Politico brings us this gem, “Warren joins Senate’s club of failed presidential hopefuls,” without much wondering how we got here.
The Senate is indeed packed with failed presidential candidates, including Democrats Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, the aforementioned Warren, and GOP losers Lamar Alexander, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio. (Romney doesn’t count for these purposes, for reasons that shall become obvious.)
The article points out that only three presidents have ever emerged directly from the United States Senate: Warren Harding (who ought to have wrecked it for everybody), JFK, and Barack Obama. So why do so many run, and so few make it?
We argue that technological transformation has created a systematic mismatch in American presidential politics. State governors and generals have, on average, greater proof of executive function, and voters, given the opportunity to think about it, can see it, feel it, and have largely agreed.
However, the profound changes in American media and political fundraising of the last 10-15 years have dramatically shifted public exposure in favor of Washington’s legislators, particularly senators. Senators have many more opportunities than governors and generals to flap their gums in front of cable news cameras and develop relationships with Twitter-happy Washington journalists. This relatively recent shift in favor of senators means that our least tested executive leaders – by which we mean people capable of driving institutional behavior – build all-important national name recognition and concomitant Internet fund-raising capacity much more quickly than the governors and generals who are more capable leaders and executives. Add to that the silly debate format pushed by the leading campaigns and the media — which format favors the leading campaigns and the media — and the voters never really have a chance.
It is a real problem, and it is not obvious how we fix it. Do not, however, expect the average quality of presidential candidates to improve until we do.
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