Founder's message: Trump for president?

Remember this joke from your school days? "What happened when the boarding house blew up? Rumors were flying." And rumors are beginning to fly about the Donald. It has been reported by the press that he is planning to run for president. Would he be a good president? The New England Real Estate Journal makes it a point to stay out of politics and religion for obvious reasons. But we should be allowed to speculate. Right? It is not debatable that the largest business in the world is the United States government. And I would guess that they own the most real estate. Just do the math. National parks, Amtrack, all the post offices, highways, adjacent highway land, etc. Enormous! So wouldn't it make sense to have a major qualification for presidential nominee to have a successful business experience? Duh! When is the last time a president had any? Certainly not the current one. Bush owned the Texas Rangers, but not successfully. Clinton had none. Reagan had none. Kennedy's father had a lot, but his off-springs had none. Nixon had none, and Eisenhower was a general in the Army. Did I leave anyone out? Yeah! Johnson and Ford, neither had any successful business experience. Would Warren Buffet make a good president? I think so. But he's not going to ever run, and he's eighty years old. So now we are back to a very successful businessman who might run in 2012. Why don't more successful business people run for office? Easy! When you run a business you don't have 100 senators and over 400 reps voting on your ideas. Must be very frustrating to watch your good ideas drag on months and years, and maybe never get done. So let's get back to the Donald. My first experience with him was good. When he launched the successful TV show The Apprentice, sitting on the top of his desk, in plain sight of all the viewers was a copy of the New York Real Estate Journal. Great exposure for me and unaffordable. So, because I have always believed in the philosophy, "Treat your neighbor as you would want him/her to treat you," I ran a promo, 24/7 for one year, about his TV show on my website, www.rejournal.com, the oldest and largest regional commercial website in the country. It obviously didn't hurt the TV show because it is still on national TV many years later. And, by the way, it is an interesting show. Meanwhile, the Donald has continued to successfully develop real estate not only in the United States, but in foreign countries. Does he qualify to run a country? He gets my vote. Hey, we've tried all the other supposed qualified candidates whose background is anything but business. Socrates said, "The definition of crazy, is to keep doing the same thing over and over that continues to fail." Who can debate his wisdom? Roland Hopkins is the founder of the New England Real Estate Journal, Norwell, Mass.