I would give him my kidney even if I cannot stand to hear him speak about his candidate with the conviction he really and truly feels. And it's not so much that he loves his candidate so much as he fears what will happen if (and at this point, when) mine wins...
To prepare myself for our fortnightly tele-battle and also to be a good American citizen, I sift through hundreds of articles from all types of magazines, papers and journals. In one came a brilliant and alarmingly accurate quote; kudos to Tom Giffey of the Leader-Telegram: "It's hard to have a discussion about the facts when you're dealing with two separate sets of facts."
He's right in so far as everyone thinks they are right - especially if and when they have the facts to prove it. Was it Twain who spoke of "damn lies and statistics" or my b-school Stats professor warning the class that "statistics can be used to validate all kinds of things, true and false."
Not reassuring.
What I've not yet seen in the 2008 US Presidential Election is a way to make it easy for folks to decide who to vote for. A few weeks ago on Charlie Rose there was an HBS Anniversary where some of its best & brightest alumni spoke of what the Democrats are now speaking about should they hit the electoral jackpot: control and accountability - two things that should always go together but too often do not.
The way to make it easy is to reduce the number of fact sets and to show that one definitive set in a way such that ordinary folks (myself included) can understand and track and speak about, fortnightly, with best friends who sit on the other side of the political spectrum. As everybody knows what the inside of a car looks like why not use a series of dashboards to show these facts?
Sure it's overwhelming for folks who are new to seeing such things and for those whose reputations will rise/fall based on the numbers, but how better to show one's progress and prowess (or lack thereof) than with a dashboard?
There's all sorts of metrics we could track so let's limit them to 12. Our dashboard, therefore, will have three rows with four dashboards on each. It's tricky with only 12 choices because there's so much that's so important. Let these constraints offer a listing that touches us all in ways economically, physically and/or socially:
US Federal Budget
US Unemployment Rate
# Americans in Poverty
# Americans w/o Health Insurance
US High-School Dropout Rate
US Literacy Rate
# American Patents Filed
# Americans in Prison
Gap Between Rich/Poor
US International Standing
State of our Infrastructure
State of our Environment
The most difficult and heartbreaking thing about constructing this list is saying no to all the other worthy metrics I had to say no to while writing this. The second most difficult thing will be to decide who gets to define what exactly these metrics mean and what the numbers are at any given point. Clearly, we cannot have either of the two primary American political parties do it; the temptation for partisan politics is just too great. I bet the folks at The Economist will do it for a small annual fee. Their writers know something about these kinds of things and they seem to be pretty honest brokers too; I've never heard ANYBODY complaining about where they got their numbers.
Once these dashboards are in effect, then incumbents will forever have to live and die by the numbers - just like their corporate cousins do (or at least are supposed to do). If times are great, it will be understandably and justifiably difficult to make a case for someone new. After all change is not always needed (although today it most certainly is).
That this idea might compel the folks in office, now armed with both power and the 24/7/365 accountability, another reason to do a bang-up job, so much the better. It's high time to institute such measurements and something not just America but the entire world is waiting for, breathlessly. Let's hope whoever comes next is open to such reason...
