This campaign reminds me of a flashback line early in the second season of The West Wing (it's in part I of "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen"):
LEO Because I'm tired of year after year after year after year having to choose between the lesser of "Who cares?"; of trying to get myself excited about a candidate who can speak in complete sentences; of setting the bar so low, I can hardly look at it. They say a good man can't get elected President. I don't believe that, do you?
* * *
And that is the key to understanding that The West Wing is not just a show about politics and political actors (puns intended): It is an alternate history in which we could elect that "good man" of great intellectual attainment.
no subject
LEO
Because I'm tired of year after year after year after year having to
choose between the lesser of "Who cares?"; of trying to get myself excited about a candidate who can speak in complete sentences; of setting the bar so low, I can hardly look at it. They say a good man can't get elected President. I don't believe that, do you?
* * *
And that is the key to understanding that The West Wing is not just a show about politics and political actors (puns intended): It is an alternate history in which we could elect that "good man" of great intellectual attainment.