While we're waiting for the results, I'm going to join Ross in defending the debate. Not because I think that the questions were useful; I think they were vacuous nonsense. But I really wonder if any of it matters.
You can't judge a candidate on their policy platform; half of it is shameless pandering with fictional numbers, and the rest of it won't pass Congress.
No matter what you think the most important issue is now, the odds are extremely good that the candidate's most important task will be dealing with something that neither you nor (s)he foresaw.
Trying to judge candidates on their "character" seems equally foolish. Candidates are essentially on an eighteen month first date. Their task is to seem unrealistically compelling until it's too late for anyone to do anything about it.
There's a rich body of literature suggesting that job interviews are actually counterproductive. You are much better off hiring people (or not) based on their resume and/or body of work. Interviewing actually reduces your chances of hiring a satisfactory candidate.
I'm beginning to think that the same is true of election campaigns. They're just saying whatever they think will make us like them, so why bother with it? Look at their voting record and call it a day.
No one will take this advice, since even the decision scientists who issue it conduct job interviews. But it sure would make this whole thing a lot less tedious.
You are correct when you write, "Trying to judge candidates on their "character" seems equally foolish," assuming that the quotes around character refer to the campaign generated, media reinforced narrative.
But character, true character, really should count. George W. Bush's only real accomplishment as of 2000 was that he quit an alcoholic lifestyle and cocaine--at age 41. He is also, among other things, incurious, willfully ignorant, petulant, malleable, self-absorbed, and mean spirited. In other words, he's a spoiled frat-boy who never really grew up (although credit where it's due, he did give up the booze, which is often quite a challenge). There were plenty of legitimate reasons to vote against George W. Bush. His poor character is among them.
What in Obama's voting record causes you to support him?
"Fight the conventional wisdom" sounds so bold but what Megan is doing is repeating beltway conventional wisdom. "None of this matters, you can't trust any of 'em, so we'll do what we want" has long been the prevailing attitude in the traditional media.
A week ago she was so into the logic that we should give the public what it wants. Now that the public is almost universally displeased she, like most other media members, is bending over backwards creating elaborate justifications for giving the public what it despises.
This is the second post today that can be summarized in totality with "shit happens - shrug."
Margalis, do you maybe have some sort of research to back that up? I'm disinclined to believe everything your write unless you have at least got a thesis defense paper or something to back it up.
All in the interest of keeping Megan's comments section from degenerating into a casual conversation based on interesting anecdotes and candid personal observations, y'see. I'm sure a seasoned, well-researched professional commeter such as yourself will understand.
Having not actually watched the debate when it aired, I didn't really pay much attention to the outrage vented by some of the bloggers. I watched it last night just to see what all the fuss was about. I really don't see what the problem was- it was standard debate fare, the only real difference in it was that Obama didn't handle a lot of the questions with much of aplomb. I suspect a lot of these bloggers and journalists that signed that letter are ardent Obama supporters trying to distract attention from their candidate's less than stellar performance. The only thing Obama had going for him was that Clinton didn't really do a whole lot better.
What exactly would you like me to back up? That she is repeating beltway conventional wisdom?
Marc Ambinder defended it here at The Atlantic. Adam Nagourney defended it for the Times. David Brooks loved it. John Harris & Jim Vanderhei at Politico defended it. Philip Klein at American Spectator. I could go on, how many names do you want?
McCain just gave a speech today (in front of a shuttered factory) in Youngstown, and said that more trade is part of the solution. So much for saying what people want to hear.
In regards to the debate and the questions Obama faced - I think that they were tough questions, and he got more tough questions in this debate than Clinton, but the questions were not over the line.
The American people have a right to know if the man who would be President shares their values, and what type of judgement he has about the people who surround him and give him advice. The first thing a President does - even before his/her inauguration - is to pick a cabinet.
Clearly, going back to last year, Obama had concerns about Rev. Wrights style, saying that he could get a little "rough" in his sermons. This is something he has known about his pastor for twenty years, and it never occured to him that this could be problematic?
Ayers just can not be explained (the Clinton's do not get a pass on this either). This is the worst kind of judgement, and I really do not believe that Obama knows how offensive it is that he would associate with some one who plotted to murder draftees and their dates (most of whom were going to fight in a war they did not have a choice of signing up for), and whose wife participated in a robbery where guards were murdered in cold blood. All they did wrong was show up for work that day. How can Obama be so out of touch as to call this guy respected? Were their not other foundations in Chicago he could serve with? I'll answer that - their are plenty of liberal foundations in the city of Chicago.
This is the first time in his political career that Obanma has ben popped in the mouth. In the State Senate campaigns, he was running in a safe district, and he only needed to get the OK from the local central committee. In his run for US Senate, Ryan and Keyes were busy self destructing. This is the first time he has been seriously challenged, and he didn't respond to it well.
In fact, a lot of ink has been spilled on the tough questions Clinton has had to face. McCain had to face the New York times story. Their response was text book - were Obama and his advisers not watching? Full media avail the next morning, answer every question, refute the story on facts, instead of blaming process. In fact, if Obama had said "we have had over twenty debates, and that was not my best performance", this would be past. Instead, he is blaming the media, and the process - which is ironic as the media has a job because the voters consume the media; and the process, at it's root, is the decision of the voters. Interesting concept - blame the voters for his mistakes and poor performance.
No wonder this won't go away.
This is not about "the American people." Once again we have someone speaking only for themself yet pretending they somehow represent vast swaths of Americans.
That's a common flawed thought pattern here: I like liver and onions, therefore all Americans must like liver and onions. I like questions about flag lapel pins, therefore all Americans must like questions about flag lapel pins. I vote on "values" and "character", therefore all Americans vote on those same "values" and "character."
You say "There's a rich body of literature suggesting that job interviews are actually counterproductive." Can you provide a pointer to some of that research?
It’s almost like Megan is trying to say that she thinks that issues don’t really matter – unless she can point to some better indication of what the candidates will try to do if elected (and they actually manage to get a pretty substantial portion of it done) then, you know, what they actually say they want to do.
When evaluating job prospects, interviews are the most useless factor for predicting future job performance. Any other measure is better. Raw IQ is the best, but hard for companies to determine. GPA or any other test score is about the best factor. A structured interview, where each candidate is asked the same questions and the answers are scored based on some sort of objective standard is better than the normal unstructured interview.
If you are interested in this, google around and you should be able to find a number of studies that show this.
Unfortunately, everyone thinks that they can actually tell from an interview if someone is worth hiring... and almost everyone is wrong.
To best select a President, we'd ideally get to know their IQ, educational background, and past performance in similar jobs. With Bush and Kerry, we actually knew their IQ's to some degree based on their taking of the military's aptitude testing. Ironically, they were within 5 points.
By this standard, Obama has very little to show in the way of experience. He's young and relatively untested. Clinton has some experience, but not much, and none of it is really executive. McCain has experience in the Senate but his military service probably indicates some organizational and leadership competence.
How they run their campaign is also a form of experience... and Obama isn't doing so well. He does great when everyone is fawning all over him and having thrills run up their leg. But when the going gets tough, he's not so good. Is this really the guy we want negotiating with insane dictators? Either Clinton or McCain would be better. I'd actually kind of like to have a grouchy old man as President. Maybe he wouldn't put up with some of the shit that other countries throw at us. Clinton probably wouldn't, either, but I'm afraid she'd screw things up by trying to be different from Bush just to be different form Bush.
"When evaluating job prospects, interviews are the most useless factor for predicting future job performance."
Maybe. But interviews, especially the behavior oriented ones, are necessary for weeding out the potential employees that have great grades/scores but are maladjusted socially.
Maybe I'm a good interviewer but I've been mostly dead-on when it comes to evaluating people. The people I think are good turn out to be good, the people I'm more wary of turn out to be not so good. If I had been going purely on resume I would have done much much worse.
Someone says they "worked" on a project it can mean anything from being in charge to getting coffee. Mostly when I ask about resume items I'm asking to figure out what exactly the person *really* did. And I never look at GPA, certifications and things like that.
Maybe it varies by industry and interviewer, but I know for a fact that the interviews I perform are very worthwhile. I will agree that most people are lousy interviewers.
When evaluating job prospects, interviews are the most useless factor for predicting future job performance. Any other measure is better. Raw IQ is the best, but hard for companies to determine.
Wow. What sort of jobs are you selecting candidates for? Where I've worked, character traits and simple willingness to work outweigh intelligence and ability. If their word can't be trusted (e.g., the engineer who said he'd measured whether things would fit - but hadn't), higher IQ just increases the damage they can do. High IQ thieves steal more before they're caught. Psychopaths often have high IQ, like the future mass-murderer I once went to school with. Job interviews may or may not reveal those character traits [1], but IQ tests aren't even looking for them.
[1] I have no doubt that mass-murderer would have presented very well in a conventional job interview. He fooled the school teachers and administrators for years. He fooled a parole board once, and murdered five more people soon after he was released. But his fellow students weren't fooled - we just didn't have the power to get something done about the vicious son of a dog. I suggest taking interviewees to lunch and seeing how they treat the waitress.
I'm not basing my statement on my own personal experience. I spent a couple of hours one day googling around and reading studies that had been done by others. The studies consistently showed that IQ was the best predictor and that interviews were poor predictors. But they also found that just about everyone feels like they do great interviews.
You can take that as you will. I'm not likely to be persuaded by "Forget the data, I'm a great interviewer," as a refutation, though. Maybe other people will be.