Government

When the framers drafted the constitution they wanted to protect against a monarchy.  They figured the best way to do this would be to divide the government up into three separate branches and divide the power among these three branches.  By dividing the government into three branches the framers created checks and balances. If the congress failed to do its job then the president wouldn't be able to carry out all of his duties, and thus the judicial branch would face difficulties as well.  Over time the government grew, congress grew, and the helpers that the presidents depends on jumped from less than ten to much more.  Today, if even one person, whether they be a congress member, a judge, the president, or a member of the cabinet, fails to do their job, the entire system is in jeopardy.  If the president decides to sit back and do nothing the nation faces downfall.  The framers intended that members of the government do their jobs at all times, under all circumstances, no exceptions, well maybe death.  This means that in order to be a good president not only do you need charisma, morals, ideology, and looks, you also need dedication.  The top five presidents that this nation has seen have all been charismatic, handsome, and dedicated.  They've fought for what they believed to be right until the day they left office.  For Americans the president is the face of the government, naturally, Americans being a visual nation, we want someone who looks nice.  Also, since Americans aren't always the brightest people in the world we want someone who sounds good even if we have no idea what they are talking about, we want someone who sounds smart even if we wouldn't know what smart was if it sat down in our laps.  Finally, try as we might we cannot deny that we are a religious nation, therefore religion and morality play a large part in who we elect as President.  If it had been true that Obama was a Muslim chances are we'd be saluting an old, balding, white guy as our new president.  So we can bitch and moan about separation of church and state but when it comes down to the wire if you're not religious you're not going to be our president.  With religion comes morals.  We, as Americans, since we can't seem to rap our minds around important issues such as universal health care, the stimulus plan, or even the war in Iraq, like to focus on what we do know, and by gosh we know our morals.  If you've ever cheated on your taxes, on you wife, if you've ever looked at porn, got an abortion, or even if you're gay, you are morally in the wrong.  If you're morally unstable, according to most of the American population, you're not fit to lead our country.  For some unexplainable reason we don't care if you've lowered unemployment, lessened the national debt, or implemented a new health care program, we do however care if you cheated on your wife.  We seem to disregard who our president is screwing in public but we care an awful lot about who he's screwing in private.