Could a Frenchman be elected in the U.S.?

I hadn't realized until the other day what a smoking hottie Carla Bruni is. I first heard about her in Adam Gopnik's New Yorker piece but I usually go elsewhere when seeking choice celebrities to drool over so I didn't pay much attention. When Carla Bruni came up recently I was stunned both by Bruni and the sheer pimpage of her new husband, French President Nicolas Sarkozy who flaunts Bruni like a rich old man would his new gold digging trophy wife. Make no mistake though, Sarkozy is a strict follower of separation of heart and state. In the most recent issue of The Economist, a piece about the newlyweds concludes:

"When it comes to affairs of state, it is hard to imagine even Mr Sarkozy letting affairs of the heart triumph over his Gaullist style deference of French business."

He's definitely not lovey-dovey all over the place: Sarkozy has passed a huge tax break which did little to fix the economy, he's also ignoring working class citizens who helped to elect him. Okay well maybe he's paying more attention to his supermodel wife. In the U.S. one might think that a president whose nickname is Bling-Bling and prances around with genuine international eye candy would collect a large amount of praise from his constituents. Not so. The same article in The Economist says:

"To many, "President bling-bling", as Libération has dubbed him, seems altogether too busy looking after himself when he should be looking after them."

And Gopnik's earlier piece isn't much better:

"The French press, by contrast, has seen in the story something so obviously second-rate and vulgar that it must be in some way American. The tone in the upper reaches of the French press has been not “We have a right to know!” but “Do we really have to cover this crap?”"

How Sarkozy would fair in the White House and how Bush would in the Élysée Palace? I must admit, during Sarkozy's run for office, I rooted for his chief rival, Ségolène Royale. I didn't know anything about her other than her gender. I'm ashamed of my political shallowness. Thankfully (...I guess), I'm not alone. According to the textbook for my African American Politics class, African American Politics and the African American Question, the very fact that a black person is running for office

"increases black turnout by 2.3 percent (the presense of a black Republican has no effect on black turnout), while the presence of a black of either party increases white turnout by 2.2 percent."

In the U.S., voters are highly likely to disregard ignorance when it comes to policy as long as appearances are good. I've noticed this first hand from a number of classmates who support Obama: they like him but have no idea what his policies are.
A scary example of this is the success of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Nagin is largely regarded as one of the key figures in the failure to respond to Hurricane Katrina. Despite this he's won reelection comfortably. African American Politics continues:

"While there are many explanations for his victory, the most basic one appears to be race. In the final analysis, for both blacks and whites racial loyalties appear to have trumped both ideology and competence."

Frightening.
Gail Collins has suggested Hillary Clinton's victory in the New Hampshire primary was because of sympathetic women voters. Could that have possibly been because of Hillary's gender?

Back in France, Sarkozy wants his country to adopt the work-a-ridiculous-amount attitude of the West. While he's looking at us for guidance, perhaps voters over here should look at French politics, at least when it comes to voting.