The Final Repudiation

George, I am struck by your logic. That a leader that can inspire the masses with his, you called it ???popular arts??? oratory ability to reach the electorate a subversion of the intent of our Founding fathers. There are other subversions that are more dangerous to our constitution than someone who can inspire. History has it that there have been presidents that have succeeded and those that have failed regardless of their ability to speak coherently, yet our constitution is still largely intact (save for amendments to her) and that your argument is that the perversion of Obama???s selection was based on his oratory ability and not the platform of the party he represents. A platform of inclusion that he has so eloquently spoken, and the American electorate has in kind voted for.
Your argument is that someone who is eloquent can and I quote
???The founders were deeply fearful of leaders deploying popular oratory as the means of winning distinction.???
The real fear that the founders had not envisioned was the subversion of all four levels of government you had spoken of in this article, Congress, Supreme Court, the presidency and the presidential selection. That all four would be taken over by special interest groups and the one with the most money wins. It is not lost on most if not all of those who voted for Obama, we did so because he is free of this special interest due to the fact that the American Electorate that voted for him supported him with there own funds, not that of any special interest group. He is the first president in recent history that was elected from the very group that supported his candidacy ???The American People??? and regardless of your political views, that has to be something that even you can appreciate. I know the system is broken, I know we can do better and I have every confidence that we will go along way to fix it. Finance reform, economy, national security is too important to leave it to special interest. That is the real fear our founding fathers hadn???t foreseen.

This is a very thoughtful article. I hope we have learned from this election. Surely we have to move beyond naming party nominees after a few primaries. At a minimum, the primary season should be reduced and every the primary for every state, not just a few, should be held within that period. The amount of financing available for the campaigns should be limited so that persons who complain about high gas and food prices, don't have to be emotionally swayed to dip further into their empty pockets. I wish we could move to more thoughtfulness and less emotion around something as important as leadership.

George, you forgot another President with a thin resume and a gift for inflammatory oratory - Ronald Reagan.

George, you forgot to mention someone else with a thin resume and a 'gift for oratory' - Ronald Reagan

The Constitution, however, allows for the evolution of a system that elects a President in a different way. Certainly, Obama's election was not unconstitutional. Original intent in a narrow sense is irrelevant to determining the constitutionality of an action. In the final analysis, only if an action taken under the Constitution is declared unconstiutional is it prohibited under law. We the people simply are not bound by the original intent of our founding fathers.

"The brief nonpartisan system of candidate selection alarmed some thoughtful people because it left ambitious individuals unconstrained by any dependency." This is supposed to be a bad thing? In recent years we've all seen how devastating partisanship can be. It has destroyed not only the Presidency but, the Congress and the Supreme Court as well. I would think that Americans would have had more than enough of partisanship! It would seem that those forefathers who were "concerned about nonpartisanship" could not have been very "thoughtful" if they were worried that "ambitious people" would not have to submit to "agendas not their own."
Perhaps that is exactly how we should select the candidates who are to run for the highest office in the land, on a nonpartisan basis! Right at the moment the "Party" system is leaving many people out. Many conservatives have had to submit to the tyranny of the the Far Right. The so called "right to lifers" and religionists who insist that their concept of moral principals be the paramount issue of any Republican platform. At the expense of reasonableness, they have ruled out any chance for pragmatic governance, and relegated important issues in the fields of diplomatic, financial, scientific and domestic policy to the bottom of the barrel. Up until now, the same could be said about the far left extremists on the Democratic side. Somebody over there finally seems to have "got it", and moved their campaign toward the center, at least rhetorically. That's why Obama won.
It seems to me that more "nonpartisanship" is precisely what we DO need if we are to get this, "stuck in the muck", nongoverning, nonworking, petty, bickering government up and running and doing something positive for the nation.

No, I think a much better way to find the best candidate would be to have the High Lamas of the Gelugpa search for the yangsi of Lincoln. George, this is the best we???ve come up with ??? deal with it.

No, I think a much better way to find the best candidate would be to have the High Lamas of the Gelugpa search for the yangsi of Lincoln. George, this is the best we???ve come up with ??? deal with it.

I appreciate the historical perspective, and have often contemplated that the skills required to become the party candidate under our current system are not necessarily the same skills required of the chief executive. For example, Obama is a very good speaker, but his leadership capabilities, in reality, have never actually been tested. That's a pretty tall order for the presumptive leader of the free world. I hope that he does have the necessary mettle--I shall pray that he does.