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komponisto comments on Vote Qualifications, Not Issues - Less Wrong
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I believe OP is correct that voting on issues leads to affective death spirals. But the idea that we can vote on character presupposes a population composed soley of rational, non-party-affiliated politicians; and it furthermore presupposes that rational politicians will agree on value issues, which I believe is not at all the case.
Would you vote for Sarah Palin if you thought she had a good character? Would you be more likely to vote for her if you thought she was extremely competent at getting things done?
I would prefer, in decreasing order of preference:
This prompts the tangential but interesting observation that neither Sarah Palin nor George W. Bush were considered particularly incompetent or polarizing when they were merely state governors who hadn't entered the national scene.
The fact that they became this way, or were seen as such, after entering national campaigns suggests something none-too-pleasant about national politics in the U.S.