Meet the candidate - Robert Thomas's 2024 Campaign HQ

So who am I...
...and what am I doing?

FAQ: Is your name "Robert" or Robin"?

My legal name is a mouthful: Robert George Fahnestock Thomas. I'm the fourth Robert in the Thomas family, so we all go (or went) by a different nickname. Mine is Robin, and that's what people usually call me.

Biography (a work in progress)

I was born on April Fools’ Day, 1989, in little Oxford, Ohio, to a family of artsy academics. My parents gave me the priceless gift of encouragement to be whatever I wanted to be, and to make my own mistakes.
My sister and I both attended the McGuffey Foundation School in Oxford, and both graduated from Talawanda High School. During my graduation speech on June 7th, 2007, I formally announced my candidacy for the Presidency.
I deferred my start at Stanford University to spend a year with the Americorps program City Year, working full-time with public middle schoolers in New Hampshire. It was an amazingly difficult but priceless year that involved a lot of personal growth.
City Year inspired me to study Urban Education at Stanford University, where I find myelf today.

On the Issues

I don't know enough yet to be able to say, for instance, "I will decrease the budget of so-and-so by .0023%." Below are general ideas of what I'd like to accomplish. Please tell me how you agree or disagree with my thinking, and what your own ideas are!

EDUCATION
-De-standardize the education system; explore new ways of assessing students beyond how well they take tests, with an emphasis on critical thought, problem solving, creativity, and developing student individuality
-Replace the property tax as a source of school funding
-Develop and strengthen community programs outside of schools, including support for crime and drug prevention and rehabilitation programs, anti-poverty programs, adult education, job skills development, and outdoor education and recration
-Sponsor increased student foreign exchange opportunities
-Focus less on the Achievement Gap and more in the Input Gap: ensure above-adequate resources for all schools
-Provide for greater flexibility in school scheduling and curricula according to the unique needs of different school communities
-Support extended service opportunities for students in and beyond middle school
-End the use of out-of-school suspension as a means of punishment, in favor of in-school work and service learning
-Increase support to public libraries, foremost through the promotion of book donations, and secondly through additional financial support

TAXES AND FINANCE
-Adopt a new tax system to replace the income tax
-Increase the transparency and public understanding of government spending
-Change our defense spending priorities: ensure every dollar spent my our military is cost-effective and effectively tracked, and rethink where the tax dollars go, in order to cut down on defense spending without cutting down on defense itself.

DRUGS
-Allow the commercial sale, taxation, and medical use of marijuana, while maintaining the criminality of the private production of marijuana, and the production and consumption of all other currently illegal drugs
-Develop a “drinking license” program, allowing 18 year-olds to consume alcohol after completing a drug education program similar to current driver’s education
-Impose stronger enforcement against underage drinking, drunk driving, and all other forms of illicit intoxication

IMMIGRATION
-Lessen the restrictions on legal immigration and attaining citizenship in the United States
-Stop deporting illegal immigrants, and instead require them to perform community service or otherwise contribute to society

PRISONS
-Rethink being “tough” on crime: redefine prisons as opportunities for education and productivity, rather than as places for punishment, in cooperation with the Department of Education

NATIONAL SERVICE
-Consolidate the Americorps and Peace Corps into the military as its non-combative branch, with the same culture of discipline, the same international reach, and the same personal benefits

GAY MARRIAGE
-No gay marriage or straight marriage: the government will recognize only civil unions, available to all consenting adults, and redefine “marriage” as a religious instution outside of the government’s jurisdiction

ABORTION
-Allow all women the right to an abortion until the end of the first trimester of pregnancy, except in extreme cases where pregnancy was not detected, or when the mother's life is threatened

TRANSPORTATION
-Allocate funding to make our nation's rail systems cost and time effective, and competitive with other forms of public transportation internationally

WELFARE
-Allocate welfare to the unemployed according to the same thinking expressed in Bill Clinton's Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act -- individuals must find work within a certain number of years of receiving benefits, and receive only a certain number of total years of welfare over their lifetimes, with some exceptions made for those with reduced ability to work

...and more to come.

Books that make you think:

The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster

Impro, by Keith Johnstone

Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse

Contact, by Carl Sagan

Good Omens, by Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman

Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Improv Wisdom, by Patricia Ryan Madson

The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card