Reading today's Opinionjournal Political Diary, you come across a reference to this op-ed on running for president in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The article is by Donald J. Boudreaux, who is the chairman of the economics department at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Here's Boudreaux:
It's the filthiest, grimiest, most unpleasant job that any human being can ever suffer to perform: run for political office. ... To begin with, as a candidate you must eat endless lunches and dinners of nothing but rubber chicken. And while doing so you typically are seated beside people whose only interest in you is their desire to cozy up to someone who either already has, or might soon acquire, impressive political power. Because political power in modern America means the power to take money from A and give it to B, bevies of wannabe Bs swarm to get a piece of you. It must be suffocating and morally disorienting constantly to be hounded by people begging you to assist them in their efforts to take what doesn't belong to them. Worse, to keep or win office, you must actually engage in such dirty behavior (or promise to do so once elected). You must determine which innocent people are the easiest marks for your grabbing hand - which people are least likely to be aware that you're picking their pockets - and then grab fistfuls of their wealth, all the while assuring them that you're their boon companion and great protector.
I guess no one has to worry about Boudreaux running for office anytime soon, right?