How to judge candidates in presidential debates?

Choosing between the presidential nominees who have very similar ideologies is very tricky. 2008 democratic debates started off on right foot and the candidates expressed their opinions and solutions. However, after the contest came down to two candidates, Hillary and Obama, debates have become useless as no candidate wants to take new stand on issues. They want to stick to their stand and dodge the questions asked in the debates. Here are a few things I found to be funny.

Should the candidate be willing to change? (people might call him a flip-flopper)

In 2004 presidential debate, many said John Kerry was a flip-flopper and hence unfit to be a president. What's so wrong about being a flip-flopper? Let me take an example to put this into perspective. Let's say that at 12:00 AM, doctor told you that a medicine 'XXX' was good for your health. You took it and went to sleep. You woke up the next morning and FDA found new evidence that proved 'XXX' was harmful and could lead to death. Would you prefer the doctor to stick to his stand (or) would you prefer him to change his stand? Why not apply the same logic in judging presidential candidates?

People change their stand on issues for a reason. The reason could be a good one or bad. Candidates change their stand because they have new information (or) have different perspective about the problem . What's wrong about that? World changes every day and people's perspectives about issues have to change everyday. It's after all, a debate.

Who is worse...A candidate who sticks to what he believes in (or) a candidate who is willing to change his opinion. If a president does not fulfill his promises, he is called a cheater. It's worse if the president spends all his time in white_house, sticks to his stand and does not listen to people around him.

Obama and Hillary blame Bush on being stubborn and blame each other on flip_flopping on issues. Hilarious!

Candidates are judged by their past deeds in today's context

Obama blames Hillary for supporting NAFTA and her failed health care plans in her state. Not getting into details of the issues, the legislations might have been made with right sense of judgment. It's easy to look back today and blame on their shortcomings. Since she had the ambitions of becoming president back then, she had lot of incentive to get it right. But, she got it wrong. She tried and failed. So what? Wouldn't you want someone who is willing to try to fix your problems?

The problems of today's world are extremely complex and the dynamics of problem change everyday. It's practically impossible for anyone to solve a problem in today's context and get it to work for tens of years. When the world changes, solutions become obsolete. Looking back at a legislation that was passed 10 years back and judging it in today's context does not make sense. Shouldn't people look for vision and forward thinking abilities? BullShit! If those are the skills you are looking for, have them write exams in macroeconomics and critical_thinking.

I prefer a candidate who is willing to accept his mistakes and is ready to change, than someone who claims to have vision to get everything right in next 4 years.

Being too diplomatic and not taking a stand at all

As the democratic debates progressed, candidates, Obama and Hillary became more and more diplomatic. They declined to take stand on new issues (or) at least preferred not to have any sort of comment on certain issues. They realized that they can only harm themselves by having a stand than by not having one at all.

Each legislation has stakeholders. Each legislation creates some winners and some losers in the country. So, the candidates have become way too diplomatic and avoid taking stand on new issues. For example, no one took a firm stand on immigration issue or on border issue with Mexico. There is too much at stake by having a stand on these kind of issues. It would have been better if both candidates appointed comedians to talk in these debates. The debates at least would have had entertainment value. May be, Colbert participating in the race wasn't a bad idea at all.

However, the first few debates were good and people got to know a bit about these candidates. This was the case only with the latter debates.

Conclusion: Judge character and honesty, rather than achievements and failures

When choosing between candidates who have similar ideologies, it's better to vote based on candidates' character rather than their past achievements and failures. A president needs honesty and commitment more than the solutions.

The real questions that a voter needs to ask himself are
- What was the process by which the candidate solved the problems in the past? The real solutions themselves don't matter.
- Given absolute power, would the candidate listen to other people?
- Does he have the leadership to fend off the stakeholders if right solutions (from a majority perspective) and legislators are on opposite sides.

When it comes to presidential elections (democrats vs republicans), it would be easier to make a choice because the parties have some fundamental differences on certain issues.

Disclaimer: I have biased opinions about free_market_economy and republican way of solving economic problems. This could have affected my thinking about the democratic debates.