People put up with too much bad government

There ought to be a way to do something about that.

Government is bad because elected officials do not serve the public interest, but their own.

You can tell that by a simple method.  In the old days, it was considered bad form for a presidential candidate to actually campaign for the job.  Others did that instead.  A potential candidate made himself available, he did not seek the office directly.

If all politicians were required to act that way, perhaps we'd get a different breed of elected official.

Let's say an individual gets nominated by petition.  If enough qualified people signed it, a person would be in position accept the offer of public service, and then "run".  But their candidacy would be undertaken by others, not by themselves.  An elected official would not be bound by their efforts.  That is to say, there'd be no "quid pro quo" for helping the candidate win.

A party could nominate someone, but that person need not be bound to that party's principles.

Another way of saying all this is that we need some reforms.