What Should Pollsters Ask?

 Maybe there's a question pollsters should ask more often: "What is your primary criterion for choosing a candidate to vote for?" Remember during the 2000 campaign, Bush-Gore, when people were known to say, "I like George Bush because he seems like somebody I could sit and have a beer with"? Is likeability the primary reason you vote for someone? Is the candidate's seeming resemblance to you and your life a primary factor? I recall saying, in response to this kind of answer, "I'm choosing a President, not my best friend."

On the other hand, having a sense that the candidate understands what my life is like--whether he has ever lived that way or not--is, to my mind, a reasonable criterion. Yes, no one who was able to go to an Ivy League school will ever be able to claim he or she has lived something like my life...but from the way they speak, from the people they associate with, from the positions they espouse, I can still say, "That person understands my circumstances."

And that takes us to policy. There's a meme going around that voting is like public transportation. You pick the bus or train to take based on which one will get you closest to your destination; you don't stand around waiting for the one that will take you door-to-door, because that rarely occurs. I don't expect any candidate to agree with me on everything. I don't even expect perfect agreement on the most important things. I expect that the candidate I choose, like the bus I choose, is traveling in the same direction I am. He may end the trip before I reach my destination, or I may get off before he reaches the end of his line, but he's at least getting me closer to my goal than I am now.

Finally, I--and the candidate--must be willing to accept that half-a-loaf is better than none. OK--we won't get, for instance, universal health care this go-round. But can we reach a deal that gives a significant number of people health care who do not have it now...and then work to expand that number in the future? Refusing to take the half-step because it's not the full step only leaves us where we are.