Reply #5: All of that is pretty heavy

[zeemike]

And looks to the past.
It's a greatly different world we have now than at the time of Mencken and Bryan. In those days personality is all you had.
Now we have a media driven spectacle that requires as much as anything, a good actor that knows his lines and sticks to them, and a public relations team that sees to it that the media dovetails into the lines that the candidate recites. In other words it is all a show and if you do ot have a producer and the necessary superstructure you are not going anywhere.
Now that sounds dark and hopeless but not necessarily, because a truly committed leader with a clear message can overcome all the showbiz tricks by appealing to the people directly. and that is what we need. Another JFK or RFK that can escape the lone assassin long enough to get elected at least.