Considering you need to take a test to get into most colleges these days, why not set-up a test for candidates in major elections to take? For Presidents, make a comprehensive state-of-the-world test, including foreign and domestic issues. I would have both multiple choice and essay sections. Multiple choice can test knowledge of facts including maybe some reality-check ones like "the average salary of an American is:" and then 6 choices so voters know if their dummy candidate actually believes normal Americans make 200K/yr. (hey you never know how stupid a candidate might be!) Then put an essay section with problem questions asking for detailed solutions. Buzzwords and rhetoric wouldn't go far in something like this.
Sure some candidates may refuse to take it, but what happens when you're opponent says, "Sure, I'll take it, I know the issues." Then you might re-think things a bit.
At the very least, this would be a great way for people to see if they're about to elect someone with no world knowledge.
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Most people don't care about world affairs. They care only about their own lives, and they vote for whichever politician says he will do the most for his constituents. He doesn't have to know world affairs,etc, - only how to make promises.
Belmont, You might be right about not caring about world affairs, but I don't think in national politics voters necessarily vote for who will give/promise them the most. Factors like religion and abortion cloud that up pretty well. An example is the large numbers of poor, yet religious, voters who vote Republican even though financially they're better off voting Democrat.
But I also think voters are very readily swayed by things in the news, and results of a test showing a candidates complete lack of knowledge of something you'd expect a world leader to know would go a long ways in electing someone.
And it wouldn't it be nice to have something like that? A "fail-safe" of sorts to maybe slow-down someone with many connections and lots of money but not much upstairs?
There was a republican pres candidate some years ago, think it was Dan Quayle, was known as being a dumba**. The party response was something like he would be a president for stupid people, because they have rights, too.
I believe you've discussed a 'knowledge' test. While I believe that could be useful, I would also be interested in seeing the scores of an 'intelligence' test for candidates. I'm sure they all took an IQ test at some point.
IQ tests are over rated. The things that IQ tests are restricted to special areas that is not necessarily valid for operation in the real world. Anyway, by definition, an IQ of 100 is average. A candidate of that rating would be truly representative which may not be encouraging, but you've got to operate with the species you've got.
Isn't the candidate IQ test properly referred to as a "campaign"? The score is determined by something called a "vote".
Hyenuf,That's the exact problem I'm trying to rectify! I don't know about you, but thinking back to my high school years, the captain of the football team, while also the class president, was very far from the smartest kid in school. Not saying presidential elections are the same thing, but they can be eerily similar sometimes.
So perhaps a voter IQ test is needed... Oh, wait...We used to have that but it was found to be unconstitutional.
I just came up with this idea last week, my idea was standardized tests for presidential candidates. They wouldn't have to take it but if they did and reported well then it would be good for them and the website promoting the test would provide some publicity about the results. Could be like a political award show providing some cash award for campaigns to the candidate with the highest score. Should be complex questions about international policy and perhaps submit to a panel for psycological evaluations that would be published on the web. This would be in response to the general feeling of buyers remorse a few months after the election.
This would encourage some smart, knowledgeable people to become candidates, and discourage the 10% who are real ignoramuses. And it's something the people are entitled to know. organizations often test job applicants for their qualifications in their specialty. why can't the public test prospective "public servants"?
PS: It may be that "most people" don't care about the candidate's qualifications, only if he belongs to the right party. Goody for them--they can ignore the test. The rest of us think it's worth knowing its result. And our semi-official theory of democracy holds that voting is not an act of mindless partisanship, but one in which voters are supposed to weigh the qualifications of the candidates, among other things.