Tuesday, October 05, 2004
thoughts on debates:
It’s my personal belief that what we want to see from our political candidates is care, experience, and leadership. To that end, I suggest questions that get at those three areas. Often, the election cycle is compared to a long job interview, and rightly so. So let’s ask questions that trained employers ask. (I used to be a consultant helping businesses hire the best employees.) My suggestion would be to get the candidates to tell about their past experience showing X, Y, Z. The best way to do this is ‘tell me about a time when’ questions. For example:
-Tell me about a time when you showed leadership within a community that led to a positive change for that community.
- Tell me about a time when you worked to build bridges between what you consider two different perspective groups, explain the outcome, and why you feel they had very different perspectives.
- Tell me about your experiences giving your time to the community when it wasn’t connected to your job
- Tell me about a time when you did outreach to a community that you aren’t a part of, either ethnically, financially or socially and how that outreach led to something getting accomplished.
Why and How questions are also very good, but How has to be focused on the individual’s experience:
Why do you feel you should be Supervisor over the person sitting next to you?
(another thing about the debates is that there’s never any distinguishing between the candidates done by each other. Everyone is too afraid to look like they’re attacking someone. Well, almost everyone. )
Why do you feel a background in ____ will be what is best for the job of Supervisor?
Why did you decide to run for this office when all these other folks were already in the race?
How have you worked to improve D5 in the past?
How have you worked with the small business community in the past?
How have you dealt with customer service issues in a hectic office environment in the past?
My final thought about the debate process is that most of the audience only seems to enjoy the parts when the candidates are moving away from the structured process and doing quick back and forth arguments. In other words, when the moderator loses control is when it gets interesting.
It’s my personal belief that what we want to see from our political candidates is care, experience, and leadership. To that end, I suggest questions that get at those three areas. Often, the election cycle is compared to a long job interview, and rightly so. So let’s ask questions that trained employers ask. (I used to be a consultant helping businesses hire the best employees.) My suggestion would be to get the candidates to tell about their past experience showing X, Y, Z. The best way to do this is ‘tell me about a time when’ questions. For example:
-Tell me about a time when you showed leadership within a community that led to a positive change for that community.
- Tell me about a time when you worked to build bridges between what you consider two different perspective groups, explain the outcome, and why you feel they had very different perspectives.
- Tell me about your experiences giving your time to the community when it wasn’t connected to your job
- Tell me about a time when you did outreach to a community that you aren’t a part of, either ethnically, financially or socially and how that outreach led to something getting accomplished.
Why and How questions are also very good, but How has to be focused on the individual’s experience:
Why do you feel you should be Supervisor over the person sitting next to you?
(another thing about the debates is that there’s never any distinguishing between the candidates done by each other. Everyone is too afraid to look like they’re attacking someone. Well, almost everyone. )
Why do you feel a background in ____ will be what is best for the job of Supervisor?
Why did you decide to run for this office when all these other folks were already in the race?
How have you worked to improve D5 in the past?
How have you worked with the small business community in the past?
How have you dealt with customer service issues in a hectic office environment in the past?
My final thought about the debate process is that most of the audience only seems to enjoy the parts when the candidates are moving away from the structured process and doing quick back and forth arguments. In other words, when the moderator loses control is when it gets interesting.
