Optimum Liberty!
Each year on each issue and candidate I have an opinion and like to hear the opinions of others.  My opinions change as I am influenced by new information and the considerations that others bring up.  When I ran for office many years ago now, I offered voters a picture of myself that wasn't very issue-specific.  Instead I told them that if elected, I would approach each decision by asking myself at least four questions.  The last one, for instance, was whether the measure under consideration would help simplify government.  If so, I would tend to support it.
With the election drawing near, I am thinking about turning that process around.  We live in a republic.  Elected officials are representatives.  What are the criteria that we, as voters, apply to candidates?  What questions do we want them to ask themselves when they face a decision?  Do we have a fair idea as to what they think are the most important questions, and how they would lean depending on the answers?  If we can size up candidates this way, rather than on specific measures or issues, it could make our vote last longer, meaning that once the issues of the day have floated by, we will still have a sense of how the candidate will approach the new and unforseen particulars they will face.
I would like to know what your criteria would be.  Here is mine for starters:
Will this decision promote individual liberty?  This is not a uber-libertarian question.  Anarchy is not liberty.  If I can get a sense that personal liberty is important to the candidate and that they will ask themselves that question with each decision, then I will tend to support the candidate.
As a constitutionalist, I think all these questions ought to be ways of looking at how the elected official will carry out their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, as every elected official in the U.S. must swear to do.
Your thoughts