there was an ongoing debate on the west wing about whether smart presidents make good presidents. when asked "does it bother you that some of our smarter presidents have been some of our worst presidents?", seborn (rob lowe) says something to the tune of, "i don't care about that, when i'm looking for the guy, i start with the guy with the big brain."
obviously there's a long history of tracking who's "smart" and who isn't, and i'm not interested in tests that go back before ww1. the ability to take in information, process it, and form an articulate response that is accessible to the american people is incredibly rare these days. that's why newsom and pete stand out so clearly.
it should be the hope of every american that the president is, at the very least, "smarter than me". it's a low bar, but one that has been sorely neglected, while half the country seems to feel more comfortable with someone who's "as dumb as me".
at this point, i'll take a great communicator who's smart enough to surround himself with intelligent people with good ideas. if the communicator is also smart and has good ideas, that's a fucking bonus. but it's so freaking sad that while some people wouldn't vote for pete because he was gay, plenty others wouldn't vote for him because he was too smart. and before people get their panties in a bunch, i'm talking about ind/republicans and focus group/cable news nonsense, not people on here.
2028 should be a lot of fun.