As far as the men who are running for president are concerned, they aren’t even people I would date.

Ephron’s line uses romantic eligibility as a deliberately sharp, comic yardstick for political leadership. By saying the candidates aren’t even people she would “date,” she collapses the lofty rhetoric of presidential campaigns into the everyday criteria of trust, charm, decency, and basic likability—qualities voters often intuitively weigh but rarely name so bluntly. The joke also critiques the narrow, male-dominated field of presidential politics: the men presented as national “choices” can feel personally unappealing, emotionally tone-deaf, or ethically suspect. The quip’s force comes from its mismatch of registers—private desire versus public power—highlighting how distant candidates can seem from ordinary human standards.