The campaign should stop when the President gets elected. Party leadership ought to be deemed a conflict of interest for a President the same way that maintaining a CEO spot in a business, or stocks, is a conflict or potential conflict of interest. The Party and its richest special interests salivate at the prospect of their man sitting in the Oval.

If a president has an obligation to raise money and continue campaigning for the party while in office simultaneously with the legal obligation to fulfill that special trust to the country, I believe that is a conflict of interest. The latter must fill the efforts of the leader, and the other must disappear from her or his agenda entirely until a predetermined, limited, period in the next election.

Discipline should also mean that the campaign ends when the Office begins, just as practice repetitions end during live performance. The goal ought not to be winning the next election. The goal should be to fulfill the promised performance goals of the last, or the next best alternatives, while running and building-up a team prepared to handle real time crises and events in shifts and waves. None of these should be 'political damage control' or 'PR manipulation' (spin) crises. Corrective action of real wrongs is what fixes those most effectively, and if something is not a real problem, it may simply be pointed out with reasons why (no spin need apply). And, not getting a chance to waste taxpayers dollars in political spin games is an incentive to avoid foolish and dishonest politics.

The party will reap benefits not from some schmuck who does all of the right political things for the party; dinners, backroom meetings, speeches, and such, but from delivering the best presidential performance that he or she possibly can to the American people.

And discipline is not at its apex when everyone stays 'on message.' That is a small, visible by-product of consistent values in action. It is an Administration whose President leads with discipline, understands timing, works early, builds independent relationships with key government actors from the co-equal branches, and inspires disclipine throughout the Executive by example. She or he paces him or herself and doesn't allow others to set the tone or tempo of the administration.

Discipline means enforcing leadership values, goals, and purposes through wisely placed rewards and, as necessary, executive discipline of one's staff. It means setting goals and meeting them, whether in original, or wisely modified form. It means changing one's mind only when, after a test of ideas clashing, a better idea or blend of ideas eclipses one's own. And that requires honesty. It also means respecting a budget, and organizing it to do great things.

Again and again, if the country would be great it must be good first. And that goes for each leader and every servant. To read about the sobriety and discipline so desperately needed, add Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address to George Washington's. These leaders dealt with the merits of governing actions, not with how they fit into some rigid 'plan,' 'theory' or 'ideology.'