If you can’t read any anecdote or account of your preferred guy, and conclude, “yeah, he was in the wrong there,” or “yeah, that’s going to be a challenging weakness to overcome…” well then, when you read or listen to or watch the news, you’re not really trying to learn new information about what’s going on. You’re really just looking for more anecdotes and evidence to reconfirm what you already believe and know. (Confirmation bias, they call it.)

We all probably do this to some extent, but no matter how much you may believe that your guy rocks, the day will come when he doesn’t rock. I thought what separated us from the “O-BA-MA” chanting cult of personality on the other side was that we didn’t need to see our presidential candidates in messianic terms. For all the hoopla and the fancy plane and the band playing “hail to the chief,” presidents are guys (and someday, gals) we hire to do a job under a four-year contract with a possibility of a four-year extension. Hopefully they make enough of the big calls right.