The Final Repudiation (George Will)

Newsweek ^ | Nov 17, 2009 | George F. Will

[bamahead]

In a Presidential contest replete with novelties, none was more significant than this: A candidate’s campaign—for his party’s nomination, then for the presidency-was itself virtually the entire validation of his candidacy. Voters have endorsed Barack Obama’s audacious—but not, they have said, presumptuous—proposition, which was: The skill, tenacity, strategic vision and tactical nimbleness of my campaign is proof that he's presidential timber.

Because imitation is the sincerest form of politics, the 2008 campaign will not be the last in which such a proposition is asserted. Obama’s achievement represents the final repudiation of the Founders’ intentions regarding the selection, and hence the role, of presidents...

James W. Ceaser, professor of politics at the University of Virginia, writing in the Claremont Review of Books, notes that, contrary to conventional understanding, the Constitution created not three but four “national institutions.” They are the Congress, the Supreme Court, the presidency—and the presidential selection system, based on the Electoral College. “The question of presidential selection,” Ceaser writes, “was just that important to the Founders.”

Under their plan, the nomination of candidates and the election of the president were to occur simultaneously. Electors meeting in their respective states, in numbers equal to their states’ senators and representatives, would vote for two people for president. The electors’ winnowing of aspirants was the nomination process. When the votes were opened in the U.S. House of Representatives, the candidate with a majority would become president, the runner-up would become vice president. If no person achieved a majority of electoral votes, the House would pick from among the top five vote getters. Note well: The selection of presidential nominees was to be controlled by the Constitution.

The Founders’ intent, Ceaser writes, was to prevent the selection of a president from being determined by the “popular arts” of campaigning, such as rhetoric...

[ari-freedom]

ok ok compare george to the teddy bear

[RichInOC]

What’d Aloysius do to deserve that?

[happygrl]

Miss Manners is his wife.

Didn't know that.

Thanks for sharing.

[IoCaster]

"You obviously didn't read the story."

Oh, go fluff yourself Ron.

"In a Presidential contest replete with novelties, none was more significant than this: A candidate’s campaign—for his party’s nomination, then for the presidency-was itself virtually the entire validation of his candidacy. Voters have endorsed Barack Obama’s audacious—but not, they have said, presumptuous—proposition, which was: The skill, tenacity, strategic vision and tactical nimbleness of my campaign is proof that he's presidential timber."

I responded to this crap.

The rest of the story article is the usual meaningless drivel that Will specializes in.