Sad

I think it's a little sad that we've gotten to a point in this country where candidates running for President feel constrained to drop out fifteen months before the first nominating contest. We've compressed the primary calendar so much that it's not the people who choose the nominee (at least not the people outside of Iowa and New Hampshire), but the fundraisers, the consultants, the party brass. By late January 2008 the field will be largely set. We've gone from the smoke-filled rooms of the 19th century to a real primary process where the rank and file had a say, and now I fear we're going back in the other direction.

I didn't have much of an opinion about Mark Warner either way, and I'm honestly more focused on 2006 than 2008 right now. But after reading his letter, it occurs to me that the first requirement for running for President is that you have to be insane enough to want to run for President. And it's been made, in the era of 24-hour news, into such a difficult and soul-battering exercise, that the people most suited for the job are the people sensible enough not to ever want to do it.