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The process both educates and cripples. And from the most ambitious among such men, the public discovers its Presidents. It may be unhappy with the narrowed choices provided (Nixon v. Humphrey in 1968; Nixon v. McGovern in 1972) but it rarely looks elsewhere. John Gardner, Ralph Nader and half a dozen university presidents or business executives may be estimable men, but never having submitted themselves to the bruising and blooding of the electoral route, they are thought not to have paid their dues. Something is lacking in hard knowledge, in the experience of deferring to the public will, in the despised political art of accommodation, in the adrenaline of ambition. The taste of it, as Lincoln said, must be in your mouth a little. The tradition that the man seeks the office, not the other way around, may explain Gerald Ford's strange lassitude about the potentialities of the office in his first months as the nation's first appointed Chief Executive—though last week's State of the Union message gave him another opportunity to try to rise to the needs of the presidency.
As President, Ford at least had the earlier advantage, in common with all Congressmen, of a weary familiarity with most of the topics—missiles, farm subsidies, taxes—that beset the Oval Office. Hours of debate and committee meetings, even if only fitfully attended, give any Congressman a shrewd awareness of the flash points of contention on any subject. Governors lack that schooling, though they get better training as administrators. Theirs used to be a well-trod route to the White House until the overwhelming importance of world affairs made any state capital seem too parochial a preparation for the White House. With the public demanding a wider range of presidential choices, though, the rejection of Governors as candidates in recent years may be changing—as indeed it should.
For just look at them, these presidential hopefuls, all men of some worth, as they strive for attention, climbing the ladder of national familiarity—Meet the Press, appearances on the Today show—until their very fluency becomes a tic. (How easy at this stage to underestimate their potentialities, as Walter Lippmann famously did Franklin Roosevelt's, considering him an amiable fellow with a queer desire to be President.) Habitually the public measures presidential candidates for Superman's costume, and almost inevitably finds them lacking. Could it be the Superman costume that is one of the problems?