How to find some truth in Politics, with an example

During a presidential year, as many as double the usual voters will show up to make their choice. This year many of you will be choosing a candidate for President, but you’ll also be choosing which candidates should be PA Representative, PA Auditor, PA Attorney General, PA Senator, US Congressman and US Senator.
If your hobby isn’t politics then you have quite a puzzle in front of you. There are 6 positions or more to vote for depending on your district. For each job, you have to pick which one that is the best with some reasonable certainty and unfortunately you have at your disposal imperfect information. So how does a reasonable person decide? 

I guess the first thing is to have some objective criteria that you can quickly prove or disprove. Avoid the inconsequential stuff like “he’s a good person, she looks good in red, he looks dashing in that hallway” and my personal favorite “I think I saw a picture of him with the Devil”.  Don’t make this more complicated than you have to. Stick to the facts, and preferably base your rules on your life experience, something that rings true to you in a very personal way. For example, when you pick someone for your sports team, you want someone who shows up, plays well, plays to win, has good sportsmanship and plays by the rules, and maybe they have some fire in the belly that keeps them fighting when the game isn’t in their favor. Also, you want someone with reasonably good judgment and if possible with a public record of being thrifty with government money, and avoids tax increases. For positions that are more technical than political, you might also want someone who has some reasonable work experience for the task at hand or the proven successful strategies to handle the challenges that are coming down the road. Finally, you might also want someone who teaches by example. For example in PA there is an ever increasing number of elected officials, like Rick Saccone, that refuse the pension and instead take the 401K because they know they can’t fix the PA pension bomb of 2014 if they are still on the take for pensions themselves. 

At this point we have the makings of a score sheet, but we still have imperfect information to make the score. Then you have to be weary that the people that write about politics are usually writing from a specific point of view, Democrat, Republican, Socialist, Libertarian, etc, and they don’t always tell you up front. In the next section, we’ll discuss how to handle imperfect information.

First let’s deal with one type of candidate campaign information, which I call the me-too and one-up syndrome. An example of this starts with #1 “I like jobs for PA and puppies”, then #2 “I like jobs for PA and puppies and old ladies”, then #1“I like jobs for PA and puppies and old ladies, and I even have an old lady in my house” after which candidate#1 gets smacked in the back of the head by his middle aged wife.  How can anyone tell the canidates apart when both candidates claim the same issues and the same virtues as their own? The good news is you don’t have to. With minimal research, like reading the 8 ½  x 5 ½  color fliers you get in the mail and reading a candidate’s website, you can find out if a candidate has ever created any jobs and whether the jobs were in the public or private sector. If they talk jobs but can’t list any, you instantly know who might be taking you for a ride on the bull ship. If a candidate or a candidate’s party can be linked to plant closings with reasonable cause-and-effect information like the documented US Government’s War on Coal, then maybe these people and the people they hang out with are not that interested in jobs. I hope that’s simple enough of a truth detector. 

Next you have PAC information that doesn’t come from candidate campaigns, and a relatively new thing called PAC groups, that are essentially groups that have a license to make the other guy look bad. Sometimes these PAC-sponsored ads are really stupid “Don’t vote for that guy, he’s a politician. My gal isn’t a politician”. They actually pay big money to say dumb things like that on TV.  Darn! Maybe you thought we were voting for the next American Pop Star. What you should really be looking for are the panderers that say one thing, any thing, and then do another when the rubber meets the road. Beware the exaggerators as well.  Beware the ones that speak only to one demographic group at a time. Eventually, they will pit that group against another group that’s “not them”, using an emotionally charged issue that is usually based on an imagined right, or an imagined sin, or a sin of the father. As an example, did you know that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dad was member of Nazi storm troops? Word! It’s true, and that means Arnie is a Nazi too for sure! These are stupid old political ideas from the 19th and 20th centuries that still get traction today despite the taboos around them. Beware those who preach this kind of hatred. Instead of selling their strengths and personal qualities as a candidate and as a leader, they denounce your neighbors’ fictional sins. This is a destructive distraction.

You also have to be aware that candidate endorsements, although desirable like backing from the Fraternal Order of Police,  it can be a double edged sword if you consider a group or a PAC to be an enemy of everything near and dear to you. Not all endorsements are created equal. The candidate’s resume and relevant accomplishments can matter a lot when considering a more technical elected position. You also want to make sure you’re not giving that big responsibility to the village idiot, or to someone who can be bribed, compromised or blackmailed. After all, these people are applying for a job, and they will be making decisions about our way of life and spending and borrowing billions of dollars, with our names on the payback.

When doing your candidate research, please read your mailers, read an extra newspaper column, read an extra blog, and remember that Google, Bing, and Yahoo are also your allies in this quest. There are also specialized websites like “http://ballotpedia.org” and “http://www.politicspa.com/” that can help you get a back story on the candidates, if you want to be a little more thorough.

As a practical example of what we just learned, let’s review one of the candidates in Peters Township using the evaluation criteria above, with the imperfect information gathered from various sources.

Since my wife’s relative was once the PA Attorney General, and he still comes to my Christmas party every couple years or so, I have always paid close attention to the Attorney General’s race.  I am disappointed that this race isn’t getting much coverage despite a recent debate on 10/22. There is much at stake when voting for an attorney general. Because this is a more technical position, there is a range of legal subjects I want in an attorney general to be proficient with. I want him to deal with violent crime as well as white collar and complicated technology-driven scams.  I want him to internalize the oath to follow the constitutions of PA and of the USA with all the amendments without forgetting any parts when it’s convenient. I expect the Attorney General to protect Pennsylvania citizens from intrusive federal mandates. I want swift and timely justice, and I want all cases to be heard.  

The first candidate is Kathleen Kane who was an assistant DA until 2007 when she took on a more political role working for campaigns like that of Hillary Clinton. Her most recent job from 2007 to 2012 is that of community organizer when she’s not working on campaigns. This is a political position that doesn’t involve managing court cases, investigations, or prosecuting criminals. Kathleen claims she worked on 3000 cases in her TV ads, but it was revealed that she went to trial 24 times in her 12 years at the DA’s office. This was revealed in the primaries by her fellow Democrat Patrick Murphy. I will let you decide if she padded her résumé or not. Then we have David Freed who is currently the district attorney of Cumberland County since 2006 and he oversees an average of 4000 cases per year. Clearly Freed has current experience and Kane doesn’t. Kane’s TV ads claim she’s “not a politician” but her employment from 2007-2012 indicates otherwise to me.  Next on the evaluation sheet we have endorsements, and these can help you decide as well. David is the Vice President of the District Attorney’s Association and has garnered the endorsement of 40 out of a possible 67 of his fellow District Attorney’s from both parties. The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 1, these are the people who investigate and catch the bad guys, they have endorsed David Freed. This is a also very coveted and prestigious endorsement. I’m voting for David Freed, who happens to be a Republican. 

I hope this helps you on Election Day.

Eric Rouillard, Republican Committeeman, Peters Township A-3