Nathan McFarland

     The President Project was a project surrounding the at-the-time on going election. The project consisted of three main parts, the fact check, the campaign, and the Dear Future President letter.

     The letter was part of a PBS competition, each contestant would write a letter addressed to the president pertaining to an issue that they wished to see fixed. PBS would read each letter and choose a winner, who ultimately got to fly out to Vegas to see the Second Presidential Debate and meet both candidates. My letter was about how hard it is to immigrate to the US, and how people who are allowed to become permanent residents have a lot less rights than a normal citizen.

     The campaign was a a competition between the two classes. Each class was first separated into two group (total of four groups), and each of those groups were assigned a presidential candidate, this included Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. Each groups then had to learn as much as they could about their candidates Economic Plan, Social Plan, Foreign Policy, and the candidates themselves. I was assigned to learn about Gary Johnson's economic plan. and more specifically, what he planned on doing about jobs and military spending. This led up to a debate in front of the whole school, after the debate students voted for the  group they thought did the best job, and which candidate should be elected. Hillary Clinton won by a landslide, Jill Stein was next, Gary Johnson took third, and Trump was last. However, in my opinion, Sam Bush (the student who was debating as Gary Johnson) did the best in the debate.

     The fact check was the opposite of the campaign. We basically took everything that our candidates had said or claimed as fact, and checked that to make sure it was based on truth, using that new found knowledge we made videos that separated fact from fiction. Gary Johnson did not fair to well in this section, most of what he said was a blatant lie or an exaggerated truth. However, Johnson was more honest than Trump, which came as no surprise.

     This project was fun and informative, it was definitely weighed against the Gary team because he has no real plans. When reading on what he planned to do with country, I found that his ideas are just about as crazy as you can get. However, there are things that I respect about him: He has climbed Mt. Everest; He is a triathlete, completing multiple Ironmans; he ran a successful marijuana company. A lot about him is not what would be considered ideal president material, but a lot of that makes him a more interesting person. Overall, I'm glad I did this project.

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