By John Brummett

The best way to decide how to vote in a political race is with a negative grading system.

You compare the candidates in regard to deception and nonsense. Then you vote for the one who comes in less deceptive and nonsensical.

You must do this over an extended period of time and through several issues. You must apply a dynamic scoring system that gets adjusted as you go along.

Here is a snapshot of the process in a race offering an abundance of negative grading opportunities, meaning the one by which, regrettably, either Blanche Lincoln or John Boozman will be in the U.S. Senate next year:

Lincoln, the incumbent Democrat trailing in polls by a comical amount but possessed of more campaign money than Boozman, recently went on television with a commercial. In it she said, among other things: “I think John’s idea of a 23 percent national sales tax on everything you buy is just a plain bad idea.”

Asked by the media to respond, Boozman said Lincoln had left the deliberately false impression that he was advocating a 23 percent sales tax on top of all other currently levied taxes. In fact, this so-called fair tax or flat tax would be imposed only to replace the fully abandoned income and payroll taxes.

Then Boozman contended that it did not necessarily indicate that he was in favor of the flat-tax bill when he signed on as a co-sponsor. Sometimes, he explained, you simply put your name on something to get it sent to committee so debate can begin.

So let us apply our negative grading process.

Lincoln earns a deception point for not taking two more seconds to respect the voter with diligent attention to relevant truth and relate that Boozman’s idea for a 23 percent national sales tax was only to replace an abandoned federal income tax.

Boozman ties her up 1-to-1 with nonsense by advancing that laughable premise that he was not necessarily in favor of a bill he had put his name on as a sponsor.

Then Boozman bursts ahead, 2-to-1, on the basis that he also intentionally deceived amid that nonsense.

The bill didn’t need his sponsorship to get debated. It had other sponsors.

The fact of the matter was that he had put his name on the bill to cover his backside with his right flank among economic conservatives who favor the flat tax. He also had done so to oblige the Republican leadership because Boozman is an unflinching ditto-head for the party line.

Boozman should avoid such Clintonian slices-and-dices about what the meaning of “bill” or “support” is.

That leaves only the small matter of the merits.

It is true that the income tax system is entirely too complex and laden with inequitable deductions and exemptions. But forcing everyone to pay 23 percent of every dollar spent for purchases in a new consumption tax would hit hardest the lower-income people, of whom there is a sad concentration in Arkansas.

That’s so even after a monthly “prebate” designed to compensate low-income persons for their purchases up to the poverty level.

Advocates say the fairness is that the tax is based only on what one spends. You know: Spend more, pay more; spend less, pay less.

But charging a low-income person 23 percent of every dollar on a purchase of a new lawnmower is not the same as charging a high-income person 23 percent of every dollar of a landscape architecture fee.

As people get richer, consumption falls as a percentage of income. They’re investing the extra in stocks, bonds and real estate while the poor guy is struggling to try to keep his grass cut and his checkbook balance north of zero.

Oh, and a lot of people think it would take a much higher rate than 23 percent to hold the treasury harmless.

So I score this little scrum 3-to-1 in Lincoln’s favor, meaning she was deceptive or nonsensical only once, but Boozman was either deceptive or nonsensical three times.

That’s the best day Lincoln has had in a while.

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John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699.