Running for president? Accomplish these tasks — but quietly

If you wish to run for president in 2012, you must accomplish several tasks designed to magnify your influence before your formal announcement.

And you must be careful about it. You don’t want the public to know. That’s because while you’re doing these often ethically spurious but entirely legal acts, you want the public to believe your political intentions are altruistic. You would be president, you will publicly and loudly proclaim, because you wish to do the work of the American people.

Let’s use former Massachusetts governor and Olympics savior Mitt Romney as an example. Why Mitt? Because he so badly wants to be president of these Disunited States, and because he’s ahead of others in doing the tasks.

Task one is obvious: Raise money. Gobs of it. But direct public contributions to candidates regulated by the Federal Election Commission will not produce enough money to really make a run for the presidency. About two-thirds of the $1.64 billion raised by House and Senate candidates for the 2010 midterms came from individuals, the rest from PACs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s lots of money, but expect serious presidential candidates in 2012 to each raise a billion dollars — or more. After all, President Obama raised $745 million in 2008.

So where will the money come from?

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