Senators and the presidential race

Mark Shields has a good op-ed piece which expresses what I was trying to say in a previous post about senators making poor presidential candidates, and Brownback being exhibit A. He eloquently sums up the point by saying "Senators make speeches. Governors make decisions." Here's some more:

Why are voters willing to trust the presidency to governors and not to senators? For one thing, governors (and mayors, as well) actually do something. They are accountable. Accountable for collecting taxes and for spending public money, for determining through whose property a new highway will go or whether it — or a new hospital or a new campus — will be built.

Voters seem to understand that senators are only one of 100, with totally shared responsibility and limited accountability except for their own individual voting records. A senator is free to fly to San Francisco for a speech to the World Affairs Council, and on to Aspen for a seminar on global warming, before returning to Washington in time to do a Sunday network talk show.

In contrast, most governors live with a statehouse press corps that insists on knowing where the governor is and what he, or she, is doing and with whom. If the governor does leave the state, there better be a plausible, public legitimacy for the trip.