QUOTE (Ghost Ship @ May 25 2008, 11:54 AM)

I would like to know who people would think would make a good president and why those people are never made into presidents? Is it politics? You know what i mean.
Boy Ghost...that's a big question!
Perhaps you're talking about who existed in the present crop of candidates before politics took over in earnest and collusion ( a common political mechanism) resulted in Romney's departure, and Thompson had to leave the race for more important personal matters?
At that point, it was an interesting toss up between Romney and Thompson for me.
Now, it's no longer interesting, but merely a choice of McCain necessarily...rather picking from the lower tier of possibles and choosing the best of the worst...in a way.
But as to who else might make a good President: I'd throw in the names of Gingrich (who, if he decided to enter the fray this time around, would've made things really interesting!), and former Congressman J.C. Watts. If he ran, I'd vote for him.
There's also General Powell, but I don't think it was expedient for him at this time.
I'm not sure one of them won't be made into Presidents in the future, so it's difficult to say why they won't! None of those guys might want to run in the future...I often wonder, given the ridiculousness of the process today, who'd actually want to?
I will say that it's not difficult to see why Romney had to bow out.
We have a decidedly liberal Congress, and two decidedly liberal Democratic candidates (still battling it out). Out of the Republican crop, only McCain, despite his alleged conservative panderings, had sided with Democrats on some pretty faulty pieces of liberal legislation. Democrats, certainly the Clinton machine (who at the time were expecting a corronation of Hillary), realized that if somehow a Republican candidate did win the White House in 2008, McCain was their best choice for that position, since they'd have someone who they might be able to work with (assuming of course that they'd still have a Congressional majority after the 2008 elections) in the Oval Office.
Thus, there was collusion between the Democrats and the McCain camp, which is a common political mechanism (not a conspiracy, just politics as usual), and which made it difficult for Romney to gain the support necessary in key states--largely because of ridiculous religious issues. The results were that since incredible amounts of money were being spent, and not enough gain was being made, Romney (certainly the hands-down most qualified man in the race at the time) had to bow out, and McCain, seemingly out of nowhere, suddenly became the front runner.
He's the Democrat's Republican candidate. That explains Romney's departure. As to the rest of the folks I mentioned, we'll have to wait and see!