Technidigm-2000: On-the-Level, Common Sense Technically Speaking

I am updating my free book (On-the-Level: Common Sense, Technically Speaking) that I posted on the Internet (technidigm.org) back in 1996. Rather than the previous hyperlinked approach, I am just using one MS Word document, which will be easier to navigate and is also free. It is not really free for everyone since it is still will seem painfully long and deep to many people. It does still take some effort to wade through.

Part of that effort (Appendix A) includes an assessment/numerical scores for political candidates. I would like to solicit the help of as many people as may be interested in exercising that assessment process for this current election. Participation in this exercise may also help some people decide which candidates to vote for. I would also like to collect data and comments relative to my weighted assessment approach, which gives extra credit for having miliary experience and for integrity. Some of this is hard to assess, but anything would be better than the current approach.

Those who choose to participate in this, please send me your results and/or comments. All I need is the obvious info about what candidate, what race, the scoring breakdown, and the total score for each candidate. You may also comment on the validity of the results and whether the approach is helpful.

Feel free to pass this on to others who may have the ability and interest to participate. You might also send an email to the candidates in your area and ask them to do a self-assessment and let you know their score.

Appendix A
Political Candidate Assessments

One of the central problems that needs to be fixed is that the process for electing people to responsible government or political positions does not ensure that the best people are selected, even among those who seek to be selected. Others do not seek to be elected simply because of the onerous process, which includes a lot of distasteful but supposedly mandatory elements.

There is no need to expand on the problems of modern political campaigns since anyone can come up with a list of their own. The purpose of the following assessment process is to suggest a way of evaluating politicians such that many of the current problems in the political process are sidestepped. It would be nice to be able to avoid negative ads, avoid having political posters on every corner, avoid being limited to voting for career politicians, and at the same time encourage other, more capable and experienced people to seek to lead?

Well, you can make up your own parameters and evaluation scheme, but mine is provided below. Mine emphasizes age, education, non-political experience, health, military experience, and integrity. If two politicians running for the same office have significantly different scores, the election/voying process is made easier. They can even argue over each otherâ€™s score and still provide the voter with more information than we usually get from campaign ads and slick slogans.

Self Assessments and Self Scores

The first step for each political candidate is to do a self-assessment and an assessment of the opposition. Voters can do this themselves if the candidates do not want to do so. Are you the better candidate or not? Are you better educated, more experienced, more ethical? If you can quantify this assessment, you have a quick way to show superiority. You would be able to say something like, "My Technidigm-2000 self assessment score is 85 out of a hundred. Using the same criteria, my opponent is only scoring at 55." Further, you could say, "Even if each of us is given the maximum points for integrity, my real-life experience and education still result in a significantly higher score."

Scoring forces the opposing candidates to argue directly for more points and, thus, keeps the debate focused on which candidate can be expected to do a better job, regardless of party affiliation.

Self Assessments and Leadership Evaluations:
Evaluation Maximum Points = 100

Please enter below the number of points for each criterion indicated. I suggest that you consider the following guidelines in your assessment.

For the education category, the full number of points may be awarded if a diploma was received. Partial points for education are not appropriate. For example, an individual who drops out of high school a month before graduation should receive no points for a having a high school education, even if it is "not their fault." There are ways to complete one's high school education, and they should be used. Rationalizations are not acceptable.

For the industry and military experience categories, please use zero points for none and ten for those having a full career, normally at least 20 years. It is not likely that a person would have completed two such diverse careers unless they were in their late 50s or 60s. Political and government experience should not be included except to the extent that it was nonpartisan. We are interested in promoting "real life" experience in which a person is expected to have and to apply honorable traits such as integrity, hard work, and selflessness. While one can learn a lot in partisan politics, nonpartisan politics are much more difficult and statesmanlike. This is consistent with the best intentions of the most honorable among the U. S. founding fathers and with the needs of the constitutional framework.

The age related assessment points start at age 30, allowing for the over confidence of youth to subside. Score one point for each year over 30 up to the age of 55 (up to 25 points). This acknowledges the wisdom that comes purely from the general experience that each person accumulates during a lifetime. Obviously, age-related wisdom is accumulated before and after this span of years, but the goal is to achieve a reasonable point balance relative to the other assessment parameters.

The health category reflects the need for leaders to be able to handle the stress of decision making and leadership. Health includes physical as well as mental condition. Unless evidence is available to the contrary, ten points should be assigned to the health category. The health category is not intended to reflect physical disabilities, except that someone who has overcome a physical handicap is probably quite healthy.

Technidigm-2000 Self Assessment Worksheet

Education (maximum 25 points):

Experience (up to 40 points):

Take credit only for experience that is other than polarized advocacy work such as partisan government and political activities. If you have always just been a career politician, you get no points here. Any full-time service or employment that put your life on the line can be defined as military service, such as being a police officer or even a fireman. Expect to get arguments from opponents on anything that you cannot defend. Apply one point for each 2 years, up 20 years and 10 points for each area:

Age Over 30 (up to 25 points):

Good Health/Fitness (up to 10 points):

Start with 5 points as average� If you run marathons or can swim for a mile, take 10 points. If you have any life threatening debilitation that would compromise your ability to work 20-hour days effectively (if you had to), take no points: _____

The final category is INTEGRITY (up to 20 points)

One approach to determining the points for integrity is to start at 10 points and try to think of strengths and weaknesses, adding and subtracting a point accordingly. You should document your approach and rationale. If you have a prison record or cheated on your taxes, I would not take any points here. If you have won the Medal of Honor, you might be able to defend 20 points on this. All others need to do some soul searching, perhaps by reading the extensive discussions on this in my book On-the-Level.

INTEGRITY -- DEFINITION: The entire, unimpaired state of anything, particularly of the mind; moral soundness or purity; incorruptness; uprightness; honesty. It comprehends the whole moral character, but has a special reference to uprightness in mutual dealings, transfers of property, and agencies for others. (Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged)

In the political and government arena, a zero for integrity means that the person is off-the-level consistently, a topic discussed in great detail in On-the-Level. A zero on integrity may be due to issues related to personal ambition (mostly professional politicians, perhaps) or due to accepting money from a special interest group to promote a limited view or agenda. It is up to the evaluator, and rebuttals can be expected.

We all would prefer that everyone have 20 points for integrity, but realistically this can only be an achievement objective for most of us. If you claim 20 points for integrity, you might have been an Eagle Scout, but you will also have anecdotes or other evidence that describes selflessness, attention to helping others, paying your taxes on time, staying out of jail, and having no DUIâ€™s on your record. Keep in mind that it is easy to be generous if you are rich, so stay focused on integrity and not generosity. We are looking for true character traits more than mere actions of generosity unless you gave your last dime to some charity.

Factors to consider in determining points for integrity are those that are important to you. Discussions with others on integrity provide you only with general information as to what integrity means to them, perhaps allowing you to adjust you own thinking. You can define integrity in your own terms. Just be prepared to defend your thinking on this.

If you are a candidate for political office, you may need to explain how you arrived at your final overall score either for yourself or (if you do an assessment on your opponent) relative to your opponent.

Total Score (to 100 points): _____

If not yet done, score all the opponents against the same criteria. In the interest of being forthright, you could even make an appointment with them to discuss your criteria and perceptions, soliciting theirs as well. It is difficult to lose since you can take advantage of any response given by your opponents, especially a refusal to talk about it. Nevertheless, it is important to maintain your integrity and your sense of fair play.

Being able to quantify one's qualifications relative to the opposition is fundamental to being concise and effective in sound-bite politics. The people understand numbers better than they understand opinions. With a little imagination, you can extrapolate this short discussion to various situations that a candidate might face. It is important to remember that, whatever the final result of such an exchange, you have established the importance of having experience and education (wisdom) as well as integrity.

An Example Application in a 2006 Senate Race

For example, the Senate race in Maryland for 2006 was among lawyers, all who are professional politicians. Michael Steele and Benjamin Cardin are the Republican Party and Democratic Party nominees, respectively. They are apparently both credible candidates under the current political paradigm, otherwise they would not have been put on the ballot. Nevertheless, although I can give them each 25 points for education (a law degree being a professional degree), Cardin gets a few more points for age since it appears that Steele was born in 1958, and in 2006 only gets 18 points at age 48 for being over 30 years old. Cardin was born in 1943, so he is 63 and gets the full 25 points. Each man would probably get 5 points for average health and 10 points for average levels of integrity. Neither man seems to have any military experience, and neither seems to have had any notable non-government service, so they are not able to claim the total of 20 points in those areas. Thus, Steele gets 58 points, and Cardin gets 65. These are relatively low scores, of course, but that is to be expected for career politicians.

The other candidate in the race for the Maryland seat in the US Senate is Kevin Zeese, who falls between the other two candidates since he was born in 1955. He gets 3 more points than Steele just on age, giving him 21 age points and (since everything else looks to be the same in terms of qualifications) 61 points overall.

Given these numbers, it would be appropriate to vote for Benjamin Cardin. Although he only has 65 points, he is currently the best we can expect in this race. Of course, each candidate is free to develop these data regarding the race, and I am sure each would try to find ways to claim more points for himself and fewer for the opposition. From a Technidigm-2000 perspective, it does not matter since they are all relatively poor candidates, not on-the-level such that they can be trusted to do the right thing regardless of party affiliation, and they also have no military or corporate experience that would be distinguishing. Thus, none of the three candidates can be expected to contribute effectively to solving any paricular problems, much less the full range of issues faced routinely by the Senate.

The problem here is that all three candidates are weak overall, and there is almost nothing that distinguishes any of them such that a voter should make any effort to vote for one of them. Nevertheless, if a significant percentage of voters would simply vote for the candidate with the highest Technidigm-2000 score, then we might expect future candidates to be more qualified. This would start to improve the process, which is the purpose of the 12 elements of Technidigm-2000 as far as politics are concerned.

	Technidigm.org
Online Book

Appendix A Political Candidate Assessments