I've been half-heartedly following the major party primaries with a mixture of fear and amusement. I find it interesting that there seems to be so much popular consciousness focused on the primaries, at least in the circles that I move in. My wife and a friend of ours were discussing this before dinner last night and we decided it might be because everyone is so eager for the Bush presidency to end.

But leaving aside general disdain for the current commander-n-chief, I have to question why the office of the presidency generally attracts so much popular interest. The consitutionally defined role of the president is as the head of the executive branch - responsible for the execution of laws enacted by the legislative branch and for protecting the constitution through his power of veto. This is not a particularly powerful or glamorous role.

From this perspective, it seems strange that our presidential candidates continuously address the question of how they would solve particular problems, like what they would do about the war in Iraq, or the rising cost of health care. From a purely consitutional perspective, these are not problems that should be addressed by the presidency (indeed, from a purely consitutional perspective, health care is not a problem that should be addressed by the federal government at all, but that's another discussion entirely).

Obviously, presidents have been going above and beyond the call of duty for the past century. Power of veto combined with the media attention that is given to an acting president create a very potent instrument with which to promote a legislative agenda. In recent years, the executive order has also been very effectively wielded as a tool to circumvent the need for legislation.

In the face of these aberrations, it is not surprising that the mass media and most of our population at large seem to regard the president more as a monarch than a mere officer. And as such, it is not surprising that candidates are endorsed or denigrated in very general terms, as opposed to the kinds of criteria that might be more appropriate for an officer (such as past experience in a position of command in business or in the military).

Consider the recent LA Times endorsement of Barack Obama:

An Obama presidency would present, as a distinctly American face, a man of African descent, born in the nation's youngest state, with a childhood spent partly in Asia, among Muslims. No public relations campaign could do more than Obama's mere presence in the White House to defuse anti-American passion around the world, nor could any political experience surpass Obama's life story in preparing a president to understand the American character. His candidacy offers Democrats the best hope of leading America into the future, and gives Californians the opportunity to cast their most exciting and consequential ballot in a generation.

I will concede that my choice of a quote is intended to support my point, but I think a thorough read of the entire article will show this tone to be representative of the article at large. This is an endorsment appropriate for the master of a state, not its chief executive.

So given that we seem to be electing not a president, but the master of the World's Only Remaining Superpower, let me offer my own useless endorsement:

Of the major party candidates in the running, I endorse Ron Paul. He has a long history of voting "no" for every piece of legislations that shows up on his desk. As president, we can expect that he would continue this trend by vetoing all such legislation, thereby honoring the consitutionally mandated role of the presidency as guardian of the constitution. Hopefully, the resulting state of continual political deadlock would serve to derail us from our current course of economic ruin, increased risk of terrorism and the rising tide of the police state.

Sadly, Paul is extremely unlikely to win the Republican nomination (although with the support that he has managed to rally, he may end up causing a bit of a stir if he runs as an independent or Libertarian candidate). Of the candidates who still appear to be in the running, we have:

Hillary Clinton

Senator Clinton has a long history of promoting a left-leaning statist agenda that terrifies me. Fortunately, there are lots of other people who hate her so I don't think she has a strong chance of becoming the first woman president.

Barack Obama

I see nothing particularly good or bad about Barack Obama. He's a Democrat who wants to be president. My groundless impression is that he would not be as effective in office as Clinton, and therefore I think he might be the Least Objectionable Candidate.

John McCain

Senator McCain has a long history of promoting a moderate statist agenda that terrifies me. He scares me more than Clinton because I think he has a chance of becoming president.

Mitt Romney

Who is this guy and how did he end up beating Giuliani in Florida? I don't know anything about him but he scares me less than McCain or Clinton.

So there you have it. For me, a worst case scenario would be a Clinton-McCain race. Best case would be a sudden increase in global warming causing a 100 foot tsunami that destroys our nation's capital. ;-)