"I think most meritocrats -- New Yale types -- have a hard time understanding that most of the population doesn't regard professional competence as the highest of personal virtues."

I think that's true, but I also think that what's far more baffling to us meritocratic types is when professional competence is not seen as one of the highest of presidential virtues.  Namely, that anyone would actually want a "regular guy" to do what's obviously an extraordinarily difficult and important job.  Being able torelate to the issues and problems facing "regular people" is something that I'm sure we all want any president to be able to do, but the idea that a towel-snapping frat-boy bullshitter could parlay his personality into any sort of "he's one of us"-type street cred, and that for so many people this would actually trump the near-universally agreed-upon fact that he doesn't really know what the hell he's doing, is extremely difficult to comprehend.  I simply don't understand this outlook wherein "the personal is the presidential," virtue-wise, nor will I ever be able to.   

"most of the population doesn't regard professional competence as the highest of personal virtues."

 Maybe you're right, but this doesn't ring true to me. My sense is that working and lower-middle class kids feel very strongly that merit, the ability to deliver the goods coupled with hard work, are deserving of reward, and that mere ascriptive characteristics are not. Hence their strongly felt resentment of affirmative-action privilege. And I see the $30,000 a year crowd not as denying the importance and deserts of professional competence, but instead as putting themselves down for their failure (as they see it) to have been born with/to have worked their way into acquiring a comparable degree of competence.

It's hard to know how to respond to these kinds of ruminations because they seem sort of right but . . . the focus on personality is very annoying, for one thing, and maybe I've been hypnotized by Bob Somerby, but it seems important to factor in the media's obession with personalities and its disdain for policy talk or anything close to it. Not to mention the incredibly shallow notion the media seems to have of what constitutes a "regular guy" -- a guy whose campaign staff provides good snacks to reporters? Who swaggers around and slaps people on the back and makes jokes at their expense? Whatever. Again and again, especially in 2000, the media pushed stories that made Bush look regular and Gore look terrible (indecisive, shifty, not manly enough). I don't mean to say that Gore ran a brilliant campaign (far from it) but even given his difficulties and his out-of-touch campaign managers, HE WON THE ELECTION. No point in rehashing, I know -- but I get depressed when everything comes down to finding some folksy (which is code for Southern) Democrat.

"This is what makes Bill Clinton an interesting case. He manages to be both a poor kid from a small town in Arkansas and a quintessential meritocrat -- Georgetown, Rhodes Scholarship, Yale Law -- at the same time. John Edwards has something of the same quality about him, a dual persona and an ability to switch between them."

Most definitely.

"Obviously, however, people like that are relatively rare and it's hard to find them, which is going to be a problem."

Happily, you only have to find one of them once or twice a decade.  After John Edwards serves his two terms, Barak Obama would be getting into the Presidential zone.

The problem isn't finding them.  The problem is getting the folks crucial to the nomination process to recognize their special qualities and move their careers forward.

Wes Clark also lives in both worlds and shares that dual persona.  There may be others.

You have a point there, ColoDem.  I remember that sort of "what are you going to do that affects ME" mentality being fairly pervasive during the 2000 election in particular, with the media generally encouraging it.  But I find it to be just about un-patriotic (I think most politically aware people would generally agree) to consider the presidency to be about anything but what the president will do about the problems of AMERICA.  The problems of ONE little person--i.e., you, Joe Average Voter--don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.  Not so long as our presidential votes affect the lives of every single person on this planet. 

I think that's true, but I also think that what's far more baffling to us meritocratic types is when professional competence is not seen as one of the highest of presidential virtues.

I misunderstood what Matthew wrote until I went and read the report itself. Matthew said "most of the population doesn't regard professional competence as the highest of personal virtues" but he didn't say what the report indicated Joe Q Schmuck looks for in Presidential candidates; the reports lists the preferred virtues this way:

First: Is the candidate a person of strength, with core convictions and the ability to act on them through challenges and criticism? Second: Is the candidate a person of integrity, who displays consistency over time, who tells the truth, and whose words and deeds coincide? And third: Is the candidate a person of empathy, who understands and cares about people like us?

A convictionless cold fish who lacks all integrity might be highly professionally competent as an astronomer (a genius even) but somehow I doubt he/she would be a very popular or successful politician. See: Hillary Clinton.

So no, the public does not see professionalism + competence as the highest virtues. But I can see why in the context of the report.

What I am unclear on is if Matthew is saying the public is necessarily wrong. Another words, is he talking about 'the professional class' using credentials as a placeholder ('he went to a good school, he'll make a good president, even if he is a lying snake.')(He's 'one of us'?) or if the public is incorrectly devaluing an Ivy/Oxford education. (Or both.)

Either way, competence is grand, but I don't see any school handing out degrees in 'being a good president'. Being a good urban planner maybe. Being a good lawyer. Sure.

As an aside, I think the report was very well done and absolutely correct in terms of the areas of the authors professional competence - polling a political attitudes and whatnot. And then they start flappin' their lips about 'security' and demonstrate that what they know about war (security!) could be distilled into a thimble.

ash

['I suspect professional competence is overrated when the professional is outside his or her field.']

While I agree that Gore was not that exciting a candidate before we get too caught up in analyzing his loss it should be remembered he out polled Bush.  It seems to me that while the actual candidates of both parties represent the same elite fighting out various internal conflicts the Republicans have managed to convince non-elitists that they share their interests.

I associate myself very much with all of petey's comment about Edwards.

There is a funny bit of video somewhere of Edwards introducing Bush - at a prayer breakfast, I believe.  Edwards made an eloquent little speech built around the famous - and now more-used - Lincoln quote suggesting that the correct question before humankind was not whether or not god was on our side, but whether we were on god's.  Edwards wraps up to warm applause; as Bush is at the dais waiting for the applause to die down and give his talk, you hear him say (not at all happily) 'heh heh, pretty eloquent!'

That's just an anecdote of course, but it happens to be leading (the opposite of 'misleading'?).  Republicans do NOT want to run against an Edwards or Obama type.  Democrats may (obtusely, IMO) decide that they too don't want to run someone like that, but you can be sure about how the GOP feels.  They pretend to not take Edwards seriously (the 'Breck Girl') and they hope Democrats follow their lead (which happens all the time).  Kristol was on Charlie Rose the other night, and I endured enough of it to hear Charlie, in his chowderheaded-swallowing-your-own-words-apologetic style, suggest that, since he and Kristol had agreed that poverty was a real issue now, wasn't Edwards on to that?  And maybe in 2008...?  Kristol was dismissive: 'No, I don't think so.'  No reason given.  Jawboning.

They don't want to run against someone with an engaging personality, because they tend to lose those fights.  The key word there is 'engaging'.  

Just a note to some people who are worried about the emphasis on 'personality'.  I would say people aren't entirely wrong to vote on what they perceive to be someone's personality.  Yes, it can go horribly wrong, as in the present case, but Bush is a skilled con, and you'd hope he'd be an object lesson, ultimately.  People separate 'character' and 'personality', but they really are almost the same thing (particularly as that personality manifests in the Ultimate Executive job in the world).  Personality is destiny.  Certainly, Bush's failed presidency has everything to do with his bad character, his brittle personality, his inate arrogance and even authoritarianism.  

But because Bush runs a slick con and is mostly a fake, doesn't mean that dems should avoid good campaigners.  You can have an engaging personality AND be a good candidate, after all.  I sometimes think dems are so worried  feeling 'serious', they overlook the fact that it's a much more truly serious approach to run good candidates, actually win elections, and do serious work.

I would also say that I don't think the candidate in '08 absolutely must be from the South, although it helps.  Could be from the West, or midwest maybe.  But there are two Souths: the 'ancestral homeland', and the South of the Mind, which is all over the country (and some other countries).  It's white folks bein' white folks - you got a problem with that?  The candidate has to at least understand the South of the Mind as a cultural phenomenon.  Being from a small working class town in the actual South is good, but I would like Edwards if he was from MT or NM, because he thinks his stuff through.