No matter your opinion of President Barack Obama, it would be a very hard to argue that he isn’t an eloquent speaker. It doesn’t matter what he’s talking about. I always want him to keep talking.
But words can be as dangerous as they are beautiful, especially when the eloquence with which a candidate speaks quite often overshadows the content of the message. Voters have tended to buy into the glitz and glamour of a campaign trail as opposed to the long-term effects of its stances. But I say, no longer. My friends, things are changing.
CBS News issued a poll earlier this week that portrayed Obama’s approval rating in a steady decline from its 68 percent peak in April 2009 to 50 percent on Monday, a 4 percent increase from one week earlier, which many analysts attribute to his response regarding Haiti.
So, why the drop in approval? Is it because Americans just weren’t sure what they were getting into when Obama was elected?
Why not have a test to make sure people understand each candidate’s political stances before they’re allowed to vote? Not some full-scale comprehensive exam on the cause and effect of each choice the candidate might make, but something simple — just enough to ensure everybody is comfortable with his and her fellow citizens’ abilities to make conscious decisions when it comes to picking our country’s leader.
Joseph Farah, editor-in-chief of the Washington, D.C.-headquartered news site WorldNetDaily, has proposed a similar test. Farah believes strongly that an awareness test would help our country in extraordinary ways. In one of his online columns in 2006 he said, “I guarantee you leaders would be elected who would make America safer.”
Although we do have a right to vote as citizens, it isn’t a free-for-all in many states, which is a good thing.
There are currently 18 states that do not allow felons to vote if they are incarcerated, on parole, or on probation. There are others that prohibit certain individuals from voting if they are considered mentally handicapped or unstable.
Whether a person is mentally handicapped and unable to learn or simply unwilling to learn, the end result is the same — they are unaware of the candidates’ political stances and should have no authority in deciding our leadership until they do know. As Mark Twain once said, “A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.”
Dr. Jack Crittenden, associate professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies, said that “a series of questions unfolds” when you discuss the details of a voter exam. He brought up many potential problems that would arise if such a test was instituted, such as whether a candidate's political positions are necessarily more important than his or her character, and whether the candidates should be forced to adhere to their stances.
Unfortunately, there is no test to determine a candidate’s character. There is no test to determine a voter’s character either. But a test that will assure the country that all voters are, at least, aware — that will help us tremendously.
Who will write and grade these tests, if such a proposition were taken into consideration, would make for a long-term debate, but it is something our legislators should work on. Clearly a test like this will be controversial, but it will help in ensuring citizens the government is taking steps to help make sure that only intelligent and aware (and alive, ACORN), are making important decisions that will determine the future of our country.
Reach Brian at brian.p.anderson@asu.edu
