Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Performance Reviews

In America, political campaigns emphasize the candidates' positions and opinions. We hear about what they think about abortion, education policy, taxes, and what they promise to do once they get elected. But I think there is not enough focus on what they actually have done, and perhaps even more importantly, what happened while they were in office, and how much were they responsible for the things that happened.

For example, I was trying to figure out what Arnold Schwarzenegger has done as governor, and I thought there would be some kind of list somewhere of his projects. There was some random stuff, but there were much more literature of his opinions. This lack of focus on results makes our political system really inefficient and haphazard. There is not enough accountability for democracy to be effective.

I think it would be great if there was a group who compiled some analysis on what politicians did. There are some groups right now who rate politicians according to how "liberal" or "conservative" they are, but I don't think that's very helpful because it's just a snapshot of their opinions.

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