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Before you become a politician, you have to garner enough votes to be elected to something. That is, unless you’re Gerald Ford, who became vice president and president without being elected. (He was House minority leader in 1973, when Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned over tax evasion and money-laundering charges, and was nominated to take Agnew’s spot. Less than a year later, President Richard Nixon resigned and Ford assumed the presidency.)
            Campaigns are grueling, taxing ordeals where you compromise every principle you’ve ever had, make promises you have no intentions of keeping, get in bed with whomever has the most votes, hold babies, shake hands, debate your adversaries, and smile until your jaw locks in that position. Of course, once elected, you are then held to the impossible standard of standing by your principles, keeping your promises, distancing yourself from strange bedfellows, and making serious faces in times of crisis. Win or lose, most candidates will count themselves lucky just to survive the process. That, and the fact that at least they didn’t have to run against a mule . . . and lose.