Why Conflicted Voters Will Go for Bush

Forget the tracking polls and micro-analysis of a handful of targeted states. Our political history provides a pretty clear clue as to why conflicted voters will break for Bush in the closing days of the 2004 campaign.

Americans almost never choose a sitting legislator as leader of the free world.

We've done it just three times: James A. Garfield in 1880, Warren G. Harding in 1920 and John F. Kennedy in 1960. They all died in office and combined served only five of 216 years of the presidency.

Three out of 43 is no historical fluke. But Washington insiders, both politicians and the press, never seem to get it.

A Myopic Vision

Every four years, several legislators announce for commander in chief, despite the historically bleak prospects. Establishment media tout them as front-runners, citing the same myopic vision of "electability" as their political counterparts: federal experience, national stature (read that, "men we often quote"), and the ability to show big numbers on Federal Election Commission reports.

Those who get it a little usually cite "long voting records" as a liability for congressmen, or that "they only vote, they don't run anything." Both are part of the electability problem. But the main reason sitting legislators need not apply for commander in chief is deeper.

Every day in those few square blocks of surreality known as Capitol Hill, legislators are turning verbal somersaults to convince the National Association of This and the American Council of That they're on both their sides. Staking out a clear-cut position pays no dividends for legislators, whose constitutional job is Madisonian compromise.

Members of Congress don't have beliefs. They have positions -- finely tuned positions.

They live in the transactional world of legislation, poorly preparing them for the transformational aspirations of presidential leadership.

Legislators like John Kerry don't know how to speak in simple, declarative sentences. They know how to talk to organized interests. Governors, who we usually elect, have to know how to talk to people, to build public support for governing agendas.

The impulse of congressmen is to build deniability not just into every speech, but every syllable. Listen to five minutes of John Kerry, and you know he's never met a nuance he didn't like.

After the GOP convention, I asked my 85-year-old mother if she had watched President Bush. "No," she nearly admonished me, "I can't stand to lay eyes on him."