You hire a handyman or contractor to do work on your property and he does a terrible job. Despite your frustration over his shoddy work, would you keep hiring him to do more work for you simply because he is a nice guy?
Most likely you just said “No!” You would not put-up with shoddy work. It would be contrary to your interests and is not being a very good steward of your money and property.
Yet many people vote for a local candidate for political office because the candidate is a nice person. Perhaps it is someone you know from church, charity events, a community organization, local sports, or from being from your neighborhood. It might even be a smiling candidate who seems nice from posting Facebook pictures of every restaurant, store, and event he visits while out campaigning.
Voting for someone because he or she is likeable is great if you are electing “Miss Congeniality” but it is a terrible way to elect people to political office.
What you will find is that most politicians are outgoing and generally nice people to visit with. But some of those nice people are for policies with which you strongly disagree.
Maybe the nice guy from your neighborhood is the better candidate or maybe not.
You aren’t turning your back on a friend when you reject them as a candidate, and there is no reason for you to start disliking them. Pick the best candidate just like you would pick the best handyman or contractor.
It takes a little research on your part, otherwise your vote is no different than picking a name out of a hat. You must look past the vague political catch phrases listed on campaign cards just as you need to know more about a handyman than he has a nice card posted at your favorite café.
A great tool for learning about current Arkansas state Senators and Representatives is the Conduit for Commerce Scorecard. You don’t even have to rely on how Conduit scored the legislators because the bottom half of the report shows how they voted on a list of economic issues and on a list of social issues. This tool is directed at conservative voters but the list of votes is useful even if you are a big government liberal.
