Some advice from the Founders on how to choose your candidate

Politics has become a game or reality television show. It is not real.

Voters, by and large, respond to style and perception and ignore the substance. But style is an entertainment function. Perception can be and is manipulated. It is set, largely, by the media. It is no basis for a system of government.

Iowans will be caucusing in 11 days. Voters in New Hampshire go to the polls eight days later. Some, if not most, presidential candidates will be weeded out after that.

If you plan to vote, consider your candidate carefully. James Madison warned us in Federalist No. 10 that “[e]nlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” That has been the case for far too long. It behooves us to consider carefully whom we’re choosing for public office, particularly on the state level, where we have some real say in the process.

Don’t just listen to candidates’ words. Consider their actions.

And remember these warnings from the Founding Fathers:

• John Witherspoon, sermon at public thanksgiving after peace: “Is it reasonable to expect wisdom from the ignorant? Fidelity from the profligate? Assiduity and application to public business from men of a dissipated life? Is it reasonable to commit the management of public revenue to one who has wasted his own patrimony? Those, therefore, who pay no regard to religion and sobriety in the persons whom they send to the legislature of any State are guilty of the greatest absurdity and will soon pay dear for their folly.”
• Noah Webster, History of the United States: “[I]f the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted . . . . If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.”
• Samuel Adams in a letter to Elbridge Gerry: “If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity of manners, of zeal for the honour of the Supreme Being and the welfare of the commonwealth; if men possessed of these other excellent qualities are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our affairs will rest on a solid and permanent foundation.”
• And finally, this from Madison: “All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.”

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