qualified to lead?

Day 6 of the Minnesota State Government shut-down.

In an interview someone observed, "People are always complaining that politicians do not adhere to their principles.  Now they are and people are complaining about that."  The comment was in response to the interviewer's observation that both sides, the governor and the republican leaders, reporting that they are being advised by voters to "hang tough."

So, the question arises: what qualifications are the ones that convince voters to elect a legislator or a governor or other government officials?  And, is there any connection between those qualifications and the qualifications for being a voter?

I'm remembering the debates about universal suffrage as the USA made its way toward that step-by-step.  There was the notion that voters needed to own land so that they would not be under the influence of their employers: financial independence as a necessary prerequisite of independence of judgment.  There was a notion that one should be able to read.  I won't rehears the whole long debates, only note that along side the notion that suffrage is a "right" there has been the notion that it carries responsibilities for which there may be some qualifications that increase the possibility that wise choices will be made by the vote of the majority.

Most often what we are choosing when we vote is people to represent us in making other choices: about laws, about government services, about funding those.  And, back to the question about what qualities are needed to do those tasks.

• Shall we vote for the person whose views of a few issues coincides most closely with our own?  If so, what is the "winner's" obligation to those positions?  One issues politics has a long tradition in the USA, going back at least to the issue of temperance. 
• Shall we vote for the person whose values seems most in sympathy with our own?  If so, are we willing to allow that the "winner" might make decisions based on those values that are different than we expected?
• Shall we vote for the person whose personal life we most admire or against the one whose we do not?  Is this a matter of character?  Do we want to be represented by people who have demonstrated their trustworthiness and good judgment in "a little" in the expectation that they will do the same in larger, more public matters? 

Of course we all might say that we want leaders whom we can trust.  But that leaves me wondering still about the basis of the trust and about what we trust them to do.  In an old essay about MN politics Bill Holm described a USA senate race and asserted that it was "a race the voters could not lose."  Why?  because both candidates were worthy of the voters' trust that they would govern wisely for the whole.

Day 6: wanting to see more ability to lead, less hanging tough on campaign rhetoric and more doing the job of governing on the basis of basic values and commitments.