Rest in peace. My condolences to Jeri and the family.
He was my top pick in 2008, and it was a disappointment that he had to drop out. The “fire in the belly” thing is one of the stupidest modern reasons to not pick a president. We shouldn’t want someone to run the country who wants the power that badly. Ideally, we’d draft someone who didn’t want the job, but was abundantly competent and would accept it out of patriotism (original example, G. Washington; much more recent one, Paul Ryan).
It’s interesting to note that if he’d been elected, and re-elected, he’d have died in office. Of course, in that alternate history, he might still be alive.
[Late-evening update]
More thoughts from Michael Ledeen.
In Washington’s day, there were no political parties and much less financial incentive to take the job.
To get back to that, you would have to make the office a burden, rather than an opportunity. Start with Heinlein’s suggestion and make the President pay all the expenses of the White House out of his own pocket, and require all book royalties, lobbying fees, etc. to be donated back to the Treasury.