[hutzlibu]

"Politics already suffers heavily from not getting the best-of-the-best"

It is repeated often, but is this really true?

Number 1 trait of a politician should be honesty and integrity in my opinion - and I don't think that you can increase that factor, just with throwing more money on them. Then you maybe just get more smart people, who are in it for the money and use their smarts and cunning to extract even more money. I think politicians should want that job, because they primarily feel the call to achieve something bigger.

So a adequate payrise is alright in my opinion, but I don't want the top managers who run a big compony for profit to also run states. As states are (or should not be) profit orientated, but to serve the greater good of its people.

[fanagra32]

> It is repeated often, but is this really true?

If I look around at (a) politicians and (b) people I respect for traits needed in politicians, then those sets are not fully but largely disjoint.

> Number 1 trait of a politician should be honesty and integrity in my opinion

There are other necessary traits though. Empathy. Diplomacy. The ability to compromise. Keeping an eye on the big picture. Current processes don't always select for those traits and there are tons of BS-ers and populists out there while I see people with the desirable traits outside politics and not having any desire to get involved. Putting a camera over their head 24/7 is not going to improve that.

[_trampeltier]

If H. Clinton vs D. Trump or D. Trump vs J. Biden are the only choice for the most powerful politic job in the world .. I think they are really not the-best-of-the-best

[michaelmrose]

This is a better argument for the American public making in general poor choices and political parties giving them the kind of people they are apt to vote for rather than paying insufficient salaries.

[atlgator]

"Tail wagging the dog" argument.

[michaelmrose]

There is no reason to believe that the factor dragging political quality into the gutter is insufficient salaries. The fact that the Republican party turned down higher caliber more capable candidates in favor of trump suggests that candidate quality is limited by voter choice not insufficient compensation.

These folks really are in fact deplorable and you need to appeal to at least a substantial minority of awful idiots to be elected president or if on team red most of them.

This is why every Republican president in half a century has been an embarrassment and every democratic relatively conservative because nothing else flies here and upping the ante won't help.