I’ve been watching the last few days of US election fever with some bemusement. There are several candidates who are sufficiently candid on economic or foreign policy points to earn a failing grade without much further ado. It’s harder to be clear about the remainder, however.

The news coverage focuses heavily on who is polling how high, where and among whom, and how much of a surprise this is. (It can’t not be a surprise, otherwise it wouldn’t be a news story. Surely?) When it does touch on policy issues, the questions are simplistic, and the responses are predictable rote, with wording carefully scripted by public relations experts to sound just so, given this advert yesterday and that faux pas last week. (I say “predictable”, but it can’t be, otherwise it wouldn’t be news. Surely?)

The “debates” have, with occasional exceptions, been shallow and inane, and have been prominently sponsored by new media champions of mediocrity, such as YouTube and Facebook. Soundbites are sweepingly simplistic and vaguely general, instead of specific, thoughtful, detailed and occasionally profound. (One can dream, can one not?) The result is that especially from far away, most candidates, red and blue, display little more behind their hairsprayed coiffs and Colgate smiles than a bewildering mix of sanity and idiocy, realism and idealism, charm and dogmatic zeal, wit and viciousness.

Lawrence B. Lindsey, writing in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago, offers an interesting test against which to judge prospective candidates:

First, has the candidate faced a crisis or overcome a major setback in his or her life? A president’s first crisis will teach two important lessons. The first is that bad things happen, in fact they happen on a regular basis. The second is that the real power of the office to affect, let alone control, events is far less than imagined. If the occupant of the Oval Office has faced this double whammy–encountering a tragedy involving events over which he or she has had little control, yet finding a way to persevere–the new president is far more likely to succeed. […]

Second, has the candidate had a variety of life experiences? The presidency is a job for a generalist. You never know what direction a crisis will come from: foreign threats, economic calamity, civil unrest. […]

Third, can the candidate tell the difference between a foreign enemy and a political opponent? A certain degree of ruthlessness is a necessary attribute for any successful CEO or president. But our liberty, which is ultimately our nation’s greatest resource, requires that a president restrain this trait when acting domestically.

We should seek an individual who is ruthless about protecting us against others, but acts with charity toward all and malice toward none at home: a tall order. But this trait comes out on the campaign trail, and in the past job performances of the candidates. We should opt for candidates who are ruthless in debating real public policy issues but steer away from attacking the personal traits of their opponents. […]

Lindsey himself prefers Fred Thompson, and the more I see of Thompson, the more I like him. He strikes me as a tough, honest, common-sense fellow, who doesn’t like politics and doesn’t trust a government that tries to be (and do) all things to all people.

But either way, these tests of character, as opposed to policy, serve a useful purpose both in adding a few names to the elimination list, and qualifying those who might not share your own political and economic views. That alone makes Lindsey’s article a valuable read.

Since the pre-9/11 threat of American isolationism and its reversal on that fateful day, American politics has been a bit of a preoccupation in my thinking. In this election cycle, however, I find myself far from sure whom I’d prefer to see stand for election less than a year from now. Seems I’m not alone. Tyler Cowen, over at Marginal Revolution, has the same problem, as he muses in this interesting take on Ron Paul’s candidacy.

It’s true I’m broadly speaking libertarian, and Ron Paul in many ways approximates libertarian positions, but there’s a lot about him that I find discomfiting. Not least among them are his unrealistic stance on the Iraq war (principled though it is), the nationalistic undertone in his talk, and the odds against his winning even a primary, which raises the spectre of splitting votes away from another putative small-government individual-liberty candidate.

It’s true, however, that his Austrian views, and particularly his classical libertarian view on central banking and sound money make him a very interesting candidate to watch. He was on CNN yesterday, talking to Wolf Blitzer, who (some would say appropriately) got to stand in for the faux-news show hosted by starving-and-striking Jon Stewart. It’s not often you hear someone trying to explain sound money versus inflationary currency on CNN.