"Americans are starved for royalty, and it shows in the treatment of our presidential candidates. Sure, we want someone who can run the country well and solve the myriad crises that face this nation. But we also want someone who looks good, makes pretty speeches, provides us with entertainment and projects an image of American might to the rest of the world. Our problem is that we try to compress all these things into one person.
That’s why the legal troubles of the Bush twins get reported on the front page of the Times of India, and there are villagers in Mongolia who know that Bill Clinton had sex with Monica Lewinsky— — the symbolic role of the president is important. If we elect someone that we wouldn’t want to have a beer with, then, by extension, the rest of the world won’t want to have a beer with us.
Usually, however, attractive, friendly people with nice voices have developed those traits at the expense of other qualities that are more useful in governing, like aggressiveness, intelligence and wonkish attention to detail. That’s why we so often have to choose between a genial incompetent and an uncharismatic egghead, like George W. Bush vs. Al Gore.
