The Schrug

Dear political interviewers:

Can you please explain to me exactly what you’re trying to do during this primary season? Because it sure seems to me that you have little interest in helping your viewers make an informed, intelligent decision in the voting booth. Instead, it seems that your chief concern is to ensure that you get people tuning in every night to watch the cockfights that you are staging.

Please do us a favor and stop asking questions that candidates can’t answer without provoking a new round of squabbling. It’s obvious that the candidates don’t want to get those questions, but I think you somehow interpret their reluctance to respond as a sign that you are onto something important that we, the voters, need to know. That’s really not the case. We don’t need our politicians boiled down to nasty caricatures of themselves, nor do we want this election to be about one or two decisions that any of these folks made 5, 10, or 20 years ago.

What we need is a better understanding of how these people will behave once they stop campaigning and start governing. I’m not talking about specific policies. We all know that any action requiring legislation is going to end up a lot different from what the next president originally proposes. So don’t ask whether a certain number should be $100 billion or $150 billion, or whether a health care plan would cover 98% or 99% of the public.

Instead, how about asking the following:

• Who are your top domestic and foreign policy advisors right now? Whose counsel would you seek in those areas if you are elected?
• Generally speaking, under what circumstances should the will of the majority be trumped by the rights of the individual or the minority?
• When you get conflicting advice from people whose opinions you trust and respect equally, how do you make a decision?
• Sometimes it’s necessary to make short-term sacrifices for long-term gains. But it’s hard to get popular support for anything that causes short-term hardships. How would you get the American public to rally behind programs that might be painful to swallow?
• Does the United States have any responsibility to pursue policies that might improve the lives of people in other countries at the expense of its own citizens’ well-being? If so, give some examples and explain why this is appropriate. If not, what are some current or past examples of policies in this arena that have been wrongly pursued?
• What kind of person should be nominated to the federal judiciary in general and to the Supreme Court in particular?
• When is it appropriate for the president to use a signing statement to reinterpret or even negate legislation that has just been enacted?
• It is inconceivable that the United States would ever allow a foreign government to establish a military base on U.S. soil. Generally speaking, without specific reference to Iraq, when, where, and why is it appropriate to have U.S. military bases established on foreign soil?
• If a current federal law conflicts with your religious beliefs, would you work to have that law overturned or perhaps simply unenforced? Why or why not?

If you like those questions, give me a call. I’m sure I can think of some more. And yes, I will submit these questions at Politico.com.