Litmus Tests Are a Perfectly Valid Part of Candidate Vetting

They test whether a candidate’s views align with the party he or she is seeking to represent. They don’t make a statement condemning the values held by a candidate.

Party bashing is pretty common in the American electorate. But, from a political science standpoint, parties play an important role. They organize the electorate and vet candidates, signaling to a party’s base that an individual shares the same beliefs as the party’s platform outlines. There’s a standard assumption that anyone associated with a given party supports those central ideas. This is a shortcut: it connects parties with candidates who will help them spread their message. It’s also a shortcut for a party’s base: it outsources vetting. Busy people who don’t have time to comb through the credentials of a slate of candidates can get a good rough picture of who the best fit for their views might be by looking at who a party is supporting and has endorsed. This isn’t to say they shouldn’t do their own investigation into a candidate, but it does, at least, provide a starting point.

Running under a party’s banner in a general election contains the implicit assumption that a candidate is a good representative of a party’s central animating philosophy: a candidate is the embodiment of the principles outlined in a party’s platform.