Complaining about politicians is a national pastime. We blame them for everything. Then we sit back and respond to surveys whining that the country is headed in the “wrong direction.” But who puts these people in charge? Who gives them the authority to make and enforce laws? Who tells them what direction to go? We do. And we do a pretty lousy job of it. Election time rolls around and we see a few campaign ads on TV, or we catch a few clips of a candidate speech, or we see a picture of the candidate and we decide, “Oh, he/she seems like a nice person. Nice smile. Honest face.” And off we go to the polls. More research and deliberation goes into hiring a waitress at the local truck stop than we put into selecting people for the highest political offices in the nation.
When we “hire” someone as president of the United States we are placing the fate of the nation in the hands of this person. Yet, qualifications take a back seat to “likeability” when election results are tallied. So coming out of the Presidential primaries in the last election we were left with two candidates, neither of which had any serious executive experience. You can argue all day long about whether Obama or McCain was the better choice. But neither of them was objectively qualified for the job, neither had experience running a large organization of any sort; however, both were “likeable guys.” We just don’t take our responsibility as voters seriously.
A few weeks ago South Carolina voters hopefully embarrassed themselves when they elected Alvin Greene as their Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. If you don’t know who Alvin Greene is, then you really need to brush up on what’s happening to our democratic process. But you’re not alone because apparently the 59% of voters who elected him didn’t know who he was either. Alvin Greene is a down-on-his-luck indigent. Unemployed, involuntarily discharged from both the Air Force and Army, facing felony charges for showing pornography to a female college student, barely coherent, Alvin Greene filed campaign papers but didn’t run any kind of campaign. And yet, voters elected him as their Democratic candidate for one of the highest political offices in the nation.
Some are alleging that this must have been some kind of Republican conspiracy because they’re certainly having a field day with this bizarre outcome. But I think there are more frightening explanations. In the midst of the last Presidential primary I was teaching college business courses to juniors and seniors. One day I asked the students in each class to list on paper as many Presidential candidates as they could name. Then I collected the papers. 78% of students knew Hillary Clinton was a candidate. Only 55% of students listed Barack Obama as a candidate. 29% identified Rudy Giuliani, 20% identified John Edwards, 12% identified John McCain, and 12% identified Mitt Romney. Other candidates (Biden, Huckabee, et al) had less than 10% recognition among the students. How could upper-level college students not know who the Presidential candidates were? The answer: Apathy. So, in like fashion, I think many South Carolina voters saw a picture of Greene a day or two before the election (he does look sharp in a suit) and liked him. I think some preferred a black candidate (his opponent was white). Some may have selected his name because it was the first one on the ballot. Some may even have thought that this was the Reverend Al Greene, famous R&B recording artist. But clearly, 59% of the voters didn’t know who the heck they were voting for.
This fall we in the U.S. will elect all our Congressmen, one-third of our Senators, many Governors, and thousands of local officials. Please take the time to learn about your candidates and choose based on their qualifications – not on their smile.
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