The International House of Bacon

Typically, when voting for federal and state-level officials, I have a three leveled litmus test to figure out if a candidate is palatable enough for me to vote for, in order of necessity:

1) Economy – does the candidate/official show a tendency for reasonable spending, a logical tax rate? Is the candidate aware of the role of businesses, big and small, on our economy? Is the candidate aware of the reality of the United States economy, which is not based in manufacturing but rather service, and thus requires a more global view?

2) Constitutional issues – does the candidate/official show a basic understanding of Constitutional principles? Will the candidate, if applicable, support the appointment and/or confirmation of judges who show a firm understanding of those principles?

3) Rights – Does the candidate take a Constitutional approach to rights, typically deferring to the individual when realistically possible.

That’s it. With few exceptions, I can boil down what’s important to me as a voter and how things would work out using this litmus test. Retroactive application has worked in many circumstances as well, and the best part (well, “best” meaning “part that makes it the most failsafe”) is that it’s a decidedly nonpartisan one – while conservative politicians generally meet these issues in a positive way more than liberal ones, it doesn’t always mean that the expected result is what comes up.

In the Presidential election right now, only four candidates really hit these points well enough for me: Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Bill Richardson, and Fred Thompson. In a situation like 2008, pretty much the entire Democratic field save Richardson were eliminated along with McCain and Giuliani on my economic test, I was able to eliminate Huckabee on the second, and Romney on the third (although you could make a case for Romney on the first issue – McCain, for the record, is an abject failure on all three).

The problem, of course, is when you get to a situation like today: Richardson, Thompson, and Tancredo are out (Tancredo had no chance of winning anyway), and my NH primary choice, Ron Paul, isn’t going to win either. Creates a bit of a problem. In 2000, I voted Libertarian, and in 2004, I wrote in Romney (a vote I regret now). Both times I ended up taking that route because Bush and Gore both missed the boat on point 2, and Bush ended up losing out on point 1 by the time 2004 rolled around, and we don’t need to recall the disaster that was/is John Kerry. I didn’t think it could get worse than that, but looking at the 2008 slate…

The problem, I guess, is that the template works. The Manchester Union Leader had a somewhat hysterical op-ed this week about something that relates very close to this litmus test. Shortly before I moved up here, the state government went from Republican to Democratic leadership, including the governor, John Lynch. The op-ed highlights the most obvious concern that anyone could have reasonably predicted: within 2 years, the NH budget increased nearly 18%, we’re running a deficit, and, after hiking various fees, they’re floating an income tax to make up the difference. I mean, seriously. Even discarding the fact that they tried to get a seatbelt law passed, and they somehow succeeded in a minimum wage hike and smoking ban, anyone could have seen this coming on either side, and what has it ultimately benefited? Even with constrained spending, the NH DOT (Department of Transportation) is a money pit, the schools are still achieving by local need rather than any statewide improvement, and our pockets are what’s funding the relative stagnation.

It’s why economy is #1 on my list – rights issues ultimately end up with the proper result over time, the Constitution goes through phases, but it’s very, very hard to repair the damage once costs increase and handouts start happening. All we hear about with Bush is the insane amount of spending – a very legitimate criticism. The spending would have outpaced the tax revenues even if the tax cut and the wars never occurred, which means that this was coming no matter what. At no point are any of the candidates who are likely to be President a year from now talking about doing anything about that, and the Democrats in particular are looking to spend even more money on the same things that Bush has, war excluded (and even then, we all know that’s not going to change short term). If your litmus test was sane economic policy, and you’re supporting the Democrats but think Bush has been bad for the economy and for spending, there’s a disconnect there. Vice-versa if you think Bush has been great but find the Democratic (or Republican for that matter) initiatives to be favorable.

Of course, a lot of people are voting because of the war, or health care, or some other reason, and I’ll address those later as well. But something tells me if we moved away from single-issue situations toward a more reasoned approach to who we’re supporting, the landscape might be different. We might not have to rely on things like gridlock or hope that the Courts fix the problems that the legislators and executives have set up for us. Problems that we really should have seen coming.