By posting these remarks we received in our mailbox we just earned the right to add a provocative title. Anyway, some of the comments and e-mails we receive make interesting points against our case, most of them don’t. We’ve filtered out the “Bill Gates can’t be a good President because Microsoft is *xxx*” and the “Bill Gates is not a successful business man because Microsoft is *xxx*” crap, and decided feature these arguments:

This is an interesting idea, but completely unrealistic and a little idealistic. If Big Business’s influence in politics is bad, then the biggest man in Big Business who influences not only US politics, but world politics as well, should be just as bad. Politics is not Viral Marketing. ~Susan Adams

You’re suggesting to put the head of Microsoft, that needed the threat of HUGE fines from the EU government to abide by the laws. I’d not want any person who’s leading a company that operates like that anywhere near a position of power. It’s bad enough to see how badly M$ is organized and how restrictive they are. ~Stigu

But seriously folk, although I do like the fact that he’s not going to try to speed up the rapture, I don’t think he has a clue about people who are drastically different from himself. His philanthropy is great, but something makes me think he won’t understand (or has lost touch with) what us broke ass, underdogs are going through. I have had enough of seeing the same old rich, out of touch, White male presidents already, so let’s at least consider thinking outside of the power paradigm for once. ~Vargusvictor

There are many other more respected and worthy people out there, really. ~Steed K

He doesn’t need to be swayed by big business representatives; he IS a big business representative. His beliefs on issues like DRM and IP are clear, and run directly counter to those of many others in the various technology industries. ~Beren

As for Gates: My only concern is loyalty. Do you think he would be more loyal to our country or to businesses like Microsoft. The Gates foundation suggests he might do the right thing, and probably would, but loyalty could still be a concern. Also what party can he run under? The democrats and republicans would never take him, so it would have to third party. Would people still vote for him or would it be seen as a wasted vote? ~Jim

Being rational is good, but a President needs to inspire, too. Jimmy Carter is a fairly rational guy and he gave the country “malaise.” Ronald Reagan was not the most rational guy and he gave us “morning in America.” On the being unselfish point, again there is the Jimmy Carter comparison, great humanitarian, not so good President. And as for management, being President is a lot different than being head honcho at Microsoft. As President, you need to be able to work with Congress and (to a lesser extent) the Supreme Court as fellow powers in the land. When is the last time Bill Gates had to share power with anyone? ~JQ

There were many more arguments for the no-camp, and we’ll surely zoom in on some more of them in the next few days. Until then, feel free to comment on these views by using either the comment system or our discussion board.