How do you feel about not-yet-nominated potential presidential candidates getting Secret Service protection?

Well first it is a choice they made and should pay for their own security, talk about Govt. spending.!

I Honestly I think that we need a tiered nomination system. Once we narrow the field to 20 or so their campaigns are federally funded and no personal wealth or donations from any other source are allowed. They should have ss protection as well.

I agree !

Like it or not – and I most certainly do not like it – the modern world is obsessed with “celebrity”. While some more or less public figures such as writers, singers, actors and others who are frequently in the public eye do not overtly court publicity and fame, but have it thrust upon them because of their achievement, they can still usually manage some degree of privacy. They can and frequently do retire to their guarded estates, private islands, resorts and other places to get away from people – or simply live in the places where they live where they are accorded a certain degree of if not anonymity, at least ‘distance’ from their neighbors. (I’m thinking particularly of the way Muhammed Ali has lived for decades in Berrien Springs, Michigan, where the townspeople are so jealous of his privacy that they won’t tell outsiders where his home is, and other such acts of protection from “the public”.)

Politicians, especially those running for national office, don’t have that luxury. Not only do they have to court publicity and fame – sometimes at huge cost to their families as well as themselves – they can’t do it from a distance. They have to be more or less “always on”, always speaking, always meeting more people, going more places, and becoming more widely known. That’s bad enough, but there’s a flip side to that kind of exposure, too.

The people who kill those people also become famous, in their way.

That’s a kind of instant celebrity of the most grotesque kind, isn’t it? And those people are out there; we all know it. If we’re going to have even a semblance of a representative democracy with “political leaders” that are in any way approachable, then those people have to be protected from the crazies. And while I generally favor “private” over “public” furnishing of anything, including security, in this imperfect world that we inhabit I have no problem with “early and often” provision of Secret Service protection to those folks. It’s the least we can do for them – even for the ones I despise.

@CWOTUS: Sorry, I can’t agree with you on that. Yeah, yeah, crazy people, celebrity, etc etc, but we already provide protection in the form of the police force. The police provide extra personnel for any. Number of events, and I feel that personal security should be provided by wannabes, until they are nominated. Your logic would indicate that Secret Service should be available to all persons with any level of celebrity.

No, @canidmajor, my logic is that Secret Service protection should be available to all people who put themselves in the public eye because of their attempt or accomplishment at government service.

@CWOTUS: That’s much clearer, thank you. I still think it should be reserved for the actual nominees, but I appreciate your point, now.

When the Trump campaign requested, and received, Secret Service protection, America hit a new milestone/low.

The man rich enough to buy anyone/too rich to be bought expects the American taxpayers to protect his ass while he tears the country apart.

I think requesting Secret Service protection should, at the very least, come with voluntary campaign spending limits.
Like, for instance, you would spend more courting the American taxpayers than the taxpayers are spending to facilitate that.

It’s a good idea. It would be a bit discouraging to future candidates if one of these morons got assassinated and became a martyr to what is mistaken for a cause nowadays. God forbid they get any more validity with their idiotic constituencies than they already have. They are sleeping in a bed of their own making. Assholes.

It’s been available to candidates who are on Pirmary ballots since the attempt to assassinate George Wallace. And really, as much as you might disagree on a particular candidate being given protection, it is generally assigned in a fairly objective non-partisan manner.

Don’t the candidates have to request protection?

Otherwise, what makes protection kick in?

@zenvelo: I only disagree that it should be assigned to people who are not yet nominated which includes the potentials that I support, as well as all others. My point is that there are other options already in place. Police for example.

A disadvantage of using police is that then the funding comes from local government, which may be prohibitive. By using Secret Service, funding is federal. Also, the local police are probably not trained in such a fashion as Secret Service and probably don’t have access to the equipment and facilities that Secret Service does.

@canidmajor George Wallace and Bobby Kennedy were not yet nominees. They both had police protection when they were shot.

Another disadvantage of using local police is that there may be political opinions that are shared by the locals and so they may not provide the proper level of protection. A Republican candidate in a liberal area is an example, or a liberal candidate in a red state is another example.

I’m not saying they should go naked into the world, you guys. I’m saying they should provide their own security, or not as is their choice. @zenvelo: both Kennedy and Wallace were in a position to afford security. Their choice.

“Police” and “Secret Service” protection are vastly different things. Police in events such as this are generally provided for crowd control, and not much more than that. Secret Service is body protection, which is not at all the same thing.

So, @canidmajor primary ballot candidates should self fund security?
Or accept public security and public campaign funding?

It really burns my ass that the American taxpayers have been paying for Donald Trump’s security for months. So he can brag about how rich he is.