It’s the night of the last presidential debate, 2012. So far, I have watched less than 10 minutes of the debates, and that is not going to change tonight. In some ways, I have felt like a cow elk in a herd, watching between bites of grass as the bull elk battle for dominion. I feel the ground shake as their towering antlers crack together. I hear them grunting and panting, made insane by the enormous amounts of testosterone coursing through their blood. The pasture is redolent with the stench of their urine, and when they are not fighting, they are calling, calling, calling. There is no peaceful place, no quiet place, no respite for any of us in the herd until the battle is done.

Comparing the electorate of our country to a bunch of cow elk is not terribly elegant, and it could possibly be insulting to elk. And yet, for me, it works. Oh sure, some of us might be pulling for one bull or the other, but we have virtually no real influence on the results of the battle.

Since serving on the board of directors of my co-op for a few years, I have often thought that politics is made up of the worst kind of people, ie, people with an agenda, Freudian or otherwise, who desperately want the office. I think it’s possible that the country would be better off if our leaders were chosen virtually at random, and dragged kicking and screaming into their unpaid office. Once in office, they would make the best decisions they could given the time and energy available, and then hurry back home to their families, careers, homes, making room for the next crop of leaders.

Instead, we have a gigantic machine. A guy (it’s always a guy) is elected to office and he barely has two years to try to accomplish anything before he’s running again. Who’s governing while all the lambasting is going on? And why, oh why, would anyone ever want to be President of this country? The constant criticism. The constant grumbling of press and Congress. The constant agonizing decisions over whom to send to war, and how long to make them serve. The endless efforts to please everyone at least a little. Who needs it?

A few weeks ago, an answer came to me. I was walking east on 25th Street, approaching Broadway, in New York City. I noticed barricades. I asked a bystander what was going on. “Obama’s coming,” the bystander replied.

Yeah? You mean, like POTUS? It took me about :30 seconds to decide that was a spectacle worth waiting for. So there I stood, in the biggest, most powerful city in the biggest, most powerful country on this little planet (at least for now), and waited. Traffic was whizzing down Fifth Avenue and downtown on Broadway in its usual frenzy. I recalled Bill Clinton saying one night as his motorcade started its twisted route through Manhattan, “Let’s go make some new Republicans.” With a level of empathy that’s been unmatched since, he realized that motorcades inspire resentment and even rage, especially if they’re stopping traffic.

And then traffic stopped. We waited and waited and finally, here they came, going the wrong way uptown on Broadway. Oh, the flashing lights. Oh, the darkened windows. Oh, the paramilitary splendor of it all. Who’s the most powerful guy on earth? Who else but the President of the United States can stop traffic in New York City? I stood there trying to imagine what it felt like to be in that second limo, racing by the populace. I tried to imagine the headiness of stopping traffic. Of being able to say to thousands: “You have to stop and wait until myself and my entourage have rolled on by.”

And that’s when I thought I might know why someone would be running for President.