Last week I wrote about qualifications for public office. I wrote that voters should consider more than whether a candidate attends church or who his or her relatives might be. Voters need to consider things like whether a candidate can do things like read and write, put together a complete sentence when talking (I’ve seen some that couldn’t), and can understand budgeting and the laws that apply to the post for which they are running.
One of the founding principles of the United States was the need to have an informed electorate. Discussions of the provisions of the proposed Constitution were published in newspapers across the new country. These editorials and letters, now known as the Federalist Papers, explained and debated in detail the reasoning in favor of the need for a central government. After the Constitution was ratified, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a private letter to Richard Price, “wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.”
Next question. Who is responsible for the voters knowing these things?
The voters are. You are.
One of the beauties of our governmental system is that every few years the voters get the opportunity to fire every single elected official. Don’t like the person in office? Fire him. Elect someone else. We can do that, just like an employer can fire any employee.
You’re the employer. The candidate wants to be your employee.
Candidates know this. They know that every stump speech, every appearance at a fish fry, every walk down the street, and every stroll through Walmart is a job interview. Incumbents know that every bit of what they’ve done in office is part of their resume’. Incumbents and every other candidate know that every campaign poster and every billboard is a job application.
They know they are evaluated on every word, action, and non-action they make. This means that they do everything they can to put themselves in the best possible light for the biggest number of voters.
Many times, they choose their words and actions to match what they think their prospective employers, the voters, want to see and hear.
Does this mean that candidates lie? In some cases, yes. Yes, they do. My experience has been that most actually don’t. Instead, some candidates will avoid certain topics. Others will phrase statements in such a way that no one knows which side of an issue they’re on.
The good ones give straight answers to honest questions whenever they can. Note that phrase, “honest questions.”
How many times have we seen news reporters, or opposing candidates and their supporters, ask a question so that there’s no way to give a short clear answer? How many times have we seen questioners phrase a question in such a way that no matter what the candidate says, it sounds bad?
And how many times have we seen people ask questions and refuse to listen to the answer?
Note that other phrase, “whenever they can.”
Many questions don’t lend themselves to short answers. Rarely can a question, especially one that involves governmental spending or law, be answered with a simple yes or no.
So, what is the voter supposed to do?
Listen to every candidate, even the ones you don’t like. Sometimes you’ll learn things about your guy you really need to know.
Read. Read everything, not just your guy’s campaign literature. Read the newspaper editorials. Read the op-eds.
Ask questions. Ask the candidate you don’t like hard questions. Ask your guy even harder questions. Listen, really listen, to the answers.
And take every bit of it with a grain of salt.
Just like you would any other person you think about hiring.
