The Best Way to Choose a Presidential Candidate

2012 is here. In November of this year, Americans will once again go to the polls to vote for the man or woman who they believe will make the best President. The campaigns are always filled with ads, arguments, and controversies. Most people vote based on their personal feelings about the candidate. However, this process is not reliable. What I want to lay out here is a reliable process voters can use to determine who to vote for, and also to critically examine their own beliefs. People should examine three criteria: the candidates personal character, their positions on the issues, and their past experience (whether that be in political office, or in some other capacity). This all works in conjunction, not individually.

Begin with personal character. This is the quality of being an overall moral person. Has the candidate had any major moral failings in their life, such as being abusive to a spouse, or being an absentee father? Have they been involved in any unethical business decisions, such as firing workers just to increase profits? Many candidates have skeletons in their closets they are hesitant to discuss, but in order to be the leader of the United States of America, character issues must be dealt with.

Issues are the main component most people claim to look at when choosing a President. However, ideologically incompatible Presidents have been elected from at least 1976 to 2008, with Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and then Obama recently. If people were basing it solely on the issues, there would not be such a change in parties, unless the American public en masse changes their opinions about issues every 4-8 years (if that is the case we are a fickle bunch!). There would be more consistent support for one party over the other. Therefore, the decision making of voters needs to improve when choosing candidates. The question is how this is to be accomplished.

There are a variety of issues that every good American citizen must consider when voting, from stem cell research to the war in Iraq. The way a Presidential candidate reasons to a conclusion about a particular issue will tell voters what kind of belief-forming processes he/she uses when coming to conclusions. For example, if a candidate says homosexuality is a choice, and the majority of the scientific community (psychological, biological) say that it is not a choice, the candidate is not inferring the correct conclusion based on the available evidence. Or if a candidate denies evolution when almost all scientists of any sort accept it as the best explanation for the diversity of life on earth, then the candidate is showing he/she does not understand, or is willfully ignorant of, the scientific evidence in favor of the claim.

This brings us to the sub-criteria that can be used to evaluate whether a candidate's position is the best available one. Voters should also apply this to themselves when evaluating issues. And if a voter's belief-forming process does not comply with these sub-criteria, then they should re-evaluate their beliefs, even if it means voting for a different party.

-Is there a consensus among the experts on the subject?

-Is the logic behind the position valid, or inductively strong?

-Is there empirical evidence one way or the other?

-Are the authorities used reliable and non-biased?

If a candidate takes positions that are not supported by evidence or logic, such as saying homosexuality is a choice or denying that evolution occurred, then their belief-forming processes are not developed enough to be President. Since they do not use the rules of evidence and logic correctly, they disqualify themselves from holding the highest office in the land.

The final criterion is past experience. This one is of the least importance, but does matter to a degree. If an individual has only graduated from high school and worked as an entry-level worker at Wal-Mart their entire lives, they are probably not qualified to be President. However, having past experience in public office does not ensure good results either. George Bush was the former governor of Texas, and largely due to his fiscal irresponsibility of passing massive tax cuts while waging two wars, and paying for neither with equal spending cuts, the U.S. debt increased enormously. His belief-forming processes were not adequate to do the job. So past experience does matter, but it cannot be the sole indicator of future success.

In conclusion, a candidate should have a moral compass, a strong set of belief-forming processes, and some past experience that is relevant to being the President of the United States. If and only if these conditions are met does a candidate qualify to be the leader of the free world.