With compassion, Miller passes test

Dallas Morning News | Jacquielynn Floyd:

"The specifics may vary, but most of us evaluate politicians pretty much the same way. We consider their positions on the issues, their experience, their leadership capabilities. We weigh them according to their opinions on taxes or public safety or any of a thousand other items we cherish in our zealous and partisan hearts. It shouldn't be a primary consideration, and maybe shouldn't be a consideration at all, but a lot of us also subject them to the barbecue test, an emotional response to another person's general demeanor: If I were having a barbecue in my back yard, would I invite this person?"

Don't encourage them. I sometimes think "the barbecue test" is the only consideration voters give to the candidates. The quick and easy cartoonish characterizations carry the day. Bill Clinton was a party animal. Bob Dole was a crotchety old man. Clinton wins that comparison, and the election, hands down. George Bush, another party animal, wins over nerdy Al Gore. And over haughty John Kerry. Our American elections are not so much choices of where voters want the country to go but who they want to sit next to on the journey. Is it any wonder we so often end up in the ditch?