Particularly in local and state politics you are asked to support a candidate and you must consider whether you want to write a sizable check. I consider these four factors in this order:

1. Do I agree with this candidate on his principles and stands on the issues. Typically you will not agree with any candidate on all of the issues so you pick the critical issues and judge accordingly. Critical issues change and the critical issues when you voted may change after they are elected.

2. Is their character trustworthy? Do they have the pertinent experience needed? Trust implies competence; the ability to do the right thing or in politics the right principle, and character; the willingness to do the right thing and the commitment. It does no good if they propose the correct stand on the issues if you can not trust them to do what they say.

3. Is it winnable? If the demographics are so slanted against a candidate that they have no chance of winning then why would anyone write a big check? If the positions are so extreme what are the chances of actually winning? It may make for interesting media, and such a candidate sometimes has a moment in the power spotlight as a spoiler. Sometimes they serve to eventually bring some credibility to previously discredited ideas.

4. If you can support a candidate on the first three criteria then the last critical factor is their commitment to winning. Do they have a competent staff, especially when it comes to raising money. Are they going to spend the time necessary to win? No excuses and whining about family commtiments are acceptable. If you are going to take other people’s money to run for office you owe them a commitment to win. I have seen credible candidates run lousy poorly staffed campaigns. No matter how competent and correct a candidate may be on the positions he will not likely get elected in a highly cometitive campaign with out a competent staff.

In national campaigns the first two points dominate. These are fulltime politicians and usually have a decent staff. In local elections with less politically experienced candidates the last two factors will critically influence their success. Some local candidates who have full time absorbing jobs and young families feel compelled to run for office without understanding the commitment.

The party plants in the Republican debate have strirred some controversy. Why did not CNN do the minimal google check that millions of surfers did within minutes of the obvious ‘fixed’ questions? Because they did not think to even ask the question. The questions seemed normal to them.

Peggy Noonan notes in the OpinionJournal:

PEGGY NOONAN
Death, Taxes and Mrs. Clinton Only two of them are inevitable.
Friday, November 30, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

I will never forget that breathtaking moment when, in the CNN/YouTube debate earlier this fall, the woman from Ohio held up a picture and said, “Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama, Mr. Edwards, this is a human fetus. Given a few more months, it will be a baby you could hold in your arms. You all say you’re ‘for the children.’ I would ask you to look America in the eye and tell us how you can support laws to end this life. Thank you.”

They were momentarily nonplussed, then awkwardly struggled to answer, to regain lost high ground. One of them, John Edwards I think, finally criticizing the woman for being “manipulative,” using “hot images” and indulging in “the politics of personal destruction.” The woman then stood in the audience for her follow up. “I beg your pardon, but the literal politics of personal destruction–of destroying a person–is what you stand for.”

Oh, I wish I weren’t about to say, “Wait, that didn’t happen.” For of course it did not. Who of our media masters would allow a question so piercing on such a painful and politically incorrect subject?

I thought of this the other night when citizens who turned out to be partisans for Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards asked the Republicans, in debate, would Jesus support the death penalty, do you believe every word of the Bible, and what does the Confederate flag mean to you?

It was a good debate, feisty and revealing. It’s not bad that the questions had a certain spin, and played on stereotypes of the GOP. It’s just bad that it doesn’t quite happen at Democratic debates. Somehow, there, an obscure restraint sets in on the part of news producers.

I try to avoid the simplistic distinctions between liberal and conservative, but I seem to notice that among my more liberal leaning friends and more openly liberal celebrities there is a tendency to wish for the ‘benevolent dictator’ form of govenment. In conversations there is this impatience with the American people and democratic system for not supporting their ‘obviously correct’ stands on gun control, health care, immigration or whatever the important position dejure is.

I think this explains the support of many of Hollywood’s left for the likes of a Hugo Chavez who proposes to fight for the poor yet openly suppresses dissent and an open society. It is the story of many a populist ‘Evita’. It is possibly the position of some of the candidates on the campaign trail.

The problem with a benevolent dictatorship is that when the dictator is no longer benevolent he is still a dictator. What follows is the mass murder of a Mao and a Stalin or the Balkanization after the demise of a Tito in Yugoslavia. Remember that the Nazis were the National SOCIALIST Party.

A consititutional democracy on the other hand can survive a bad president, particularly with the checks and balances our system has built. Before we deliver power and authority to a position we should ask what if our worst nightmare came into that position; how could that authority be abused.

Those who yearn for the benevolent dictator solution will insist that it is only their dictator that should be handed the power. Long term I wouldmuch rather have a bad leader in a constituional democracy that a good leader in the position of a ‘benevolent’ dictator.

A few quotable randoms from recent readings-

Political Correctness- A doctrine fostered by a delusional minority and the mainstream media, which puts forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. (forgot the author).

“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be good or evil.” Hannah Arendt

“We thought we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.” Bono

“The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance getting something right, there is a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.” Andy Rooney

“Computers are like Old Testament Gods: lots of rules and no mercy.” – Joseph Cambell