Wanted: Extra-smart extroverted elephants

It would be great to have an evangelical in the White House, but let's remember: He works in the Oval Office, not the cruciform office.

We live in a country built on a Christian political and cultural foundation, but the United States is not a Christian country. The Constitution has a Bible-based emphasis on a humble central government and a separation of powers within it. Many of the American founders were Christians and some were not, but-from biblical teaching, experience of London's depravity, or both-they clearly had a sense of sinful man and the arrogance of power.

WORLD favors supporters of the Constitution as drafted and amended, rather than those who make it conform to current political and judicial desires. We also support those who display the character to be faithful to the nation-and one leading indicator of that is being faithful to one's spouse. Faithfulness of one kind doesn't always lead to faithfulness of another, but failure in the home is often a leading indicator of failure in national leadership. We've seen this historically-I've written a book about this-and recently among Democrats such as John Edwards and Republicans such as Mark Sanford.

Constitution, character-and looking at personality is also crucial. The most successful politicians at high levels are triple-E's: Extra-smart Extroverted Elephants. Smart people tend to be either abstract generalists or wonkish detail devils: The extra-smart politician needs to grasp both the big and the little. To avoid being worn out by demands to meet and greet, hour after hour and day after day, high-level politicians need to be extroverts. The "elephant" part of my equation does not refer just to Republicans: To avoid being lost in the crowd, successful leaders have a presence that allows them to fill up a room.

Having all three E's is rare. Bill Clinton to many was the perfect 3E candidate, but he won a fourth E as well: Egomaniac. Just about every politician is an egotist to some extent-he certainly has to talk about himself-but we need to watch for egomania. It's typical among multiple adulterers, and among others who ignore the message from a plaque that reportedly sat on Ronald Reagan's desk: "There's no limit to what you can accomplish when you don't care who gets the credit."