....is that the realities involved in being willing to run for high public office these days are in themselves an indication of the presence of potentially serious character flaws.  Think about it - do most "normal" people even want to be a part of that circus?

I suspect there is a much higher proportion of narcissistic ego-driven power hungry (and corruptible by said power) individuals in high elected office than there are in the general population.  And no, not everybody in politics fits that description....but I'm afraid the scales tipped towards there being "too many" some time ago.

I hope I'm wrong.  I'm afraid I'm not.  And I'm not sure how to fix it - maybe a combination of term limits (particularly in the House) as has been discussed ad nauseum, no employment as a lobbyist for a period of time after serving (good luck figuring out a mechanism to make that work)....and get the ridiculous amounts of $$ out of the campaign process (more good luck needed).  There is no easy fix, but I think term limits would be a good start.