I don't know you but I'd say no one you know is a committed public steward. However plenty of those exist outside of your bubble.

> no one you know is a committed public steward

I have friends who ran for and won local and federal offices. I specifically called out state because it’s min-maxing the power-honor trade-off.

Local and federal offices are also, if not more, lucratively profitable. Maybe it's not about some Platonic notion of power-seeking behavior but rather small people pursuing their own small monopolies.

>Our intelligent and ambitious don't aim for public office. (It even feels trite to call it public service.)

No, they become lobbyists instead. They have more power as they are the ones controlling the elected officials.

>That's a problem.

Then perhaps the job shouldn’t be done by individuals, but by groups developing systems.

my boss knows one of the former US press secretaries. At a dinner a while back my boss went on and on (for like 30min) how she couldn't believe her acquaintance was picked and how she should have been press secretary and would have been oh so much better. I asked her why in the world would you ever want that job, the pay sucks and you're just getting yelled at all day by reporters. She couldn't believe someone would turn down a chance to work in a presidential admin. We both had a little bit too much to drink and argued for like an hour. I had a tshirt made for her with a headshot of her, apparent, nemesis haha

It is incredibly lucrative to take one of these jobs. The last three white house press secretaries went on to become commentators and/or high ranking politicians. It's really not that hard to understand why people want the job.