SO ONLY HICKENLOOPER?:

[P]arties and voters should seek out candidates who are likely to be good at presidenting. That's not easy. It's a bit like picking the winner of the Kentucky Derby, which gathers horses that have run at different tracks, on different surfaces, and against different competition, and asks them all to do something - run a mile and a quarter, a distance most American thoroughbreds can't handle - that they've never done before. Faced with that challenge, it's usually a good bet to select a horse that has at least done something similar. Getting elected to a statewide office isn't the same as running a national campaign or serving in the White House. But it's the closest thing available.

To put it another way: What we should want in a candidate is political skill - knowing how to bargain within the system, represent constituents, and work with the party, interest groups, the legislature, the bureaucracy, the courts, state governments, foreign powers, and so on. We should look for candidates who know how to use the powers of the presidency to maximize their influence. For those goals, winning office and governing while representing a whole state is pretty good preparation - certainly better than representing a smaller and less diverse House district or running a mid-sized city government.

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