Some Candidate Selection Criteria
Every election I'm bombarded with "family value" listings showing the position of candidates on issues I should be concerned about. Many times these lists only show responses that are opposite from each other for the competing candidates - if one answer is Yes, the other is No, and vice-versa. For me, these are only helpful if: the responses are accurate (with good source documentation to support it), the topics are what I'm most concerned about, and third - they cover a wide enough spectrum of issues to give a full picture of each candidate.
Although many of us have a mental short list of "non-negotiables," it's instructive to actually write down what our personal key decision factors are. For the Presidential race, as well as every other elective office, there's always going to be a tradeoff since it's extremely rare to have a viable candidate who fulfills all our expectations. This is almost certainly true if our "Non-negotiable" list is a long one. When that happens, and it will again this coming year, I encourage voting to prevent the election of the candidate who will do the greater harm, instead of refusing to vote at all or for a candidate who has no opportunity to win.
With those cautions my tentative short list (in roughly priority order) of issues important to me for any elective office is as follows:
1. Life. I'm strongly pro-life from conception to natural death. If a candidate doesn't get this right, why would I want to trust them with any other decisions, since their worldview and values are completely alien to mine?
2. Faith. I'm a Christian, and I would prefer to see sincere, knowledgeable, experienced, qualified and talented Christians in office. However, I'm not comfortable with on-the-job training for naive Christians trying to figure out how to apply their faith and Biblical principles to the complex problems we face. There's hope for them, but risks also. Those who claim to be Christian, yet deny the fundamentals of the faith or the authority of Scripture in their lives, are very suspect and not to be trusted. Other faiths (and particularly Atheists) are even farther removed from Biblical values and as a result even less desirable.
3. Family. I'm strongly pro-family and decry anything or anyone that: weakens parental authority or the traditional family structure; supports counterfeit marriage (same-sex); or mainstreams perversion or immorality (e.g. domestic partnerships, homosexual special rights, gender confusion, pornography, etc.
4. Role of Government. Government at all levels has become too powerful, too thirsty for tax revenue, too intrusive in our lives and the economy, too removed from accountability, too addicted to making people dependent upon entitlements, too ignorant of their proper role, and too much in debt at virtually every level. If any candidate cannot clearly see the injustice and irresponsibility that exists, then they cannot be expected to make a positive change at any level.
5. Fiscal Restraint. I believe government at virtually every level has shown itself to be incapable of being responsible, good stewards of our money. Excessive taxation and uncontrolled debt is theft, and should be treated as such. Anything less than a commitment to reduce taxes, massively reduce spending, and balance budgets is unacceptable.
6. Defense. As a sovereign nation we have the right to defend ourselves, our interests, and our allies. We weaken our ability to do this at our own peril. Our service men and women, as well as their civilian leadership, are due the honor and support they deserve. Though open and honest dialogue is needed on the extent of our military role in the world, one nation in particular deserves our protection and counsel - Israel.
7. Economy. Our country is the most prosperous in history, but this prosperity breeds greed, selfishness, and irresponsibility. Government should punish obvious evil, but it shouldn't take over the free enterprise system that has served most people well, it shouldn't redistribute wealth and incentivize dependency and de-incentivize hard work and accountability, and it shouldn't choose who will be winners and losers (through targeted taxation). In addition, government's role is not to take over the massive health care industry, which would surely doom it to becoming purely pragmatic, excessively expensive, and intolerably broken.
8. Illegal Immigration. I believe in: strong, controlled borders, a national dialogue on appropriate legal immigration criteria, enforcing laws to prevent the hiring of illegals, extending compassion to visitors in emergency situations, and removal of entitlement benefits (welfare, public school access, health benefits, etc.) from access by illegals.
But what about the chronically poor, the homeless, our foreign energy dependency, the environment and climate change, public schools, gambling, the Fairness Doctrine, corporate bailouts, and on and on? Obviously, there are endless issues that need to be addressed from the local to national levels. That's why it's important to carefully consider what, if any, your short list of "non-negotiables" is. We all want candidates whose policy positions are the same as ours and are electable. But the reality is that we may have to compromise on some matters in order to prevent the vilest option from taking office. In doing so, we need to have a clear conscience when we vote, and be as objective as possible about the consequences.
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