It’s more than a coincidence that the only people to actually win presidential nominations of either party since 1984 (when former veep Walter Mondale was the hapless Democratic candidate) have been working office holders who still drew salaries from either state or federal government for representing the people who selected them. Holding office—facing regular decisions about spending bills and budgets, public works projects, policy planning, and even executing killers impels any candidate toward pragmatism, common sense, and the American mainstream. In the midst of the 1992 presidential campaign, Governor Bill Clinton made a point of personally overseeing the execution of convicted cop killer Ricky Ray Rector, which helped Slick Willy establish credibility as a moderate while distancing himself from the soft-on-crime, anti-death-penalty image of the prior Democratic nominee, Michael Dukakis.
The current GOP field, by contrast, finds itself hindered by detachment—even alienation—from the quotidian details of governance. Gingrich resigned from Congress and the speakership 13 years ago after losing the confidence of his colleagues. Romney decided to abandon the Massachusetts governor’s office in 2006 in order to concentrate on his presidential ambitions and in the same year Santorum lost a senatorial re-election bid in a landslide of historic proportions.
Is it any wonder that when frustrated Republicans dream of some new, fresh-face candidate to rescue the party from its current doldrums, all of the individuals who figure prominently in their fantasies happen to be current office-holders, deftly handling the challenges of their ongoing responsibilities—Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey or Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin or Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
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