Which historical figure would you choose for your own "Excellent Adventure"?

I am running a new poll on my website for my dozens of devoted fans. My popularity in Whitehorse continues to grow. This week's question is: if you had access to a time machine and could travel backwards in time to visit a historical figure, bring him or her back to 2009, show them the world as it is now and ask them for their opinion; whom would you choose? This is of course in honour of the film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, where they acquire a phone booth that does exactly that. They go retrieve all the historical figures to help them study for an important test, if my memory serves me correctly.

I will just briefly explain why I chose each nominee. I do include some left wing options for my left wing viewers. In hindsight, I should have added one of the Greek philosophers, a Chinese Emperor, an African King, a Montezuma, an Einstein, or so on and so forth. But once you start the poll, you can't add or change entries, and these were the first names to pop into my brain when I sat down to find a replacement for my expired Dennis Miller or Glenn Beck poll.

Adam Smith - This was who I voted for. The Scottish father of modern Economics. I chose him for my own Excellent Adventure because I want to ask him "we did all this based on your ideas, what did we get wrong?" I imagine he'd start with sub-prime mortgages, move on to pay day loans, and go from there.

Karl Marx - If you like him, you could use his advice these days.

Charles Darwin – I have a copy of Origin of Species on my bookshelf. I want his theories translated into Economics.

Cleopatra - I wanted some female nominees, and fortunately for the planet Aung San Suu Kyi is still alive, but don’t try to go to her house to ask her questions, or the military junta will extend her prison sentence even further. I nominate the Myanmarese military junta for some “Mike Ignatieff style” targeted executions.

Napoleon - I have readers in Quebec, and he does represent the peak of French influence in the world. As a Scottish Canadian, I don't vilify the “little King” the same way the Brits do.

Winston Churchill - It was hard not to choose Winston for my vote. He is my favourite politician of all time, well next to Mike Harris. I will never abandon my dream of having "Iron Mike" become PM and defeat CUPE once and for all.

Martin Luther (the Protestant) - I would want his opinion of religion today, specifically how we should feel about some of the serious problems over there with a fringe element of Islam, and how we can convince mainstream Islam to turn on extremist Islam. I would recommend mainstream Islam (particularly in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) view the film Old Yeller for an opinion on how to deal with the extreme elements that hide among them.

Octavian Caesar - I needed a Caesar on the list, and while Julius is the most famous, his nephew Octavian was arguably the most effective leader that the Romans ever had. I loved the HBO series Rome. If Octavian were immortal, there is a reasonable probability that the Roman Empire would never have collapsed.

William Wallace - I would mostly like to know what he was really like, which is likely somewhere in between the Mel Gibson version and the British historical accounts. Braveheart is one of my all time favourite movies, but we later learned that Mel Gibson is not who we thought he was. The passion of the Gibson diminishes my feelings of Nostalgia for his "Scottish Pride" film.

Alexander the Great - Nobody ever conquered more with less. Arguably the greatest military genius that has ever lived. But I was not much a fan of the Oliver Stone version.

Joan of Arc - the next famous female to pop into my brain.

John Lenin (the communist) - Honestly I just wanted to split the Karl Marx vote

JFK - A Liberal that a lot of Conservatives liked.