This was pretty fun. I remember something similar on ask.com back in 2000, which confirmed for me back then what I already knew (pre-Noble/Oscar winner Gore was my best choice). I guess the results here were a little surprising.
As I've said before, I'd be happy with pretty much any D in the White House (certainly among the two front runners, I am (and have been) neutral). But I didn't think it would skew like this:
If you click on the picture, you will see that I'm pretty much drawing a mustache on Barack Obama. Dead center. When I clicked through for "analysis," this is what I found:
Now, I consider myself to be extremely socially liberal (I guess that makes me progressive) and reasonably fiscally conservative. I believe in common sense foreign policy (let's say a sense for America's potential benevolence, but not a sense of entitlement). And beyond that, I don't like to speak in generalizations (I don't like speaking in generalizations at all when it comes to issues, but sometimes you just gotta cave to peer pressure). I was surprised to learn that I was only 2% more fiscally conservative than Obama and 1% more liberal. We have substantive agreement on 79% of stuff.
I don't really care for John Edwards' screed against "corporatism" (I think any D will be better than what we've had and the markets can definitely do very good stuff). Hillary don't really agree on national security stuff, I think mainly because she buys into the GWB catchphrase foreign policy. I think it's ok not to admit you made a mistake by voting for the Iraq war, but I don't think it's ok not to think you made a mistake by voting for the Iraq war. Additionally, there was no excuse for the "yes" vote on Kyl-Lieberman...mainly because you should never vote yes on anything authored by Joseph "Holier-than-thou" Lieberman.
Thanks to the voters of New Hampshire, my vote on February 5th, will mean something more than casting my votes for a media crowned winner (MA has the 10th most delegates to the convention, so it's like the one time we matter...even if it's still not as much as New York or California). I am still undecided. But little things like this continue to swing me in one, specific candidate's direction.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Electoral Compass
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I took the electoral compass and was even beyond Obama (above and to the left). However: (a) the questions were so broadly worded, a lot of nuance in positions is lost and (b) agreement with a candidate is not the end of the inquiry. To paraphrase Miracle Max, if there is “mostly” agreement, other things like personality, experience, electability and likelihood of effectiveness come into play. Obama certainly beats Clinton on personality but I give her the edge on experience and am undecided on the rest. Obama’s pitch is inspirational, but there is a hint of Joe Lieberman in there and none of us wants that. Also, see Barney Frank regarding returning to the fights of the 90’s (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-barney-frank/refight-the-nineties_b_80751.html).
Post a Comment