Looking sci-fi type fiction book on selecting presidents

it was relatively popular, i believe, about 20 years ago. the story line was that the US had an electoral system in which only people who did not want to be President were eligible to run. there was some way, can't remember what, to identify people who were power-hungry and wanted to run the country and those who were not and therefore did not seek public office. an effort was made to encourage people who did not want power or glory to run for President. people who fell into the other category were not allowed to run.

sound familiar to anybody?

thanks!

Could be The World of Null-A by A. E. Van Vogt ?

no, Jarandel, that's not it. it was much more contemporary but thanks so much for the suggestion. much appreciated.

Was it a novel or a short story? I have a vague memory of a short story with a similar premise.

It doesn't sound like your book -- but Neal Stephenson and his uncle wrote under a pseudonym, Stephen Bury, a novel titled Interface -- around 20 years ago and there are definite similarity in themes.

Just a side note in case you're interested in this topic overall in science fiction -- in many of his books, Arthur C. Clarke's future system is that the President (whether of a country or a world) is selected by random lottery of adults over a certain age, so that ambitious people can't deliberately try for it. Clarke would always say something like "and then that person tried to do as good a job as possible, to get it over with as quickly as they could."

The two books I know of for sure where Clarke talks about this are Imperial Earth and Songs of Distant Earth.

Hope you find your book!

As long as we're listing others in the theme, Frederik Pohl has a short story "Gwenanda and the Supremes" about a rotating Supreme Court roster chosen by random lottery. It's in The Years of the City. A man resuscitated from cryogenic stasis is brought to justice for a transgression. The legal process described is a breath of fresh air.