"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," said Dr. Samuel Johnson in 1775. By 1998 scoundrels had found another option.

It is no longer easy for drug users, racists and sexists to enter, much
less make a career within, the American private sector. Pre-hiring
practices such as psychological profiles and urine tests for drugs,
followed after hiring by periodic performance reviews, are now routine.
They either prevent lawbreakers and mischief makers from entering a
company's employ, or soon after employment catch them and send them packing. The same is true of Federal non-elected workers:  armed forces, diplomatic corps and civil service. Unqualified applicants are first tested, found out and then discreetly denied positions of public trust.

There being no current national emergency to justify anyone's claiming
patriotism as an excuse for waiving peacetime standards, what last refuge remains to an American scoundrel? Might it be elective politics?

Elective offices still attract very many fine people who sacrifice to the
greater good their personal privacy and  earning capacity. But are we
guarding against unfit candidates? The Electoral College as originally
conceived was for men of independent judgment, free to reject hopelessly ill or rascally candidates for President and Vice President. North Carolina and the United States rely on both political opponents and a vigilant press to unmask unworthy candidates and publicize their failings. In some States referenda and legislative action seek to impose term limits on those elected to Federal offices. Yet the courts rule that no limitations may be imposed beyond those in the Constitution.

Media-savvy political scoundrels are constantly honing their deception
skills. They decline, for example, to make public their medical histories. Once in office, if caught and cornered, they grow contrite. In office an intelligent but warped person surrounds himself with wily myrmidons and defense teams. Pirate king and pirate crew erect powerful barriers against being caught, impeached and removed from office. With no one in the private sector free to hire her, the scoundrel cheerfully embraces her sole remaining refuge: elective office.

There are people running for office aware that their medical, emotional or moral problems, their drug addictions and records of sexual harassment prevent Sears or Popeyes or IBM from hiring them even to sweep floors. Scoundrels know that they can never meet the even higher standards of the U.S. Marines, the diplomatic service and Federal judges. Some candidates would not be permitted into a classroom with young children. Why? Because for all those jobs they  must first waive privacy rights, endure drug tests, write truthfully on questionnaires and agree to intimate background checks. Rascals know that they would not pass. But they face no such checklists before campaigning for election.

What can we do to protect against charlatans? Can we fix the problem
without government dictation of whom we vote for?  We must find a fair way to screen the demonstrably unfit before they campaign for high office, not afterwards.

The solution is voluntary and lies with America's political parties.

Most Americans cast their ballots only for the official candidates of
recognized political parties. Candidates, however, are not compelled to
campaign under party labels. Any person who chooses not to run as
Libertarian, Republican, Reform or Democrat, can still run and win. She can urge her supporters, for instance, to "write in" her name on the ballot. She can appeal to absentee voters to make her their non-partisan preference. She can petition a court to put her name on the ballot.

Most candidates avidly seek and value party endorsement. What they value, they should pay for. Not in cash or bribes or patronage should they pay, but rather by waiving important privacy rights. A political party should not lend its name to a candidate who cannot pass a drug test or who hides material facts. Political parties are private voluntary associations with high responsibilities to the public. They make their own rules. They must offer no refuge to scoundrels. Parties should not affirmatively select in advance or favor individual candidates for their electoral slates. But parties can and should ask questions. They should veto self-selected candidates who do not at least meet minimal private sector employment standards. Political parties should bar the door to persons with incapacitating medical and mental conditions. Or, at a minimum, parties can require candidates to make problems publicly known which are likely to impact their public service. Parties might well require candidates to provide tax records to a screening committee.

The details of how to screen are for a party itself to debate and decide.
A  party must not range too far beyond private sector norms, thereby
turning  its members into behavior police. But party endorsement has to mean more than it means now. Endorsement should tell voters that the party has formally looked over and cleared a candidate to whom it lends its good name.

In a score of countries men and women have told me: "I know I can trust Mrs. Watson, Herr Mueller, Mlle. Auberon,Tanaka San or Mevrouw Bakker. Why? Because he or she is a Rotarian, Lion, Kiwanian, Pilot or Soroptimist. And I know that those fine service clubs would not invite people to be members without first checking them out." The same should hold for political parties. It is time to assure that party endorsement of a candidate on a ballot certifies to voters that he or she has been looked at by  a competent committee and found to be neither madman nor  crook nor scoundrel.

Where shall we begin? It  takes only political party in one State. That
party must require candidates who wish the party's blessing to furnish
certain written submissions, to have those assurances studied in confidence by a select commission and be willing to be interviewed. No matter how low a party's initial medical and ethical standards, they will be higher than current ones. If candidates do not like one party's requirements, then they are free to campaign under the banner of a party with no standards at all. Let's see how long those other parties would then dare not to screen their party standard bearers.

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for the ASHEVILLE TRIBUNE