> In principle, good looks, oratory eloquence, a charming personality, well-connectedness, and personal wealth are not particularly useful to creating and executing government policy.
This ignores the fact that "getting people to agree to the policy" is, in fact, extremely important and highly dependent on charisma, eloquence, and the ability to identify and form influential connections. This position imagines human politics devoid of politics and humans.
You're conflating the creation and execution, and overstating the role of salesmanship in the latter. Which is actually a huge part of the issue with contemporary politics. Instead of coming up with policy that a majority agree on, there's quite an emphasis on finding the right Stepford Smiler to sell whatever those who have influential connections want. In what will likely become an evergreen case study, see the recent NYC mayoral primary (though, in this case, they could barely get Cuomo to smile).
Suffice it to say, I don't want my phone jockeys taking on engineering duties.