Then perhaps one day this century an intellectual will run for office. Right now there isn't one at all. The candidates for president are:

1) a lawyer (law license inactive since 2002 and not currently authorized to practice law) who was a law professor (Consitutional Law); member of the board of directors for various non-governmental organizations specializing in civil-rights activities; practicing attorney (associate) for three years in a firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development; served as a consultant to and employee for various community organizing entities; and served within the Illinois Senate and US Senate (current).

2) a career Naval officer who, as selected examples of his experience as a US Senator, voted to confirm Justices Ginsberg and Breyer to the USSC bench; worked with the Clinton administration on its anti-tobacco efforts; co-sponsored comprehensive immigration reform (with Sen. Kennedy (D)); sponsored the McCain Detainee Amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill for 2005 which prohibited inhumane treatment of prisoners, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, by confining military interrogations to the techniques in the U.S. Army Field Manual on Interrogation; and with Sen Feingold (D) got legislation passed which resulted in campaign finance reform in effect today.

I have not noted any "intellectual activities" by either candidate, as none of their publications indicate any particular intellectual pursuit (nothing involving detailed research and analysis), but instead lean toward leadership, motivation, political strategy and self-accomplishment.

Neither gentleman would ever be confused with a Baron Martin Rees, Professor Amos Oz, Judge Richard Posner, or Pope Benedict XVI - all true intellectuals.