A Prediction

Corrupt, Incompetent, Hope: The order of succession.

It seems to me that after a particularly corrupt administration, the American electorate's next selection is typically someone who is perceived as moral or ethical, but turns out to be ineffective, or even incompetent. The one-two punch of corruption and incompetence leaves us demoralized; the next guy to come along offering hope is elected.

Consider the Nixon administration as corrupt (Ford was care-taker), we then elected Carter hoping for moral or ethical, and we got incompetence. Demoralized and humiliated, we turned to an orator who offered us hope, and we elected Reagan.

The cycle restarted with the Clinton’s "scandal-a-day" corrupt administration, followed by Bush, the ineffective communicator and leader. Next we will turn to an orator offering hope -- Obama.