Political Candidates (WIP)

Political campaigns amount to the worst job interviews in the world. They are fabulously expensive, exacerbate polarization, and generally tell us very little about candidates' actual competence. Why don't we expect them to "show their work"? It's common to ask potential hires to identify their strengths and weaknesses and how they plan to remedy or at least mitigate the latter. Some jobs require applicants to walk through a prototypical problem or even engage in a full-blown simulation.

We need not demand that candidates for political office have specific subject matter expertise, but surely we can be more confident of their future performance if we better understand how they think. Can they distinguish between good and bad advice? What criteria do they use to determine if funding priorities should change? How will they cope with something truly novel?

Asking others to "explain themselves" might be a social faux pas, but it should be a prerequisite for anyone seeking to govern.