First off, much evidence points to democracy being an immoral and ultimately destructive form of government, and I do not advocate it in any way. That said, this is the system most of us with computers hooked up to the internet live in, and so we must cope.
When debating with friends or online about political candidates and comparing them, (Trump and Hillary, for example), the debate often turns into a game of ‘who has the worst scandal, and which of those are actually scandals.’ This is a pointless game to play usually because no standard for scandal is ever defined. Not only that, but let’s say there’s a standard being used – it seems likeley that any actual adult politician would come out less favorably compared to the standard than your average 13 year old girl, who is likely completely scandal free.
A better standard for for election to public office is accomplishment. Having been elected is an accomplishment of sorts, however the better part of election is having a name, and a name can be earned without much accomplishment, simply by being born to a family with a name, or marying into a family with a name.
Without yet defining a standard for accomplishment, I’ll list a few men and women who have accomplished great things: Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Douglas MacAurthur, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Charles Babbage, and Ada Lovelace.
Some of the accomplishments of these people involve leading large numbers of men, while others are of a more intellectual nature. Of the two types of accomplishment, those related to leading seem most closely related to the role of a public official, especially to an executive role.
So a standard for accomplishment could be: success in leading complex organizations in achieving concrete, substantial goals that leave the organization, the country, or the world better off, preferably in a voluntary (i.e. non-democratic) context.
This is the standard I use when considering political candidates outside of their ideological leanings.