As voters gained more control over the nominating process, the standard for the office became whatever voters settled on the standard being at the time of the election. “When we elect someone who hasn’t spent time in politics it’s not just that we are electing someone with no experience in the job,” says Harvard’s Gautam Mukunda, whose book Indispensable studies the essential characteristics of great presidents and leaders. “We are electing someone where we have no information to judge whether they are able to do the job.”
