike career politicians who make empty promises, I commit to genuinely representing all Americans.5. Why Not An ‘Average’ American?
Consider this: a lottery-based system for selecting presidential candidates from the general population, ensuring a more diverse and unbiased pool. Although I’m not suggesting a direct implementation of this system, the theme of our campaign is “How would an ‘average’ person lead this nation?”6. Formulating Strategy:
It starts with securing initial donations from our immediate circle. This foundation will pave the way for public speeches and events, which will eventually capture media attention.7. Ruffling Feathers:
The crux of our campaign will be public workshops where we draft “practice” Constitutional Amendments. Starting with universally-supported topics like term limits, we aim to address more polarizing subjects, like abortion, in the future. These sessions are not just about making decisions but fostering a culture of dialogue and unity.8. Gaining Momentum:
Once our campaign takes off, the next goal would be to engage in a public debate with President Biden. I’m ready to question the status quo with respect and a fiery passion.Final Thoughts:
Our nation is at a crossroads. We have an opportunity to rally together and reshape our future. There are countless Americans who, given the platform, can offer transformative leadership. So why not you? Why not now?To those who believe in our cause, I urge you to donate, share our vision, and actively participate. Together, let’s reignite the American spirit.
Warmly,
–chatGPT’s edited version
John Fial
September 3rd, 2023
I love to use chatGPT to edit my text, looking at each version side by side, and making the edits I agree with. However, when I asked chatGPT, in my “Campaign” chat thread, to give me a blog post outlining the strategy as it knew it so far, I wasn’t satisfied at all with its output (it didn’t have enough information). Even the above version isn’t great, so I’ve included my entire draft blog post below, despite the length and detail. I then gave chatGPT this prompt, after which I inserted by entire post:
OK, so thats’ not really what I’m going for with a blog post. Feel free to incorporate any of the previously discussed points, but please take my draft of a blog post below, and give me a better, more concise, more attractive, clear version to outline the strategy. Today is Sunday, September 3rd, 2023; the primaries start next February, and as of last Wednesday my initial donations were still at only $1,000, which isn’t even enough to force me to file as a candidate. I know quite a number of people who could individually donate a thousand dollars or more, and my guess is that they’re skeptical that I could actually win. I can’t do much more to convince them of the importance of breaking up the three branches, or writing Amendments, but the goal of this post is for family/friends/neighbors to CLEARLY understand the strategy of initial donations, initial in-person events earning more money, initial media attention “ruffling feathers” and snowballing to make this a historic campaign.
For this to work, I’m coming up on the biggest sacrifice of my entire life… I need to be one of the most popular people in the country by Christmas — ideally by Thanksgiving. That’s going to suck, as I love my private life… but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for my country.
Here’s my version of the blog post:
My Version, with Strategic Details:
Dear Early Supporters, Neighbors, Family, and Friends:
This post/page is intended to outline the general strategy by which we — and I mean we — can begin and win a Presidential campaign against an incumbent politician in his own (D) party.
Many of you think this is impossible. I wholeheartedly and respectfully disagree.
If today were February 3rd, 2024, I would totally agree with you. The primaries begin in February and end in June. Gaining momentum, donations, hiring staff, attracting volunteers, abiding by party processes and getting on ballets; all that would be impossible in just a few weeks. If today were January 3rd, 2024, I might agree that it was close to impossible. But it’s not yet December 3rd, 2023; in fact, today is three months away from December; there are still four months left this year, and two more before the primaries begin. That’s a lot of time. And that’s why — while I’m excited to begin in-person speeches and debate/discussion-focused events — I’m doing a lot online, so once people begin sharing and debating on their own, linking their own networks to these ideas and videos, we can leverage the internet.
But let’s be clear: whatever my travel plans are with my family situation, I look forward to getting to know our nation’s eleven Cultural Nations and fifty states much better than I already do. As Biden foolishly promised he’d be a President for all Americans, even those who didn’t vote for him, that was a silly joke by a lifelong partisan politician. I believe I could actually do that. I’d often mess up, putting my own opinion first, but by and large, especially by choosing the right people to lead Cabinet positions and serve around me, challenging my thoughts and decisions, and moving slowly with me, I do believe I could fight for all Americans — as ridiculously diverse (and sometimes indecisive) though we may be.
Before we talk strategy… why elect an ‘average/normal’ American? Why consider one? If you’ve never heard of the “lottery” idea for President, here it is: instead of our ridiculous system, which clearly produces mediocre Presidents who only really serve their party, even though most are decent Americans, we’d have a lottery. We could either have every eligible AMerican adult automatically enrolled in the lottery, or we could have every eligible American voluntarity have their name in that list — the latter would probably only mean a million or so Americans would be willing to do the job. Then, a random process would narrow down the list to a manageable number — say, 50 candidates, or 20, or 80, it doesn’t matter. After that, a process of campaigning would begin, interviews, debates, fundraising, and all the normal stuff we waste 18-24+ months on, now averaging in the billions of dollars.
With any form of this style lottery system, we’d start with the entire American population, and each election cycle, we’d end up with the same number of candidates both parties currently do. But we’d get there with far less time, money, almost no corruption, and we’d have a much higher quality pool of candidates to choose from. (Bonus! Add in ranked choice voting and we have a system we could use for at least the next century!)
I’m not directly proposing a lottery, but there’s a theme I’d follow for my own (potential) campaign: how on earth would a ‘normal’ person do this job? How would one even prepare for it? Well, long before inauguration, ideally long before election day, s/he would begin forming short lists for the best people to place in Cabinet and other positions around the President. “Who do I know that knows the most about Finance, or Defense, or Transportation?” Most current friends or family might not be willing to be public figures or relocate to serve — but those people could give great leads, “You know, I read this book by a retired General, and she seemed to be a great thinker, I bet you could reach out and consider her for Sec. Def.” And so it would go, with each Presidential Candidate (in a random lottery system) looking around for the best people to help. Attract the best American minds to these positions, and ensure a diverse Cabinet which represents all of America. That work begins months before election day.
So here’s the strategy to get from here to there:
Earn the first $5,000-$100,000 from local and family/friend/neighbor donations, including the first in-person speeches, which are unlikely to have media coverage.
From there, at some point before the tenth in-person discussion event, I would hope to have a core team of at least five people, and media attention. The liberal-leaning networks may not initially publicize a Dem candidate who might successfully “steal” the party’s nomination away from the incumbent, but things could change, and his health is certainly failing.
The stump speech being given over and over is not likely to gain significant media attention — especially as it’s posted online and will likely be updated with subsequent stump speeches every few weeks in person. We’ll go more in-depth into why relocate some of the branches out of DC, and more details on focusing the weight of our government on the environment and climate change. But all that will be posted online on official channels.
What’s going to ruffle feathers — to put it nicely — is the in-person time of writing ”practice” Constitutional Amendments with groups of 50-500 people. Term limits will be my go-to, universally supported, not-controversial Amendment. All we really have to decide is how many 2-year House Representative terms to allow, and how many 6-year Senate terms to allow.
I have a dream/goal that at some point of national attention — hopefully by this Thanksgiving — there’s enough support (somewhere in the range of 1-10 million Americans having donated) that I can directly “challenge” Congress with an ultimatum: write a single Constitutional Amendment on term limits — a single sentence, dammit! — limiting your terms. And more importantly, do so within X days (60?) or I’ll make it the mission of this campaign to organize a Constitutional Convention of State Legislatures to write that single amendment for you.
How much respect would our own U.S. Congress earn back if they could limit their own terms, especially after being challenged as such by a Presidential Candidate in the national media?
That would get media attention. But I can’t do that without getting moving — and that’s up to you (donate, share, scream from the rooftops, etc.).
But that’s positive emotion. That’s the best thing for getting the country moving again, for motivating, for making it the focus of the campaign, for the long term.
Trump didn’t get free media attention from positive emotion. He did it with negative emotion and anger.
Term Limits isn’t’ controversial. A balanced budget Amendment might be a minor point of contention for some people. Rewriting the 2nd Amendment is controversial for a lot of people, even though most conservatives agree that firearms and the society which wrote the original 2nd Amendment were every different worlds from our current society — with tanks and helicopters and drones and automatic rifles, which which a single one-armed person could murder a dozen people in a crowded theater.
That’s getting into the controversial. But where does life begin? When is a baby a baby?
Nothing is more controversial than abortion.
And when I’m comfortable risking it in person, with the right open-minded audience, we’re going to debate and write a “practice” Constitutional Amendment on abortion. Are you an extreme conservative who thinks that even a raped woman should never be allowed to kill the unborn child? I’m going to let you scream and cry and get angry in microphone. Are you an extreme liberal who thinks that not only should we not restrict abortion rights a week before pregnancy, but that we should even allow mothers and fathers to “peacefully” suffocate their newborn babies up through 6-weeks or 6-months? Likewise, I’m going to let you yell, cry and get angry and express your opinion.
And then we’ll bring it back to the mid-line, to try to write a practice sentence or sentences which over 2/3 of the nation might agree should be codified into the Constitution.
That’s the extreme delight, work, and reward of the in-person goals for events: a 10-minute stump speech, but a long period of engagement of the audience on these topics — and on working together across political, religious, ethnic, cultural, ago, sex, and geographical differences.
Nothing gets more controversial — or more media attention — than that.
It’s dangerous. But it’s necessary for the soul of this nation. We may fail at writing such Amendments, but we have to try.
And when things get too heavy — which won’t be easy for me to judge early on — my job will be to pause the conversation, cool things down, and bring the discussion back to the less-controversial topics, like term limits, Presidential age limit, or no Presidential Families, or other well-supported ideas.
After this strategy gains enough traction, the Democratic party will have little choice but to let me Debate Biden for an hour. I note in my first “Angry Rant” (September) how I’ll approach that — with respect for my President, but a firm fire in my heart. Earning the nomination away from him is indeed possible. And then it’s off to debate the winning Republican nominee; and attracting Republicans away from him/her, noting that I am less partisan than any R nominee!
We’re falling apart as a nation. How about we start working together, instead? Fighting for the Constitution?
Years ago I made a back-of-the-napkin calculation as to how many Americans might fit the bill as my ideal candidate: great life experiences in a variety of states/countries, various jobs, a passion for education and learning, . I came up with between 1,000 and 10,000 Americans. Where are they? Where are you? I’m confident there are thousands of Americans who’d make better candidates than me. If you’re over 35 and American-born, what would you campaign on? Why aren’t you campaigning?
Having posted this, it’s now quite possible for someone else to “steal” these ideas (most of them not originating with me) and attempt their own campaign — even in the current Republican party — to snowball doing this. Good luck!
Help out: Donate today. Share all of this. Give me your opinion.
Links indented:
Donate here: https://donorbox.org/fial-family-for-america
Temporary campaign website: https://www.johnfial.com/campaign/
YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/@FialFamilyForAmerica/ (including stump speech, “Why not start small in local politics?”, why relocate 2/3 branches of the Fed, and more)
Email signup: http://eepurl.com/iwdDEQ
*First* email: https://mailchi.mp/74c8ad8f670e/family-family-for-america-10168446?e=936776351aVideo 1 Stump Speech https://youtu.be/DK2QwL3v3FQ
Video 1a) Why relocate the federal government? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CjB9ib4Y60
Video 4) Why relocate 2 of 3 branches of the federal government? https://youtu.be/1CjB9ib4Y60Short) why relocate? https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8YpA1dW/
Short #2) gardening and our soul: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8YpULKS/
Short #3) Doesn’t moving two branches of the federal government weaken it? https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8Yp6L41/
But stop sitting there and doing nothing, America! Let’s get moving again.
Love and light,
–John Fial, September 3rd, 2023 [Last edited: Sept 3rd, 2023]
Revision History:
- 2023-09-03: Initial Post w/BabelBot (chatGPT GPT4) “Executive Summary” version