How to Decide Who to Vote For

I’m excited. I’m trying not to be, but I can’t help it. It’s primary season in the US, the long period during which the Democrats and Republicans select their candidate to run in the presidential election. Given the wall-to-wall coverage you’d think the election was just around the corner, but in fact it’s not until November 2008.

So why am I excited? Because I’m a politics geek. Sometimes it makes me laugh, more often it makes me cry, but nothing else gives me the feeling of being on the pulse of what’s going on. And arguably the most exciting event in any political calendar is a general election.

But there’s a basic question that’s never addressed, to which you’re just supposed to know the answer: ‘who should I vote for?’ The candidates are all trying to persuade you they’re the one to turn things around to your advantage, seemingly trying to help you answer that question. But it’s usually less about substance than winning smiles and firm handshakes.

Many people just aren’t interested in politics, for a variety of reasons:

• politicians are all as bad as each other, it makes no difference who’s in power or what they’re doing
• politics doesn’t affect them in their day-to-day lives, it’s the preserve of a bunch of overpaid elites in the capital who waste their taxes and deal with things way outside their sphere of interest
• they don’t understand politics, reckon they’ve managed ok without it so far and see no reason to start taking an interest now. I also suspect many people are scared to engage too much in politics because they fear they won’t be able to understand it.

The result of this is that some people make voting decisions based on poor or very little information. Some vote for the party their parents voted for. Some vote for the candidate they find the most charming. Some vote for the party promising to cut taxes the most without considering the wider implications. And some simply vote according to their favourite newspaper’s recommendation.

My contention is that politics is as simple or as complicated as you make it. At the most basic level you can take just one issue, say the environment, and view all political debate within that context. It’s quite easy to think about global trade or transport policy when all you’re thinking about is the environmental impact.

I want to offer a simple way of figuring out where you stand on the issues that matter to you. This will represent a happy medium between only thinking about one issue and trying to take on the whole of political thought, policy and history. Armed with this information you’ll be in a great position to look critically at what each electoral candidate is offering and ask the tough questions.

Let’s start with the absolute bare minimum of information you need about political allegiance. The precise terms used vary from country to country, but broadly you are either left-wing, right-wing or centrist. The left wing are broadly in favour of ‘more’ government funded by higher taxes to pay for benevolent state services and to further aims such as equality and social justice. The right-wing favour ‘less’ government, believing the public know best how to spend their money and the private sector is best placed to deliver public services. In the middle you have the centre ground. Very few parties are purely centrist as some of the divisions between left and right are either/or issues. You can’t for example advocate higher and lower taxes simultaneously. So centrists are often described as centre-left or centre-right, meaning they tend to take a fairly pragmatic, non-ideological view of the world but when it comes down to it they tip the balance in favour of either right or left.

From that description you may already have a feeling in your gut about where you fall on the spectrum. But that doesn’t necessarily map to a particular candidate or party in your country. For example, it probably won’t help you during primary season to think of yourself simply as left-wing and therefore a Democrat as that gives you no means of choosing between candidates.

So to take this to a slightly greater level of detail, below are some questions to try to tease out your thoughts on some key issues. Note down the letters corresponding to the answers you give as you go along and then check the scoring chart at the bottom.

Don’t spend too long debating your answers to the questions, just go with your first instinct.

1 Tax
a) I am willing to pay more tax if the government is able to get greater value from it than I am for things that benefit society
b) I am willing to pay more tax for some things but there are others I think are best left to the individual
c) I am able to procure the services I need more efficiently than if I allow the government to do so on my behalf

2 Nature of the State
a) I believe government is an essentially benevolent force
b) I believe there are areas in which government has a role to play and others that should stay in the private sphere
c) I believe government is an essentially inefficient force

3 The Economy
a) I believe economic growth should not be pursued with the aim of securing greater equality in society
b) I believe economic growth should be pursued to make everybody richer but the most disadvantaged must be given a safety net
c) I believe pursuing economic growth will make everybody richer and the market will take care of the less rich

4 Business
a) I believe business must be regulated to prevent workers from exploitation
b) I believe we can strike a balance between competitiveness and regulation
c) I believe businesses should be allowed to remain competitive by whatever means are legal

5 Healthcare
a) I believe healthcare should be free to all who need it and paid for through taxation
b) I believe free healthcare should be available to everyone, but that individuals should be able to choose to make their own arrangements instead
c) I believe free healthcare should be provided for the most vulnerable in society. Everyone else should be free to make their own arrangements

6 Education
a) I believe the state should provide all children with the same, free education
b) I believe basic free education should be provided but alternatives should be available for those willing to pay and/or for the brightest students
c) I believe parents are best placed to make choices for their children and should pay for the best education they can afford

Now count up the number of a’s, b’s and c’s you chose. Mostly a’s and you’re a leftie, mostly b’s and you’re a centrist, mostly c’s and you’re a rightie. If you got mostly b’s, your second highest tally will tell you if you lean more towards the centre-left or the centre-right.

I suspect many people’s answers will include a lot of b’s, mainly because most people take a pragmatic approach to politics. But the telling thing will be whether you have more a’s or more c’s, telling you you lean either to the centre-left or the centre-right.

Now listen to what the candidates say in their election campaigns, bearing in mind your answers to the questions above. There are many issues, like foreign policy, not covered in the above, but this should give you a good place to start when evaluating candidates and parties.

Clearly this is far from a perfect system as your instinctive responses are likely to be informed by your previous political conditioning, be it from newspapers, family or elsewhere. But it’s a quick and dirty way of giving you the information about yourself and your beliefs on the main issues to start working out who to vote for in an election. With this, it’s more likely to be your own decision rather than that of the most persuasive voice in your environment.

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