How would you test the presidential candidates?

[Lagmonster]

In a general frustration over hearing American politicians repeat the same 'talking points' over and over again and posing for the same smiling photographs with boy scouts and old people over and over again, I've been racking my brain trying to come up with an iron-clad way of getting all the presidential hopefuls in one room and sifting through the bullshit and political posturing to get as comprehensive a picture of the individual's ideas, intelligence, leadership skills and character as possible.

So let's say YOU got an opportunity to devise an event for American television. All presidential wannabes are required to participate and are under your supervision. The goal of this event is to assist the public with selecting a candidate by putting the candidate through whatever paces you feel will result in getting the most honest, accurate, realistic and comprehensive picture of the candidate themselves. You may choose any category or combination of categories you feel are important and any methods you feel are justifiable: physical tests, mental exercises, debates, psychological or emotional tests, trivia contests, whatever.

Remember that the goal is to help the voting public know their potentially elected representatives better; as such you should endeavour to circumvent use of talking points, prepared speeches, and any assistance from aides, and force the most honest feedback about the candidates' personalities, beliefs, ideas, weaknesses and faults.

What would you do? Or, alternatively, is there no real improvement to what we already get?

[Keevan_Colton]

Big Brother, Presidental version.

You could then do the voting by phone too.

[Glocksman]

Personally, I'd choose a rigorous questioning by committed large 'L' libertarians.
Not that I believe in the free market uber alles bullshit they swallow, but it would force the candidates to argue that what they advocate is legal and proper.
Plus you'd get to see how they function under real pressure.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Dance off.

Seriously, though, an open email/forum type debate/QA. Ideally following a set of rules similar to what's found here.

[Darth Wong]

Treat it like a job interview, and get someone to interview each applicant in much the same way a tough job interviewer would.

Getting random people to ask stupid questions is a ridiculous idea. Asking them to "explain their policies" is a stupid idea too. Can you imagine giving a job interview where you get random people to ask questions, or where you ask the applicant to lay out his "platform" for how well he would do his job? Utterly pointless. Job interviewers ask specific questions, and they expect actual answers to those questions, not "segue to another talking point" bullshit.

[Surlethe]

A large part of it needs to be a moderator or authority of some sort who can and will step in and interrupt candidates if they don't answer a question. This person (or people) will need to be quick enough on their feet to not force candidates to oversimplify tough questions, but at the same time ruthlessly nip any bullshit in the bud.

[Gil Hamilton]

With fire, clearly.

[The Guid]

One word: Paxman.

Sure, he doesn't always get an answer out of the British politicians but people are far more cynical about New Labour spin than they are about Republican spin and there are reasons for that, one of them being Paxman style journalism.

[Dartzap]

Or John Humphries for that matter.

BBC: America should drag them and Nick Robinson over and make them answer the questions with no preplanned answers allowed.

Or, uh, House of Commons stylee, of course, which is always fun.

[Lagmonster]

While I'm enjoying the visual picture of Huckabee and Obama going at it American Gladiators-style, I wonder if there would be any value in hooking up candidates to a lie detector and putting them on the spot. I don't know what we would learn that way that would be otherwise not brought to light.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Not sure, but taking pointed questions from a panel with names on it like Dawkins, Penn, and the Chaser will figure highly. As with Wong, model the questions on a Job Interview theme. Five points awarded to correct answers (read: factual, science-based, logical, evidence-based, not-unConstitutional, etc), five points deducted from wrong answers followed by an explanation as to why worded in a way any Joe Beer Drinker can understand. Talking over another candidate (or snickering at their answer or any other such disruption) will be punishable by a three point deduction. Give the candidate a full minute to explain or the option of saying 'Yield' at the end of particularly short answers to yield the floor.

Then figure out how to get the whole travesty past the censors and onto national TV.

[NeoGoomba]

Make them run the Eliminator, with office linebacker Terrible Terry Tate pursuing them.

On a more serious note, maybe an old school written debate put in all the major newspapers. I recall Mike mentioning something like this before. Ask them to present their solution on a particular crisis (Energy being the main one off the top of my head), and allow them to go back and forth a set number of times, with a 24 or 48 hour deadine on responses.

Sadly, it wont win them any "style" points like in a televised debate, but at least we get to see what their policies really are, and not 45 second soundbytes.

[aerius]

On a more serious note, maybe an old school written debate put in all the major newspapers. I recall Mike mentioning something like this before. Ask them to present their solution on a particular crisis (Energy being the main one off the top of my head), and allow them to go back and forth a set number of times, with a 24 or 48 hour deadine on responses.

Not the best idea, they could just get their paid experts to write all their debate points for them. You gotta put the fuckers on the spot, like on live TV where they have no place to hide.

[NeoGoomba]

Not the best idea, they could just get their paid experts to write all their debate points for them. You gotta put the fuckers on the spot, like on live TV where they have no place to hide.

Then they can tell us their policy inbetween The Assault and Powerball!

[Lord Pounder]

One of my party colleagues had the idea of indeed using reality TV. Only Big Brother was not the choice, the obvious choice is The Apprentice. A country is really like a business. If a potential candidate can't even run a small fucking business how can they be allowed to run a whole country.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Force them into a Lincoln-Douglas style debate on each major issue, but give them no prep time. They will be notified of the topic chosen from the following, 5 minutes in advance and given a notecard and a pen. This will allow them to outline their position so they have an organization for what they will say, but not the content.

1) Science Education, specifically evolution and the nature of science and how this relates to the classroom.

2) Gay Rights, and why we should or shouldn't be excluded from legal equality

3) Balancing individual liberty with increased police power

4) the separation of powers and how it is, or is not vital to the functioning of the republic

5) The separation of church and state, and the founding principles of this country

6) Foreign Policy, specifically when and how diplomacy fails and what should be done when that occurs

7) Education reform

Technology policy (copyright issues etc)

9) Immigration reform

10) How to combat poverty

11) Judicial/legal policy (basically how they view the constitution)

12) How to cut crime/prison policy

Each candidate will have to debate every other candidate from the other party, and their own on every issue. (this will take a few days naturally. yay C-Span miniseries) Each gets 7 minutes to articulate their position, a 3 minute rebuttal, and a 2 minute riposte. They can have a few notecards and a pen to keep track of what their opponent says.

Here is the kicker though.

If they say anything wrong. By which I mean factually incorrect or if they engage in fallacious reasoning or have unjustifiable premises, panel of individuals will press a button and the candidate will receive a mild but noticeable electric shock. Then, a correction, such as what fallacy they used, or what factual inaccuracy they uttered will be displayed on a screen above them for the live audience (with flashing lights to get their attention) or as a subtitle at the bottom of the screen for the TV audience.

The second test, will be a test of ethical consistency.

Each candidate will be asked to articulate what guides their ethics. Then subjected to a battery of hypothetical scenarios. They will be forced (on pain of electric shock) to articulate how they approach solving this question. They will have ten minutes. This will be done 5 times for each candidate. And in the end, an ethicist will give an analysis of how they answered and what ACTUALLY guides their ethics.

[Darth Wong]

One of my party colleagues had the idea of indeed using reality TV. Only Big Brother was not the choice, the obvious choice is The Apprentice. A country is really like a business. If a potential candidate can't even run a small fucking business how can they be allowed to run a whole country.

A candidate would ideally be viewed as a business administrator, but for a lot of people, he represents a symbol of the nation rather than a mere administrator (sort of like the role that the British monarchy plays). In the eyes of such people, it's not enough (or perhaps not even important) for him to be a competent administrator. What's important is that he's someone they can proudly show off, saying "I worship that guy". That's why so many people were so hung up on Clinton's blowjob.

[Adrian Laguna]

A candidate would ideally be viewed as a business administrator, but for a lot of people, he represents a symbol of the nation rather than a mere administrator (sort of like the role that the British monarchy plays).

It's not a for a lot of people, he is officially a symbol of the nation. There are heads of state and there are heads of government. The head of state represents the nation itself, the head of government administrates it. The President of the United States is both, and many countries have a similar arrangement. Many other countries have tried to separate the head of state and head of government, but as far as I know it never really works unless the head of state is royalty. For example, Israel's head of state is their President, while their Prime Minister is the head of government. However if you take a look at how foreign dignitaries and the media deal with the country, Israel might as well not have bothered, their Prime Minister is treated like the head of state and the President is the Invisible Man. Maybe it works out for them internally.

[Darth Wong]

A candidate would ideally be viewed as a business administrator, but for a lot of people, he represents a symbol of the nation rather than a mere administrator (sort of like the role that the British monarchy plays).

It's not a for a lot of people, he is officially a symbol of the nation. There are heads of state and there are heads of government. The head of state represents the nation itself, the head of government administrates it. The President of the United States is both, and many countries have a similar arrangement. Many other countries have tried to separate the head of state and head of government, but as far as I know it never really works unless the head of state is royalty. For example, Israel's head of state is their President, while their Prime Minister is the head of government. However if you take a look at how foreign dignitaries and the media deal with the country, Israel might as well not have bothered, their Prime Minister is treated like the head of state and the President is the Invisible Man. Maybe it works out for them internally.

What the fuck are you talking about? The fact that he's the head of state does not mean that he has to be a national icon. It means that he's the head administrator. You're demonstrating precisely the kind of broken thinking that causes these problems.

[Guardsman Bass]

A candidate would ideally be viewed as a business administrator, but for a lot of people, he represents a symbol of the nation rather than a mere administrator (sort of like the role that the British monarchy plays).

It's not a for a lot of people, he is officially a symbol of the nation. There are heads of state and there are heads of government. The head of state represents the nation itself, the head of government administrates it. The President of the United States is both, and many countries have a similar arrangement. Many other countries have tried to separate the head of state and head of government, but as far as I know it never really works unless the head of state is royalty. For example, Israel's head of state is their President, while their Prime Minister is the head of government. However if you take a look at how foreign dignitaries and the media deal with the country, Israel might as well not have bothered, their Prime Minister is treated like the head of state and the President is the Invisible Man. Maybe it works out for them internally.

What the fuck are you talking about? The fact that he's the head of state does not mean that he has to be a national icon. It means that he's the head administrator. You're demonstrating precisely the kind of broken thinking that causes these problems.

Technically speaking, the Head of State is supposed to be the national icon for their country, like how the royalty is for Britain. They're the guys that shake hands with all the foreign dignitaries and give all of the bland, ambiguous good will speeches.

In America, that obviously gets fucked up a bit since the President is also the Head Administrator, but it's still basically what a Head of State is supposed to be under ideal circumstances.

[NeoGoomba]

So "Head of State" should read "Mascot" instead? In that case, with the way things are, the US should have Ronald McDonald as the Head of State, and the ex-CEO of Enron as Head Administrator.

[weemadando]

Live TV, make them sit a year 10 science exam. With a good range of topics.

That should weed out a lot of really, really stupid people.

Again, on live TV, have a Q&A session. One where the moderator carries a taser. Any stalling, sound-bite politics or not answering the goddamn question and they get stunned. I nominate Tony Jones to host this as he likes to tear into politicians for just giving a soundbite and not answering the damn question during his interviews.

The Q&A questions should focus on what SPECIFICALLY they would do once reaching office. Run through economy, foreign policy etc. See what they say.

Finally? See if they can be a good diplomat, person and leader. Put them in a room full of fundamentalists from every religion and sect you care to name, along with young children, the disabled and frail. Then give them some insanely hard challenge to try and overcome that can *only* be achieved if they can get everyone to work together.

I think those tests should pretty much weed out those who are stupid, rely on their advisors and have no skills of their own.

[Knife]

revamp the primaries to have the delegates ask the canidates questions on policies.

[Havok]

Humorous: Drop them all in Thunder Dome and whoever can survive and kill Mel Gib-Mad Max gets to be the Prez.

Serious: A Job interview, like DW suggested. The problem is who gets to give the interview and who decides on the questions.

[Guardsman Bass]

For the experienced candidates (or those that claim to be, like McCain, Clinton, Romney, Giuliani, and so forth - although you can do all the candidates if you want to), tell them you are going to ask them highly specific policy questions. Then do it as Mike said - one on one job interview style. Get them to lay out exactly how they plan to do, how they are going to fund it, and so forth.