Imagine this: you’re the owner of a business and you’re looking to hire a new manager to work for you. A promising résumé finds its way onto your desk so you call the person in for an interview. Throughout the first encounter, the person is talking themselves up to the point where it’s obvious they’re using extreme hyperbole, saying how they’re going to bring spectacular improvements to the company by being there.

They have no hard evidence to back up their statement but you decide to take a chance and hire them.

Once they’ve been hired, they fail to exceed or even reach expectations. As far as you can tell, they haven’t really done anything outside the bare minimum.

It’s probably fair to assume you’d replace them with someone more capable of doing the job. Someone who follows through with their word and increases the value and reputation of the business you’re in charge of.

Yet, when it comes to electing someone to run a city, state or country, we don’t seem to hold to them to the same standard as we would someone working any other job.

Debates are essentially job interviews. We, as a collective public, are essentially a hiring board. The candidates, or perspective employees, argue why they’d be right for the position and we select who we think will do the best job.

However, if people working an everyday job acted like many people running for a public office do, they would be fired. But we often re-elect the same people time and time again.

I realize it’s easier said than done, but maybe it’s time to re-evaluate how we view these high-ranking jobs and hold the leaders of our country to the same standards we hold other employees.