<J. C. Watts is not running for office again. Even though he had a few liberal streaks in a couple of areas, "Senator Watts" had an awfully nice ring to it. Hell, "President Watts" sounded pretty good.

The ghastly Catch-22 of our current system of mixed-economy representative government is that those who believe that public service is just that, and that values like family, productivity, and private life are superior, tend to bail out of Washington. These are exactly the kind of people we really need in office.

On the other hand, people who think that being in Washington is a lifetime career, a calling to greatness and glory and a way of life--people to whom political power is more important than any other aspect of their lives, run for office again and again and have to be dragged out of Washington by tractors. You can think of a couple of good examples without my help. And these are exactly the people we don't want running our lives.

Jerry Pournelle once said that it used to be in this country that who was your mayor was a lot more important than who the President or your Senator in Washington were. Now that Washington has almost absolute control of nearly every aspect of our lives, Fearless Leader wannabes are being attracted to the District of Columbia like flies to a buffalo flop. It's really beginning to show, too.