I meant, of course, democracy in the looser, more general sense. Be that as it may, having a "President Arnold" wouldn't make the Republic cease to exist, nor would running the risk of having a "President Soros". More specifically, we already run the risk of crappy Presidents more often than not. The truly great ones, you can name on one hand, maybe a hand-and-a-half.
The pool of talent runs more to the mediocre. You may have a potential Reagan-like figure in Arnold, and it seems silly to exclude that potential from the pool out of fear of getting a "Soros". That's what I meant by taking the good with the bad. We did, after all, have a President Reagan and also successfully thwarted the risk of a would-be President Soros-Kerry. Have some faith in the system that, if a potentially great president is in the pool, the system will find him. We can get (and have had) plenty of bad Presidents from the "domestically-born" pool. It was really aspiring "furriners" who built this country anyway. |
