We Should Elect Bad People?

The Economist's R.M., reacting to research that found utilitarian moral beliefs correlate with antisocial personality traits, makes the "case:"

Most of us seem to be placing too much value on the wrong characteristics. Our preferred candidates are able to "connect" with the public. We want to like our leaders; we favour candidates who we'd be comfortable having a beer with. But according to the study, this isn't the type of candidate who will give us utilitarian outcomes. If we really want the greatest happiness of the greatest number, we should be electing psychopathic, Machiavellian misanthropes. And while America's cut-throat brand of electoral politics does attract such personalities, most candidates fall short of this ideal. So what is a utilitarian to do? Dammit people, we can still make this happen.

Will Wilkinson counters:

Since it seems implausible that we are best off governed by Machiavellian psychopaths, I take the findings of Bartels and Pizarro–that those attracted to utilitarianism tend toward the psychopathic and Machiavellian–as prima facie evidence that utilitarianism is "self-effacing," that it recommends its own rejection. This is a study about how, if you are a utilitarian, you should probably do the world some good and shut up about what you really think is best.