solomonkahn

Two main reasons:

1) When you admit you don't know things, people explain them to you, and you learn things a lot faster than people who don't ask the questions.

2) Once you get to a certain point in life, you stop being worried about whether people will think you're smart or not, so you don't feel self conscious about asking potentially stupid questions

I am SO GLAD you asked this question!

I, and the rest of the American people, have no clue what Jeb Bush is up to. Even though we all know he's running for president, he hasn't filed any statement of candidacy with the FEC, and so he hasn't disclosed any money he's raised.

There are currently complaints to the FEC right now, accusing a number of potential presidential candidates, including Jeb Bush, of violating FEC regulations by fundraising but not announcing themselves as candidates / disclosing what they're doing.

Here's a politico article about it: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/fec-complaint-jeb-bush-rick-santorum-scott-walker-martin-omalley-116552.html

Here's a perfect example of how politicians are using every loophole in the law, which has already been weakened to a pitiful state, to raise an unprecedented amount of money from the tiniest fraction of extremely wealthy individuals.

Here you go! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu7vHxxDHrw

Since so many people are interested in Clinton and Sanders, I would be happy to do follow up screencasts to answer any specific questions. Just reply to this with more questions.

Edit: Just a quick tidbit for people who can't watch the video: Bernie Sanders consistently raises the least money of any Senator. Clinton raises the most money of any Senator.

This is a really amazing question, and I don't actually know the answer. I'm going to do some digging on this, but if you find out the answer, please PM me and let me know.

Edit: FYI, I just posted this question on r/AskHistorians, we'll see if we get any interesting answers https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4kkkes/how_did_us_politicians_in_the_time_of_abraham/

A couple of things:

First, thanks for the kind words!

Next, I've actually found the opposite. The most successful and accomplished people I know are happy to publicly admit when they don't know things. I have a whole theory about why, if you want me to go into more details.

Lastly, I'm not a professor, just a fellow :)