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QUOTE=Jim in CT;1063164]So, shouldn't we be concerned as voters with what process those we vote for intend to govern more than what they intend to "get done"?

No, I am more concerned with what they will try to get done, as long as the process through which they do it, is constitutional.

Sorry, Jim . . . but what you say in your second sentence is an affirmative of your first sentence. The "as long as" clause is the controlling factor for you in accepting "what they will try to get done". So the second sentence should start with a "yes" rather than a "no," and the process, indeed, as you say, makes valid, or invalid, what is done.

When I posed the question if we shouldn't be more concerned with the process our politicians follow in governing than in what they intend (promise) to do, I was pointing specifically to the current political process of our regulatory state, the administrative form of government rather than the representative republican form we were originally given. So long as we are stuck in a system that governs through unelected regulatory agencies hand in hand with progressively minded politicians who unlimitedly expand the power of the Federal Government and its bureaucratic machinery topped off with autocratic presidential power, we have little chance, as folks below the top 10%, to be more than a pawn of a despotic oligarchic system. And so long as our Presidents choose to act progressively rather than constitutionally, it won't matter much who is elected. The constitutional process would reign them in. The progressive process frees them to do anything which restricts or abolishes freedom for the rest of us.

Jim in CT:
And so long as their "to do" list isn't intrusive. I want someone who will appoint judges who don't see their role as legislative activists;

And the process you chose, the constitutional process, would lessen or negate the ability of government to be intrusive. And the constitutional process, if followed as intended, would proscribe what you consider judicial activism.

Actually, process limits action in prescribed ways, and desired goals dictate the manner or process by which those goals are achieved. The goals and the process go together. Without goals, process has no meaning. Without process, goals cannot be reached. That was why and how the Constitution was created. It was a process, a structure, a form of government, which would best guarantee the desired goal of unalienable individual freedom for all.

The progressive process, on the other hand, is a creation founded on different goals. What "freedom" exists as a goal in progressivism is firstly freedom of, by, and for the government to do whatever it considers necessary for the collective "good" and welfare. The secondary "freedom" would therefor be whatever it allows to those who are governed.

Jim in CT:
I want someone who is willing to say out loud that we are at war with Islamic jihadists; someone who believes in the free market; someone who concedes that SS and Medicre are, in their current form, a top-heavy Ponzi scheme about to tip over, etc...Per the liberal narrative, Hilary will get every single one of these things wrong.[/QUOTE]

Well . . . someone can say and believe those things, but, unless the process by which we are governed changes, what someone says, other than speaking about, and fighting for changing the process, and succeeding, then nothing substantially will change. If you cannot understand that the SS and medicare systems, as intrusive, expansive, and impossibly costly as they are, and that the tightly regulated market, and all such dependency or freedom restricting controls all contribute to the GOAL of unlimited progressive government, you will be continually bewildered by the fact that no matter who we elect, we will continue down the same path.

As for the big difference between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, I tried internet searches looking for a concise depiction of the political differences between them, thinking I could come up with some, but article after article failed to actually point out what I was looking for. They mostly went on about other stuff or what they did, just stuff, but no point by point actual differences. One that made me laugh was a list of 10 bullet points, one through ten, with a blank after each number. And after the end of the empty list the quote "what difference does it make." I know, I know, there are some differences, some things like nuanced differences on abortion, which matter to you (which, by the way, should not be part of presidential responsibility), and so forth, but I was looking for something which would substantially make a difference in how we are governed. I did find this interesting little piece by Glenn Greenwald:

"Jeb Bush yesterday strongly suggested he was running for President in 2016. If he wins the GOP nomination, it is highly likely that his opponent for the presidency would be Hillary Clinton.

"Having someone who is the brother of one former president and the son of another run against the wife of still another former president would be sweetly illustrative of all sorts of degraded and illusory aspects of American life, from meritocracy to class mobility. That one of those two families exploited its vast wealth to obtain political power, while the other exploited its political power to obtain vast wealth, makes it more illustrative still: of the virtually complete merger between political and economic power, of the fundamentally oligarchical framework that drives American political life.

"Then there are their similar constituencies: what Politico termed “money men” instantly celebrated Jeb Bush’s likely candidacy, while the same publication noted just last month how Wall Street has long been unable to contain its collective glee over a likely Hillary Clinton presidency. The two ruling families have, unsurprisingly, developed a movingly warm relationship befitting their position: the matriarch of the Bush family (former First Lady Barbara) has described the Clinton patriarch (former President Bill) as a virtual family member, noting that her son, George W., affectionately calls his predecessor 'my brother by another mother.'

"If this happens, the 2016 election would vividly underscore how the American political class functions: by dynasty, plutocracy, fundamental alignment of interests masquerading as deep ideological divisions, and political power translating into vast private wealth and back again. The educative value would be undeniable: somewhat like how the torture report did, it would rub everyone’s noses in exactly those truths they are most eager to avoid acknowledging."