A correspondent wants to take power and use it for the highest possible good.

Well, what is the highest possible good?  I could answer that, but I recognize that I'm a failable human and my answer is going to be imperfect.  Possibly even really off base, despite my best efforts or delusions.

So if one is going to assert a highest possible good, there has to be some authority to that truth.  The traditional authority has been by virtue of position.  The Quaker answer to that was that the community is a kind of filter - that a group of people has more access to truth than an individual.  My feeling is neither approach works very well.  I'd rather see much more individual freedom, letting the truth "rise to the top" on it's own.

I don't trust power the way the Bush administration is using it.  Even something that starts well, with noble intentions, can get corrupted.

I think we are much more informed our higher purpose on earth than politics give evidence for.  We are many things at once, and in the last two decades it has worked better for politicians to catch the unraveling momentum and appeal to other sides.  I think the time is right for a position to call forth our better self.  I think there are universal spiritual values which cross the conservative - liberal spectrum and stand in stark contrast to the politics of fear as practiced by the Bush team.