All modern presidents of both parties have been too much with us. Talking incessantly, they have . . .
. . . put politics unhealthily at the center of America's consciousness. Promising promiscuously, they have exaggerated government's proper scope and actual competence, making the public perpetually disappointed and surly. Inflating executive power, they have severed it from constitutional constraints. So, sensible voters might embrace someone who announced his 2016 candidacy this way:
"I am ambling -- running suggests unseemly ardor -- for president. . . .
"Candidates are constantly asked, 'Where will you take the country?' My answer is: 'Nowhere.' The country is not a parcel to be 'taken' anywhere. It is the spontaneous order of 316 million people making billions of daily decisions, cooperatively contracting together, moving the country in gloriously unplanned directions.
"To another inane question, 'How will you create jobs?,' my answer will be: 'I won't.' . . .
. . . .
"My judicial nominees will seek to narrow Congress's use of its power to regulate commerce as an excuse for minutely regulating Americans' lives. . . .
"In a radio address to the nation, President Franklin Roosevelt urged Americans to tell him their troubles. Please do not tell me yours. . . .
"A congenial society is one in which most people most of the time, and all politicians almost all the time, say, when asked about almost everything: 'This is none of my business.' . . . .
. . . .
"Finally, there have been 44 presidencies before the one I moderately aspire to administer, and there will be many more than 44 after it. Mine will be a success if, a century hence, Americans remember me as dimly as they remember Grover Cleveland, the last Democratic president with a proper understanding of this office's place in our constitutional order."
(George Will, "The 2016 presidential candidate we need," washingtonpost.com, May 23, 2014 (emphasis added))
Will for President! Will for President!
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