The presidency is now a cross between a popularity contest and a high school debate, with an encyclopedia of cliches the first prize.

The line is a sardonic indictment of modern American electoral politics. By likening the presidency to a “popularity contest,” Bellow suggests that charisma, image-management, and mass appeal have displaced seriousness of purpose. The “high school debate” comparison implies a shallow, performative exchange of rehearsed points rather than substantive deliberation. The “encyclopedia of clichés” as “first prize” sharpens the critique: political language becomes a stockpile of ready-made platitudes, rewarded precisely because it is safe, familiar, and media-friendly. Overall, the quote laments the degradation of civic discourse and the lowering of intellectual expectations for the nation’s highest office.