Presidents at the best help remind us of our mutual obligations, shared beliefs, and the trust and caring that can hold us together in traditions and duty. Sure we do. History conditions different cultures to expect different things of their leaders. In the United States we exaggerate the capacity for what even heroic presidents can do to change the course of events. But we aren't likely to lower our expectations.
Talented politicians are indispensable to making our constitutional democracy work.
Two cheers for those who run and for all their helpers and advisors who provide us choices. Americans will never be satisfied with our candidates, nor perhaps should we be. The ideal presidential candidate is probably a fictional entity, for the dream candidate would be able to please everyone and make conflict disappear. But the love of liberty invites diversity and therefore disagreements of ideology and values. Politicians and presidential candidates as well as the people they represent have different ideas about what is best for the nation.