If you end up spending a lot of time with politicians, you'll realize that most of them that are at all successful have immense talents that don't map onto Mensa exams but are signs of incredible mental acuity.

I don't disagree at all. You're right on the money.

But I do have to question if people who aren't "book smart" but are "people smart" make the best people to be making decisions about public policy.

Being in an elected office requires one to actually do the job of the office. And those jobs aren't easy. You need to identify issues, then understand why things may or may not be working well regarding that issue, and figure out what to change - and not change - to achieve your desired outcome.

To bring the emotions down, consider a city or county commissioner (aka city council or some other similar name for the group of people running a city or county). Issues that come up are things like budgeting, taxation, land use, law enforcement, provision of utilities, local celebrations, and emergency preparedness. And I'm probably leaving out a few other important issues. These are all complex issues with many interdependencies both within and outside of that particular topic. (eg. land use affects property taxes and law enforcement and utilities and emergency planning) These issues require a certain level of that "book" intelligence. Someone who is incurious or hates to read will probably not do a good job as a city council member. Sure, maybe they can rally people behind an idea, but will they be rallying behind a good idea? Will this people-smart-but-book-dumb person be able to accomplish the idea at all, let alone on a reasonable time frame and budget?

I suppose one weakness of our current political system in the US is that we reward these outgoing and people-smart folks with jobs they can't do very well. And that's not a problem of the moment, it's a very old and ongoing problem in both political parties.

--Peter