[vharuck]

>The reservoir of potential candidates is vast. The risk this mitigates seems important enough to give up on additional potential candidates.

I've recently grown to value this idea of "No single person is special or necessary for the government to function." According to the Census Bureau, there are over 150,000,000 native US citizens aged 35 and older. We could have a new president every month and still have a massive number of people to choose from. The only problem would be disruptions from rapid hand offs. The pool is not the issue. Taken to the extreme, this means political assassinations are only meaningful in dissuading replacements from taking the same views and causing temporary disruptions. The lives of politicians aren't inherently worth more than any other person.