The Presidency: Job Specs for the Oval Office

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and, win or lose, benefit from the publicity and contacts.

Why Not the Best? More urgent than the "outside" talent question, however, is the inside talent question: Do the best people in politics get to the top?

As compared with the six Presidents from Kennedy through Reagan, you can draw up a list of defeated candidates and defeated contenders for nomination that may well include some better presidential material than some of the Presidents we actually got. On the Democratic side: Edmund Muskie, Hubert Humphrey, Scoop Jackson, Adlai Stevenson (still a factor in 1960). Republican: Nelson Rockefeller, William Scranton, Howard Baker, George Bush, John Connally.

For the Republicans, Bush and Baker are still available, for 1988 if not 1984, and perhaps Senator Robert Dole, steadily positioning himself toward the center, and Congressman Jack Kemp, steadily holding to the right. Also: Richard Thornburgh, Governor of Pennsylvania; Robert Ray and William Milliken, retiring Governors of Iowa and Michigan; and two attractive political alumni now hi industry, former Congressman and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, chief executive officer of Searle, and William Ruckelshaus, former Deputy Attorney General, now senior vice president of Weyerhaeuser.

In the last poll of Democratic preferences before Kennedy withdrew, he had a huge lead: 43% to 13% for Mondale and 7% for Senator John Glenn. Senators Alan Cranston and Gary Hart of California and Colorado are cranking up to run, also former Governor Reubin Askew of Florida and Senator Fritz Rollings of South Carolina. Some impressive Democratic Governors: Robert Graham of Florida, just elected to a second term, and James Hunt of

North Carolina and Richard Lamm of Colorado, now in their second terms. One suspects the veteran Indiana Congressman and former Majority Whip John Brademas, now president of New York University, has not forsworn politics for all time.

These are strong lists, for both parties.

Many of these people will end up being "merely" vice presidential, but remember four of our nine modern Presidents came from V.P.

Henry Graff points out that we have had no ex-mayor as President since Grover Cleveland. "Mayors deal with garbage and garbage rubs off." Hubert Humphrey (Minneapolis) came close, however, and Senator Richard Lugar (Indianapolis), one of the biggest Republican winners on Nov. 2, gets talked about.

Refining Expectations Several changes would help the best of these people get serious consideration for the presidency:

> Shortening the marathon campaign for the nominations would reduce the numbing effect on the electorate, perhaps lead to higher voter turnout and, conceivably, more thoughtful voting. Shorter campaigns would be somewhat less expensive and might help the working officeholder get as much attention as the full-time presidential candidate. Senate Majority Leader Baker has complained of the difficulty of running against an "unemployed millionaire." In 1980 he was up against three of them: Reagan, Bush, Connally. Carter in 1976 was approximately a millionaire, and had been running full time for two years; all his rivals had demanding jobs.

> Speaking of money, the game is still heavily stacked toward those who have it, or whose policies (on the subject of unionism, insurance, Israel, oil,