Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

In preparation for the Utah Bull Moose Party KLO Talk Radio third week discussion on the Utah Senate candidate qualifications, the Utah Bull Moose Party ranked the five candidates affiliated with registered political parties.  As indicated in the table above, the assessment took a comprehensive stab at rating candidate suitability for the U.S. Senate position with a total score based on the criteria depicted.

The criteria rated focused mainly on individual qualifications for a Senate position together with party behavior and platform philosophy to gauge fitness to govern.  Additionally, consideration was then given to their ranking by comparing the candidates against one another.  Admittedly, the rating construct is primarily qualitative.  It’s not lost upon the Utah Bull Moose Party that the process of selecting a political leader is an art that weighs primarily qualitative factors, and after becoming elected the candidates performance is, then, assessed on qualitative factors, underscoring the quote attributed to Albert Einstein “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

Some of the difficult criteria not ranked includes likability, and the public’s familiarity with the candidate’s personality and position on matters.  Others include access to funding and resources to educate the voting public on the character of a candidate.   

It is understood that a well marketed (packaged) and promoted candidate is normally the winning candidate in an election.  Though this criterion is not addressed here, there is nonetheless merit in going through this exercise which considers basic skills, experience, traits, etc., that one would consider in a normal interview for any job.  It matters that candidates should have some level of basic qualifications in addition to the “packaging” that is promoted to, and perhaps most important to, the voting public as well as assessing their foundational alignment to the philosophy to their chosen party.

So, as shown in the table, the Utah Bull Moose Party rated a tie in terms of basic qualifications between Romney and Bowden.  Admittedly, Romney is vastly more experienced and professionally accomplished politically than Bowden.  But again, the criteria weighed not only the candidates experience and professional resume, but also the candidate’s party affiliation, party performance, and motivation behind seeking office.  In the case of Romney and Wilson, it is inherently the position of the Utah Bull Moose Party that neither the Republican or Democratic Party’s have performed satisfactorily and therefor rate the lowest possible scores, which when aggregated into the total scores, increase competing candidates rankings.   

Third is Alders with number four being Wilson, and 5th place going to McCandles. The criteria selected was developed from a variety of sources available on the internet and all harvested from each candidate’s own publications or established credible media outlets.The criteria represented generally can be considered basic qualifications for any senior leader position, and includes the qualitative assessment of fitness based on party platform, behavior and performance.The table is a good reference point to begin the process of assessing and ultimately selecting a candidate to vote for the position of U.S. Senator.