Remember the kids who were class officers in high school? Remember what cloying, annoying suck-ups they were? Many of those same people are in the House of Representatives and the Senate right now, and even more of them are your mayors and state legislators and school board members.

Why do we elect them over and over again? These people were jerks in high school and they still are.

I propose a new test for voters to apply when considering who they should vote for: Let every candidate disclose whether he or she held any kind of office in high school. If they did, don’t vote for them.

People who wanted acclamation from their peers at the tender age of 16 are generally full-blown narcissists by age 30. You didn’t like them back then, and there is no reason to like them now. Most likely, they’ve only gotten worse. And you certainly shouldn’t let yourself be governed by these people.

Forget about “follow the money.” Instead, follow the narcissism, and reject it. Give me a candidate who wasn’t the prom king or queen and who wasn’t the student council president. At least there will be some chance that the individual is not a jerk. And a jerk-free government is one that I could like.

Glenn Bogart, J.D., is an independent student aid consultant specializing in federal compliance issues.