Procura-se governador sulista incompetente

A análise mais original sobre as eleições americanas que até agora li, encontrei-a no blogue de Brad de Long. Ei-la:

A Different System Needed for Picking Presidents

In 1972, we reelected an incumbent. In 1976, we elected an unknown southern governor who had not spent a day in Washington D.C. and had no national political record. In 1980, we elected an unknown governor--a southerner, if Orange County is "southern"--who had not spent a day in Washington D.C. and had no national political record. In 1984 we reelected an incumbent president. In 1988 we elected an incumbent vice president. In 1992 we elected an unknown southern governor who had not spent a day in Washington D.C. and had no national political record. In 1996 we reelected an incumbent. In 2000 we elected an unknown southern governor had not spent a day in Washington D.C. and had no national political record.

The pattern is clear: when there isn't an unknown southern governor running, an incumbent president can win reelection or an incumbent vice president can win election; but the unknown southern governor without a national political record wins the presidency—always.

Why? Because he is a governor, he can raise money. Because he is unknown, he has no enemies in Washington who inform the press corps of weaknesses. Because he has no record, nobody has an incentive to try to block him. Because he is southern, the south tends to vote for him.

The problem is that being an unknown southern governor has next to nothing to do with being an effective president. Of the unknown southern governors who have run since 1972, we've been lucky once--Bill Clinton was a good president. We've been unlucky three times: Carter, Reagan, and George W. Bush were, none of them, up to the job.

You can go further back in the past. Nixon when he ran in 1968 had next to no national political reputation. He hadn't been in government for eight years. When he was vice president he was a cipher. His only national political experience actually doing anything had come in a few short years as representative and senator trying to exploit the communists-in-government issue. Johnson was an incumbent. Kennedy was another cipher: next to no record in the senate, and his principle qualification was a rich father who knew how to run a political machine. Eisenhower was another cipher without a national political record--although his management of alliance politics in World War II is most impressive. Truman was an incumbent. Roosevelt had only a very small national political record--two years as assistant secretary of the Navy and four years of being governor of New York.

You have to go back to Herbert Hoover to find someone who (a) is not an incumbent and who (b) has a national political and governmental reputation winning the presidency.

This is not a good way to do things, people.