If you are in business, especially if the enterprise is relatively large, you need someone to take care of the books, someone who understands finances, someone facile with IRS and SIIS rules and regulations.

So you understand that not just anyone can be — or at least should be — treasurer of a state with billions of dollars flowing through it. That's a big job, one requiring expertise and financial acumen.

And that's why this year's contest for state treasurer is so scary.

On one side you have a candidate who is not alive supported by some live ones and the so-called anointed choice plagued by a bankruptcy, a controversial firing from a federal job and a residency scam that cost him a regent's race. Such a choice the Republicans have between the late Controller Kathy Augustine and businessman Mark DeStefano — Joe Pitts also is running for the GOP nomination but he seems content not to spend any money and simply be an anti-DeStefano agent.

On the other side, you have the anointed one who was eagerly seeking a job she was obviously qualified to hold (secretary of state) before being bumped by the powers that be into a race for which she has no obvious bona fides and running against a fellow who has lots of financial background, but much of it, including a bankruptcy, is not good. Such a choice the Democrats have between Kate Marshall and Geoffery VanderPal.

Sheriff Bill Young recently said that Jerry Airola, a candidate to succeed him, couldn't get a second interview if he applied to be a Metro cop. I submit that none of these candidates would get a second look if they applied to be a CFO at a major corporation.

But this is politics and the choices are not made by a sophisticated board of directors or a savvy CEO. They are made by voters, most of whom have no idea who is running.

DeStefano has had recent success in business, which has enabled him to fund his campaign and be seen as the natural successor by Republicans to Brian Krolicki. But in the early '90s he went through some rough times, including that bankruptcy and he was booted from his job as an air traffic controller and sued to get it back after a doctor said he had a "psychotic disorder." DeStefano ran for regent last cycle and won. But he was thrown off the ballot when it became clear he didn't actually live in a residence he owned in the district.

Enough Republicans are worried about this baggage to start a "Vote for Kathy" movement, which, if successful, would throw the nomination into a group even more ill-informed and loony than the overall electorate: The Republican State Central Committee. And that group could nominate anyone, including someone with no financial background, such as ex-state Sen. Sue Lowden.

The Democrats have their own problems because of VanderPal, who apparently has rebounded from his bankruptcy enough to run a TV campaign. And he is all over the place, attending events and getting his name out there.

Marshall, a lawyer, is running a strong mail campaign, and longtime operative Gary Gray is overseeing her campaign. But she is only in the race because ex-Gov. Bob Miller's son, Ross, decided to run, which resulted in one of those phone calls to Marshall in the middle of the night where the Democratic pooh bah on the other end of the line said: "You are now running for state treasurer. Understand?"

And such is the field we are all left to choose from.