Democracy: Quality vs. Quantity

I read a very interesting quote this morning that I thought I'd share and get some thoughts on.

(paraphrasing since I don't have the book in front of me)  "Democracy has a serious failing in that when the quantity of people increases the quality of the chosen leadership decreases.  They end up electing any idiot into office."

While this is obviously written from an aristrocratic point of view, I can't help but wonder about the validity of such a curve applying to the political arena.  To juxtapose on top of this, I was watching this show
 and came upon an episode that intrigued me.  I haven't watched this show before, and I had only been watching it for a couple of episodes.  But in the second episode I had seen a huge change in Ramsay when he met the newly hired chef India for the restaurant that he was trying to save.  There was a palpable change in his demeanor and you can tell he had seen immense potential in her.  In the other shows I've watched, he continually rode the chef to improve his/her cooking processes/management.  With her he was relaxed and actually enjoying himself.  He saw her potential, and when the restaurant failed a month and a half later, he immediately swooped in and hired her for his own restaurant.  What and why does that matter?

It is possible for people to identify the intrinsic value/talent in other people.  I could identify it in my previous jobs, and I can see how that quality and talent can be seen with those that have the eye for it.  It's like finding a Hope diamond in the middle of the Sahara desert.  You can't miss it when you see it, and you can't miss it when you see someone else see that quality.  How does that quality scale?  How can you really see the intrinsic qualities of a leader you've never met, nor has been observed by leaders looking for such quality?  Endorsements do not provide that sort of tangible value; it's a ticket to punch and a side to pick.  It's not a personal observation.

There are many candles of quality to compare to.  Does the Reverand Al Sharpton compare to the brilliance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example?

I think it scales poorly because the quality of signal is lost in the noise of rhetoric and I can't rely on the media's instruments to guide me.  They are rudimentary, contrarian, and quite often useless.  The media itself, does not scale, either.