The reason I point that out is not to denigrate the man, because he truly was one of the greatest American Presidents, it's to get people to understand that we are getting too dogmatic and inflexible about what we expect from Republican politicians.

It Never Ends: Technically, the 2008 campaign season started before the election of 2006 and got going full blast at the beginning of January, 2007. At this rate, the 2012 election is probably going to start sometime around the midpoint of 2010, which leads to a pertinent question: does anyone have time to actually govern anymore?

The Gloom and Doom of the Electorate: We live in an age where a person with a $20,000 truck in the driveway of his $150,000 house, eats a steak, surfs the net on his computer, and then sits down and curses at the politician he sees on his 50 inch Plasma screen TV because he thinks that the pol isn't doing enough to make his life better.

Put another way, the gloom and doom we hear is in many respects out of touch with the real world. That's reflected in the fact that "84% of Americans say they are satisfied with the way things are going in their personal life," but "only 27% of Americans said they were satisfied with the way things are going in the United States."

Sound Byte Debates: Because relatively few people watch the debates and news outlets don't bother to go into much detail about what was said beyond funny lines, screw-ups, and who was fighting with whom, the debates have been incredibly shallow affairs.

The sad but honest truth is that a candidate who aims a vicious attack at another candidate and gets off a funny line will be helped much more by a debate than a candidate who goes into detail about well reasoned, popular positions. That's because 2-3 million people may hear the brilliant answer, but it'll never get another minute of airtime. Meanwhile, the clever quip or "Candidate X is a liar who is distorting my record" will be in front of 30-40 million people by the end of the next day on the Evening News, in the Drudge Report, on YouTube, etc.

Race vs. Gender vs. Class Warfare on the Democratic Side: The Democratic race has been particularly sickening to watch, not just because of how openly socialist the candidates are, but because of the grotesque way the Democrats encourage infighting among groups of Americans.

Obama, to his credit, hasn't tried to use his race as a crutch, but his supporters have cried racism left and right when he's criticized. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton has turned the campaign into a gender war. Vote for her and stick it to those damn men! Then there's John Edwards, who talks about an America that's right out of a bad Dickens novel and is pledging to tear down and destroy all the successful people in society -- with the exception of trial lawyers, of course, because he cares so much about the poor. Having a major political party that so habitually exploits and exaggerates the differences between Americans is not healthy for the country.