Let’s face it. Campaigning for President has become a narrow road laced with minefields. We’ve made the process all about avoiding any word, deed or notion that could possibly offend anyone.

Why?

A hundred years or so ago, the campaigns abounded with silly songs, limricks and absolute lies. We still managed to elect capable Presidents.

Who really cares if you have a bastard son someplace? Hey, so what if you matriculated publicly. Are you gonna kill Osama bin Laden? That’s what we really want.

Some folks are lazy or criminals or slobs. You used to be able to label people, and the voters understood. Everyone has a lazy SOB in their family or their neighborhood. No one minds you telling him to get off his ass and get a job like everyone else.

You can’t be a plain speaker any more. Silent Cal? Please… Teddy Roosevelt? A former soldier and a hunter? And not afraid to send in the Marines? Even JFK couldn’t get elected these days. “Ask not what your country can do for you?” The papers would rip him to shreds.

Oh, for the good old days.

Ma, ma, where’s my pa? Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha.

DJ Drummond asks this question at Wizbang and does a thorough exploration of the possible answers.

The current top candidates all appear to be professional politicians, wealthy professional politicians. DJ details their resumes and their wealth. He asks the question: Where is the candidate that has a lot in common with the average voter?

I’d have to say that all three of the top candidate have a lot in common with the average voter. That’s the problem.

The average voter does not want to be bothered by government but does want government to restrict his neighbors from being annoying, different, too successful, immoral and not like him.

The average voter wants the government to be there for any emergency for him and his family and friends, but not to waste resources on other people. The government should always be prepared for anything, no matter how unlikely, but the average voter is unwilling to pay for such readiness.

The average voter will never object to any law, regulation or direction from the government that has no effect on him or his family and friends. He will, on the other hand, fight every such intrusion into his life whether it makes sense or not.

The average voter will not vote.

American presidential politics today is not so very different than it was a hundred years ago. The populists were rich and their platforms focused on taking from the successful and giving to the unsuccessful. The average voter cast his ballot based upon the promises made by the candidates and what they and their party’s could do for him.

Regular Americans, the common man, the average voter are just that: regular, common, average. So are the candidates that they vote for.

We’re nearing the end of a primary process that involves those Americans truely dedicated to politics. Look what that process, run by and voted upon by those most in the know, has produced for candidates. Three wealthy, professional politicians, that publicly stand for policies and programs that Americans would never accept if they knew how it would affect them. But the average voter truly believes that these policies and programs will only affect other, the ones who deserve to be regulated, restricted and repressed.

And the average voter will not vote.