Cam-pain

Am I the only person thinking maybe we don't know much about the person we elect President? I think perhaps the caucus/primary/campaign/convention system is past its time. Even in a cycle like this one where we got started WAY too early, by the end we're still not really going to know anything. Everything is too prepped, too spun, too handled.

Frankly I think most people vet the guy that cuts their grass better.

It would be nice if maybe we could see the candidates measured against some objective scales, and I mean something other than releasing their tax and health records - although I guess that's a decent start. Also, I think I would like to see them make some decisions and perhaps even interact a little bit in a non-scripted way. I believe that's the intent of the debates, but I don't think it'd be much of a debate to say it isn't working. Candidates don't answer questions so much as pivot to talking points. Talking points are the enemy of the informed voter.

So, an idea. Let's schedule national Presidential interview week. It could be the first week of January, although really I think the first week of February would be better. We could let the superbowl happen and get into the desert of sports and pop culture that spawned the SI Swimsuit Issue. Maybe scheduled there people would actually pay attention. As is, well I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to hear more people watched the Seattle/Green Bay game than the South Carolina Republican Debate - even amongst Carolinians.

It would be illegal to engage in any legitimate campaigning prior to the release of the results of National Presidential Interview Week. Really, what's the point of listening to someone who won't be a legit candidate anyway. It's sort of what we do now, but instead of using money and media attention we can use some sort of real rubric.

Here's my thought for a rubric, masquerading as a week long schedule of activities:

Monday Day - Candidates take the TOEFL exam.
Monday Eve - Candidates participate in a no-limit Texas Hold'em Tournament

The TOEFL, for those of you not in higher education, is the Test of English as a Foreign Language. I don't know about you but I am tired of Bushisms. How someone can have his level of language mastery and purport to lead the country's education effort is quite beyond me. The poker tournament would give us some information as to temperament as well as provide an informal environment for candidate interaction. All the days here will be tests, something that will objectively measure the candidates command of knowledge; and all of the evenings will be games, to show us interaction and tendencies as well as maybe fill in some of the "street smarts" we seem to value so much.

Tuesday Day - SAT
Tuesday Eve - Trivial Pursuit

Wednesday Day - ACT
Wednesday Eve - Risk

I would I think accept CivIV as a substitute for Risk. It might be nice to see how the various candidates manage in a computing environment. Really though, I think it might be beyond most of them and the board game would have to suffice.

Thursday Day - MCAT
Thursday Eve - Chess

This is tough I guess, because most of the candidates will probably do poorly on the MCAT. But again, I think if someone is going to be "the decider" of national medical policy than we as the voting public deserve to know just how well informed they are. Besides, in the wide view none of them should do a whole lot worse than any of the others. A chess tournament would be cool because it would pair people off and we could see them have to deal with another person they can't get away from.

Friday DAY - LSAT
Friday Night - Candidate Game Night

So here's a way for them all to finish on a high note. One would assume that most of these people are going to be lawyers, so their LSAT scores ought to be decent, yes? So even if they can't speak English, have poor reasoning and general knowledge, and know nothing about medicine, doing the LSAT last should give them something positive to point to. The Candidate Game Night would be an opportunity for each candidate to choose a game them self for all of the candidates to play. Here we'd learn something both from what they pick and how they play. Probably we want to limit this to board games and card games, although I wouldn't mind seeing video games too (candidate Wii, anyone?), but we would want to make sure we didn't wind up with athletic contests.

All five day's test results would be announced the following week in one release. Game nights would be televised C-Span style with no anchor or commentary - there will be plenty of time for commentary after. But the idea is for people to see and make their own judgments without a talking head to pre-chew it for them.

Stupid? Can't be worse than we do right now.