The topics dominating the discussion about the Republican primary forpresident— Rick Perry’s inability to recall details of his own campaign proposal and sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain —may be captivating, but they don’t tell us what we need to determine who is best equipped to lead the country.

Sure, we’d like our leaders to be pillars of virtue, but there have been some very effective presidents whose personal lives were not exactly role models. Likewise, Perry’s gaffe was downright embarrassing, but should our judgments on the next leader of the free world be based on a 53-second YouTube moment? There must be better ways to gauge who would be a good president.

Mitt Romney would have us believe that a proven track record of running a successful business will produce similar results in the White House. It’s a message that resonates well with voters who often lament that government should run more like a business. It sounds good in theory, but how it works in practice is a different story.

Leadership in the public sector requires a different skill set than in the business world. CEOs can put their initiatives into action without having to negotiate and broker deals with legislatures and without worrying about public opinion polls and re-election.

Take former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, for example. With experience as CEO of Goldman Sachs, he appeared to be a perfect candidate to lead the Garden State through a series of daunting fiscal challenges. But Corzine did not have political skills that matched his fiscal experience, and after a tumultuous first term, he failed to win reelection.

When I was part of a new administration in Woodbridge, N. J., in the early 1990s, we invited fiscal and management experts from Fortune 500 companies to explore the municipal budget and develop recommendations to run our government more cost effectively.

Their proposals would have saved money, but they were not feasible—unless we could have figured out legal and politically viable means of eliminating labor unions, Civil Service regulations and costly programs that provided needed services, such as health care screenings for individuals who otherwise would be unable to afford them.

So, if business skills are not the answer, what qualities should we look for in candidates to determine who is best to lead the nation? I once posed this question to Michael Riccards, a presidential scholar who now runs a think tank in New Jersey. Riccards said a successful president needs the skills to make the right judgments, the ability to build consensus and the natural talent to be articulate in the media of the time.

Riccards doesn’t have all the answers about who should serve in the Oval Office, but his suggestions are a much better place to begin the discussion than Perry’s debating skills.

Richard A. Lee is assistant professor in the Russell J. Jandoli School of Journalism and Mass Communication at St. Bonaventure University.