I know proper dinner guest etiquette recommends avoiding conversation topics about sex, religion and politics and I vowed to avoid those topics on this blog. But humor me, just this one time!  I promise to be neutral … kind of.

The idea of looking at Donald Trump’s cotton candy hair, bronze face, white veneers and trucker hat for four years makes me sad and concerned.

Is this the best that the United State of America can scrape up for presidential candidates?  Can you imagine what Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, Antarctica and areas far and near think of this country and who is running for president?  It’s embarrassing.

Regardless if you are conservative or liberal, live in a red state or a blue state, don’t you ask yourself, is this the best we’ve got to tackle today’s worldwide challenges and domestic woes?  Wouldn’t it be great if we were scratching our heads and saying, “Gosh, there are so many great, smart, diplomatic people to choose from, what a quandary?”  Instead, I am deciding who among the crowd is the least crazy and can do the least amount of damage.

Seeing as one of our candidates is a reality TV super star, why don’t we make the election a Season Eighteen of the Big Brother.  Corral all the candidates into a beach house fitted with Jacuzzi, five bedrooms, bunk beds and bean bag chairs and let them have at it.  The only clothing they can bring is the suits on their back. Each candidate is welcome to wear the complimentary Big Brother bathing suits, wife beater t-shirts and silky shorts provided.  Who will make the first inappropriate advance towards Carla captured in the grainy night vision camera?  How long will it take to make Jeb cry, and maybe that governor from Ohio will get over his stuttering problem?  I think he might have a couple of decent ideas.

Who will win the weekly household challenges?  Who will get nominated to be evicted first?

Maybe we can throw in some special guest stars to shake things up and hike up ratings.  Being president requires the skill to navigate through the unexpected.  How about a few New Jersey commuters who were stuck in the gridlock of Governor Christie’s Bridgegate fiasco? Suit Christie up in a sumo loincloth, introduce him to the irate civilians, a mud pit  and watch them grapple.

How about we send Trump into his own padded room filled with a woman, Latino, American Muslim, a disabled person and Marla Maples for a week and see how he fairs.  Why not look at a few emails of all the candidates. I am sure Hilary isn’t the only one who has breached some kind of misconduct in her communications.  That Rand Paul looks like he could get a little randy, what skeletons are in his inbox?

Let’s invite real Americans to visit the candidates and present their stories, life challenges and ask each candidate how if elected they would make their lives better.  Bring in the wounded, mentally ill, unemployed marine with no insurance and no support from the country that used him as a weapon and then discarded him once he malfunctioned.  Bring in the kindergartner who was born into extreme poverty and only has a glimmer of hope from the poorly funded public school he attends.  Let’s bring a member of ISIS who lives down the street and see what they do with him.

Even better … Survivor Syria!  Instead of Jeff Probst as the host, it’s Bashar al-Assad throwing out challenges to all the candidates!

Maybe the issue over the caliber of our presidential candidates is the fact that it is a lousy job.  Who would want to be president? You become a joke Halloween mask, a photo on toilet paper and regularly judged and polled weekly on whether or not the American public likes you. No sooner does the American public vote in a Democrat president they then vote in a Republican congress.  This happened with Republican presidents too.  Vote in a Republican president and then stop progress with a Democratic congress.  How can you get anything done?  Let’s get an illegal gun and shoot this country in the foot which I think would be the state of Florida.

Don’t we deserve better?  Better questions from the journalists at debates who don’t accept flip answers from the candidates, but ask for a real plan on how the candidates are going to make a difference.  Why not put a cap on how much a candidate can raise for their campaign so it is a fair promotion.  In 2012, over $2.6 Billion was raised toward the presidential election.  As a professional fund-raiser for a not-for-profit, imagine what that money could have done for the United States of America to eradicate poverty, advance cancer research, improve public education and jolt economic development in depressed communities.

My seventeen year old nephew recently received extra credit in a class for attending a Trump rally in Worcester, MA.  He left the convention center thinking, “when you start carding a targeted group of people  just because, then I’m out!” And as my sister said at Thanksgiving, “If Trump wins, Canada will be building a wall to keep Americans out.”