Does A Candidate Have To Know Everything?

The other day, John McCain got finagled into weighing in on whether vaccination causes autism, and he got the science wrong. That’s bad.

What I want to know is, why is it that politicians, particularly politicians running for President, seem to feel compelled to have a knowledgeable opinion about everything? Presumably, it’s because the politician wants to speak to the issues that voters think are important. For every voter, something is the most important issue in the world, and the converse is true – for every issue out there, there’s a voter to whom the issue matters immensely.

On significant issues facing the nation, we rightly expect our leaders to be knowledgeable and to demonstrate that they’ve thought about those matters. “What are we going to do about Iraq?” is an appropriate question for a Presidential candidate. “What will your national science policy look like?” Would be another. “What would your national science policy be towards medicine?” might hit on an area where the platform has not been fleshed out fully yet, and the candidate can acceptably respond with something like, “Right now I don’t have a specific plan for medical research, but generally, I intend to push for research funding priority in these areas…” and the voter should be okay with a response like that.

By the time the question gets down to “Will your administration require that all screw threads used in small weapons deployed in the European and Asian theaters be machined to Metric specificiations, so as to allow for better sharing of spare parts with our allies on joint operations?” it ought to be okay for a politician to respond, “You know, I just don’t have the answer to that question; that is one of the things that we’ll get ironed out after we’re in office.”

Which vaccines are right for which kids under what circumstances is a question better addressed to a doctor — or if to a government official, to the Surgeon General — than to a candidate for President. The question was unreasonable, whether McCain fumbled the answer or not. With that said, McCain fumbled the answer.