Mr. Luce’s column reminds me of the essays that George F. Will writes in Republican primary season: he gives his seal of approval to each candidate, in turn. With a quick precis of the positions of each candidate that meet Mr. Will’s exacting ideological standards. Yet these essays evoke a sense of embarrassment in the reader, as Mr. Will presents himself to his readers as the natural inheritor of the mantle of Edmund Burke, and this political gush of enthusiasm, for candidates, is so outside of his carefully cultivated personae it takes on a kind of unintentional comic tone.

The assured tone of Mr. Luce demonstrates a more empirical stance. He provides the necessary statistical data, some speculation on the shopworn character on Jeb and Hillary, some interesting political background and more speculation on certain political possibilities, call it political metaphysics, yet here are two sentence that seems to break the Luce spell on the reader:

‘Choosing a president “without training wheels”, as Mr Bush suggests, might sink a bid if the poll were held in Washington. But it worries ordinary voters less.’

One does not in any way picture Mr. Luce in the company of ‘ordinary voters’, so again we have to place this in the arena of political metaphysics,or more precisely in it’s sub-genre of political clairvoyance.

Political Observer