The next president?

Gracing prime real estate on the Sunday editorial page of The Washington Post is a marvelous piece by George F. Will about Mitch Daniels, the Republican governor of Indiana. More of a character profile than a formal op-ed, the article is a smooth examination of the relatively-obscure politician's track record – one of fiscal conservatism and social pragmatism.

The article bears an Indianapolis dateline. And while this would seem entirely fitting for a profile of the Indiana governor, it also leads to some more subtle questions. Namely, why would Mr. Will, a leading conservative intellect with untold influence in the GOP, venture all the way from Washington to Indianapolis to merely scribe a single opinion column?

There is no readily apparent answer. But consider this: almost every conversation about the 2008 presidential election ends with a veritable asterisk – the top contender may well be a governor who is still almost completely unknown, even in Beltway circles. Think about Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and, yes, even George Bush.

Campaign fodder centers heavily around people like John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Condoleezza Rice. But ponder the historical precedent for a moment. The last sitting senator to be elected to the White House was John F. Kennedy, and the last man with any senatorial experience to gain the Oval Office was Richard Nixon – congressional voting records can be quite the campaign burden. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever reached 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with only mayoral experience, though, in the interest of honesty, I am having some difficulty confirming this. And no Secretary of State has achieved the feat in the modern era either (though one may wonder if Henry Kissinger might have been able to had he been born an American, a constitutional obstacle that prevented the conversation from ever even taking place).

And so we look to former or current governors and members of the House of Representatives – a trend that has been ongoing since Mr. Kennedy's ascent from the Senate in 1960 (excepting those who ran from the office of the Vice President, all of whom have met this criteria before reaching that post). The House of Representatives is a touch short on viable Republicans at the moment – Dennis Hastert is a long shot at best, Tom Delay has some obvious image problems, James Sensenbrenner has never expressed any interest and one would be hard pressed to find many other representatives with sufficiently high profiles.

Thus we look to governors. Mitt Romney comes immediately to mind – if a Republican can win Massachusetts, he must be doing something right – but it is unclear if this nation is sufficiently mature so as to elect a non-Christian to the White House. George Pataki is certainly on the short list as well, but he may not even be able to gain re-election at this rate. Jeb Bush is the next viable option, but now we're looking at 28 consecutive years of having a Clinton or Bush on the ballot (something that may prove true nonetheless if the Democratic Party opts for the junior senator from New York).

All of the sudden, there are no notable people with the superficial qualifications that this country has shown, in modern history, to desire in a presidential candidate. And thus begins the hunt for that obscure governor with an ideal track record.

Could it be that it was this hunt that led Mr. Will to Indianapolis?