Over at Orcinus, Sara has some interesting thoughts on the strange state of the Republicans in this election: ((UPDATE: Josh’s comment at TPM: “At this point it seems clear that the big take away from the Republican debate is that these are six pretty tired old guys who can barely get enthusiastic enough to answer the questions.” Another reader wondered “Is it me, or do Thompson and McCain seem like those old guys who sit in the balcony on the Muppets?”))
It’s striking how many of this year’s GOP hopefuls were guys who would have had zero chance, who wouldn’t have even made it through the money primaries, in any other year. The very motliness of the crew is a testament to the fact that the center is no longer holding — because if it were, they wouldn’t be there. A functional Bush regime would have picked a successor, and used the past four years to position him for a win. The fact that that didn’t happen is yet another testament to their looming failure. Nobody’s interested in continuing their policies. Nobody even wanted so much as their blessing.
This got me to thinking about the opposite kind of problem which the Democrats have. In recent years I’ve come to the conclusion that the US system is intrinsically wasteful of talent. Things are arranged so that natural allies are forced into a long drawn-out fight. Because they tend to share policy positions, they are forced to rely on personal denigration, thus guaranteeing that they won’t be able to work together after the primaries.
Back home in the UK, for example, the Democrats would have a dream team, a cabinet ready to take over and govern effectively on all fronts. They’ve got a PM, a Chancellor, a Foreign Secretary, a Home Secretary… But over here, they’re forced through a meat-grinder of a system which pretty much ensures that most of that talent will be wasted. ((And of course the whole toxic mess discourages many talented people from even putting themselves forward.))
Presidents ought to be symbolic leaders, restricting themselves to opening highways, holding garden parties, leading charitable appeals, and giving the eulogies at state funerals for national heroes. If you let them do more than that, they’ll try to become kings or emperors, and that always ends in tears.