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:

• a competent politician with values similar to mine
• an incompetent politician with values similar to mine
• a rock
• an incompetent politician with values different from mine
• worst case: a very competent politician with values different from mine