Don’t elect political leaders. Select them.

Marty Nemko, holds a Ph.D. specializing in the evaluation of innovation from the University of California, Berkeley and subsequently taught in its graduate school. This is the second in a series on thinking outside of the box when it comes to the nation’s leading challenges.

It’s election season. Americans are, yet again, charged with choosing the best candidates to run the country. And we don’t like the choices. According to the latest Gallup Poll, 24-34 percent of Republicans have an unfavorable view of the top five Republican presidential candidates, and the incumbent president is liked even less. Among those polled from both parties, 46 percent would vote for a generic GOP candidate over President Obama.

Meanwhile the candidates employ ever-more powerful weapons of mass manipulation.

In the not-so-distant past, political candidates, had but a small public relations operation armed with little more than common sense. The team’s advice was as simple as, “Sound like a moderate. Smile more. Look straight into the camera. Speak in sound bites — you can never go wrong underestimating the public’s intelligence.” Weapons of influence were no more sophisticated than “I Like Ike” buttons and red, white and blue balloons at whistle stops.

Today, the more influential the office, the more likely the candidates are to employ a squadron of highly sophisticated influence experts from Madison Avenue and academia. In April 2009, Time magazine reported on what may be the most sophisticated to date: the Obama campaign’s use of “a behavioral dream team” (including a Nobel Laureate).

“These guys really know what makes people tick,” then-Obama campaign field director Mike Moffo told Time. Democrats aren’t alone. Indeed, the GOP, under the tutelage of Frank Luntz, may have made the first quantum leap in mass manipulation through the use of dial-equipped focus groups.

Indeed, much of what major candidates say today is tested using dial focus groups. Groups of likely voters sit with a dial as the candidate tries out policy proposals, campaign rhetoric and talking points. They turn the dial from 1 to 10 from moment to moment. Then, with each sentence, the candidate tries to have the highest mean word-score possible. Luntz showcased the technique recently on an episode of late-night comedy show, “The Colbert Report.”

Candidates’ commercials, press conferences, and speeches are not the only aspects of the campaign governed by this method. “Informal” town-hall meetings, press-the-flesh pancake breakfasts, and conversations with potential donors are also subject to testing. And technology makes it cheap for today’s politicians to inveigle themselves ever deeper into voters’ minds. Today’s successful campaign requires at least one General of the Online Front – a staff member who targets voters with email, Facebook updates, and Twitter posts.

In the face of that, how can we hope that America’s electorate — regardless of their education level — will pick the candidates most likely to govern the nation wisely? How are we even to know what a candidate will actually be like in office? We don’t. Too often, we don’t end up voting for the best candidate but for the best messaging machine — the candidate who can most stay “on message.” In other words, we too often vote for the most data-mine-controlled marionette.