Mahablog: Rightier Than Thou

For a great many years, most Americans have found presidential elections to be a choice between someone they don’t like and someone they can’t stand. That’s largely because the early nomination process is less about capturing the public’s imagination than about running a gauntlet of activists and interest groups. The candidates are already bruised and bleeding, sometimes fatally, before active campaigning for primaries even begins.

Thus, the nomination process is less about vision and leadership than about picking the least objectionable positions on hot-button issues. Or, like George W. Bush in 2000, carefully maintaining blank-slate status so that voters saw in him what they wanted to see. Being the fair-haired child of party insiders didn’t hurt, either.