Objectively Grading the Candidates
By Anteater Posted in Elections — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Like many other conservatives, I have found that it was not easy to select a presidential candidate to support for 2008. I didn't want to wait until right before the primaries to make up my mind, since I might be stuck with some bad frontrunners and it might be too late to do anything then. Thus, my plan was to find the most acceptable candidate as early as possible and try to bolster support for that candidate. Currently, I believe that the best candidate is former Arkansas governor, Michael Huckabee.
After looking at the web sites of each major candidate and perusing through other sources of information (like Wikipedia, YouTube, and the blogs here on Red State of course), I came to a gradual (and almost subconscious) realization that Huckabee is the best choice for 2008 out of an imperfect field. I then tried to introspectively analyze the reason why I was gravitating towards supporting Huckabee. But before delving into my analysis, it is important to realize this following point:
None of the candidates are perfect. At some level, compromises have to be made. We have to decide which issues are most important to us, and we need to be willing to overlook some of the imperfections of the candidate in order to achieve the main goal of electing a conservative president in 2008.
Here are 6 metrics that we can use to evaluate each of the major candidates:
1. Social Conservatism (abortion; gay marriage; SCOTUS appointments)
2. Global War on Terror (support for Iraq; understanding the war; national security)
3. Fiscal Conservatism (tax policies; limited government)
4. Electability (likeability; financial backing; historical odds; oratory skills)
5. Other Important Issues (immigration; gun rights; etc.)
6. Personal Issues (family life; corruption in office; skeletons in closet)
I will give each candidate a score from 1-10 (with 10 being best) for each of these metrics. Also, I will weight each metric. These weights represent the level of importance that I personally attach to each of the categories above:
1. Social Conservatism = 35%
2. Global War on Terror = 20%
3. Fiscal Conservatism = 15%
4. Electability = 15%
5. Other Important Issues = 10%
6. Personal Issues = 5%
Note that these weights are very important to our overall analysis since they make explicit our internal political biases. Perhaps the non-political independently-minded voter would have a different set of weights.
Now let's go ahead and score each of our candidates. I will only analyze 6 candidates: Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Michael Huckabee, and Sam Brownback. The table below shows my scores as well as the final weighted score for each candidate.
Huckabee got the highest score because he was really strong in the social conservatism category (which I valued the most at 35%) and since he did well in most of the other categories. Huckabee is a well-rounded candidate who is principled but also pragmatic. Thus, Huckabee is the optimal candidate in my opinion.
You can grade the candidates on your own by visiting this Google Spreadsheet. Copy the spreadsheet or export it to a .xls Excel file. There you can change all the scores, and you can also change the underlying weights for each category. It would be interesting to hear how you graded the candidates!
There is nothing objective about this. It is a good way to figure out who best represents your views on various issues by putting weights/rankings to them. But everyone will use different weights of issue importance and rankings on those issues.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite
In one sense, you are right. But in another sense, the most objective thing one can do is to make explicit one's political biases in the form of these weights.
Given that Sen. McCain was an opponent to the President's tax cuts, I find it hard to believe you only docked him a point versus the rest of the field on fiscal matters.
It helps me too understand why I am so attracted to Romney and Thompson, and why I also find McCain attractive yet unacceptable.
I think there are a couple differences in our weighting scheme.
I place a lot more importance on the personal than you do. I do this instinctively, but over time I come to realize why. To me a selecting a political leader is not only about finding someone who promotes policies I agree with. In fact I feel it is more important to have a leader that I trust. Someone I trust to make decisions about issues that have not yet appeared.
It's one of the reasons I like Bush. While I disagree with several of his positions I trust him to be a good man- and to make decisions from the perspective of a good man.
Most of the candidates have this quality- but Romney's personal life is not something to be lightly dismissed. It is significant to me that he is married to the same woman, that he has a large family and that his family is such a large source of his identity.
The other difference in weighting is the weight we give to social vs fiscal issues. While I am very conservative on Social issues, I see Fiscal and Social Conservatism as being linked, and I see Fiscal Conservatism as being more revealing of the actual effect of future policies. Probably because I am very suspicious that anything good can come from government at all. I see the expansion of government as connected to the decline of social values.
So while I ascribe good motives to social conservatives who stray from the fiscal conservative line, I am skeptical that their policies will be effective.
Thus I place a lot of weight on a candidates Social Conservatism, but give equal weight to Fiscal Conservatism.
Finally, while I admire McCain's general fiscal conservatism- his position on Campaign Finance repels me. It stinks of a lack of trust by those who govern in the judgment of those who are governed. Something I consider extremely dangerous.
My weights would go like this:
Social: 20%
War: 20%
Fiscal: 20%
Electable: 10%
Other: 10%
Personal: 20%
Interestingly this puts both Romney and Thompson at 8, and puts Huckabee at 7.9. About how I would rank my preferences currently myself. (Though I give the edge to Romney- simply because he's actually announced - I'll reassess Thompson once he finally decides to commit).