These are in alphabetical, not priority, order. I haven’t given them weights, although they clearly must have different weightings in our minds. I’m biting my tongue and not grading any current Presidential candidates on these criteria, even where their score might be pretty clear. (Really—no hidden agenda.)
- Age. The Constitution says you have to be 35 to become President and every candidate will qualify for that. Is there such a thing as being too young or too old? No: as with all of these categories we are dealing with qualitative judgments. Within that framework: if you are the Youngest Ever, or the Oldest Ever, serious candidate: that will probably scare some voters and count against you. In addition, age tends to (not always!) bring health issues and even a loss of capabilities. Our scores will vary. If someone is qualified for full-age Social Security retirement, I count that against them.
- ‘Comfortable in his/her own skin.’ The older I get (see 1 above: I score poorly on my own scoresheet) the more I find this ambiguous, qualitative category to be crucial. It captures so many things I want in a leader: someone who doesn’t easily feel threatened, someone who can admit ignorance or ask for help, and yet still clearly be in charge. I think Obama and Reagan both score high here; I think Nixon and Gore score low. Trump may have taken this into negative numbers.
- Debate Performance. We won’t get a handle on this for a while, for most candidates—but even in their one-on-one interviews you can pick up clues today. It’s to some extent artificial: it emphasizes quick rather than deep thinking, and especially rewards the ability to come up with zingers. (Lloyd Bentsen scores very well here.) But we need to weigh this, because if you really suck here you will probably lose the election.
- Endorsements. These can raise or lower a candidate’s score in my book, and probably in yours too. I’m impressed when a candidate gets an early endorsement from a progressive labor leader or feminist. You might not want to tell me that Joe Lieberman likes you.
- Executive Branch Experience. This is a biggie for me, but it isn’t a simple metric. Real, messy, executive branch experience means someone has learned to navigate the trade-offs among competing interests, keep their constituents and supporters on board, negotiate with both legislators and the private sector, and manage their staff and their week’s schedule while they do that. It’s possible but certainly not guaranteed that executive experience outside government will hone these skills. (I think Eisenhower got them, but not Trump.) It isn’t as easy as “Governors and Mayors get a win here” because many states have weak governor roles.
- Fundraising. How gauche! But Obama scores well here: lots of small donations count. Personally, I don’t want the purest, poorest standard-bearer.
- Inclusivity Profile. (There’s gotta be a better name for this.) I’m actually a white male—I’m in the cohort of all Presidents but one. In 2020, my own scorecard awards points for opening that door wider: whether that means being a woman, or a person of color, or gay, or non-Christian. Does that make a candidate more likely to win? Maybe not, maybe. But we need those candidates to win.
- Issues. I started out with four groups of issues (economics, environment, foreign affairs, and health care). It didn’t really capture police shootings, or children in cages, or forced-birth judges, or government surveillance. A ‘traditional’ candidate scorecard is all about categories of issues, but for now I’m inclined to make this a single criterion with a high weight score.
- Scandals. I suppose this tries to capture how serious any scandals are, how well the candidate seems to handle them, and even how likely the candidate is to get mired in new ones.
There you have it. That’s how one voter will try to evaluate the field.
Are these reasonable criteria?
Is it missing something big?
Is there a candidate who really excites you, where these criteria somehow obscure what we should see?