Is it possible to run for president as a "normal" American?

What barriers make it impossible?

Money.

You need to get noticed by one of the major parties to really make a go at it. The way you do that is by getting elected to the House, the Senate, a gubernatorial position, or by being outspoken in a lower office. That last one can come back to bite you if you're not careful though. And getting to any of those positions requires money as well.

Once you're there and you've got the support to consider announcing that you'd like to run, the real spending comes in. Before the primaries start, you need to make yourself known well enough that people will remember your name when the ballot comes up. You're advertising yourself, and you're competing with every other candidate and every corporation for advertising space and the public's attention. Crazy as it sounds, it's tough to make yourself more important than the McRib.

Then, assuming you get the nomination for one of the major parties, you'll have to keep spending in order to try and beat the candidate from the other party, and whatever independent/third-party candidates might be trying to go for it.

And obviously, the whole way you need to make sure that people want you as president, and that any flukes or skeletons in your closet can either be spun in your favor, or can at least keep you at the forefront of everyone's attention.

After roughly a year and a half (or very likely, more) of nonstop advertising, campaigning, telephone calls, meetings, debating, muckraking, and kissing babies, you still might lose the election, so you can't spend yourself broke.

Plus, you have to want the job. A lot of people would like to be able to make some of the decisions the president gets to make, but there's really not a lot of people that really want that job. It's a tough job, and if you're famous and have the money to run, you're probably not exactly eager to go spend millions of dollars to try for one of the most stressful jobs in the world.

/r/AskAnAmerican Thread Parent