Or maybe non-politicians all together. Like a good General or Admiral if there are some left, or an ethical captain of business—meeting a large amount of paychecks—who performed a major company turnaround who also have military/foreign experience.
Place not your hopes in panaceas. The last general to try for the presidency was the odious Wesley Clark.
As for businessmen, I’d say the likes of Mike Bloomberg and John Corzine (or Ross Perot)—corrupt megalomaniacs who weren’t satisfied with just money—would leave an equally bad taste.
The last Ph.d. academic was Woodrow Wilson, in retrospect, a man truly deranged.