I got Kucinich, which is absolutely no surprise. I just wish he had a hope in hell of being elected.

I was a bit surprised how far up the scale Clinton was. I still won't vote for her, though - the Democrats nominating Hillary would be like a group of baby seals getting together to give out baseball bats to hunters.

OK, you *totally* failed to mention that you get a bobblehead. Bobblehead!

I have a slightly hard time with that particular Fox channel, as its local news once ran a lead story on "Deadly Doors -- When Supermarkets Attack," which I still use as my strongest example of the idiocy of local news. :-)

But nice quiz, assuming it's accurate. Which it probably is, on those issues, but I think it may be a bit hampered by trying to include all the candidates -- it flattens out some differences and exaggerates others, I think.

(I ended up with Kucinich, then Clinton.)

My highest matching candidates were Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich at 63% each; my lowest match was Duncan Hunter at 0%. Mike Huckabee was 5%.

Chris Dodd was my highest match at 37%.
Duncan Hunter was my lowest match at 17%.

WTFBH are Chris Dodd and Duncan Hunter?

WTFBH are Chris Dodd and Duncan Hunter?

No one really knows. All we can say with anything like certainty is that they have a common ancestor:

≡ Click to see image ≡

Duncan Hunter leads with 58%. Duncan who?

The fox news one put me at 38% with both Giuliani and Paul, and 35% to Thompson. All the big name democrats were 20% or below. Way off.

Electoral compass worked way better for me. It puts you in a nice two-dimensional graph (social freedom [traditionalism-progressism] x economic freedom [socialism-capitalism]). If you click on the little pencil besides your position, it also lists your "distance" in both axis to all candidates, and percentage of agreement. In this one I'm almost on the mark on Ron Paul (and way far from both mainstreams). Also try political compass for the non-election-centric version (it also has a placement for the candidates on the graph that's somewhat different)

What both these things fail to to take into account is the importance I give to either axis. I have strong opinions about lots of topics (that is - lots of stuff I strongly agree/oppose on both of them), but give much more IMPORTANCE to social freedom. They fuck up when they try to do euclidean distance between two dimensions to which they HAVE NO WAY to assign proportion. Then they end up saying I'm closer to mainstream republican ("neocon") than mainstream democrat ("liberal") because I'm three apples and five oranges farther from one, and two apples and six oranges farther from other.

I got Joe Biden with 50%. I've heard of him but know nothing about him. But then I won't be voting for him or anybody else anyway.

There's no one to the left of Kucinich, so I'll get him (there's no fucking way I'm going to give Fox any clicks.).

It's a shame that Dennis will never have a chance; he is certainly the best man for the job and the only candidate with a clear vision and no propensity for flip-flopping or playing to his base. He simply wants do The Right Thing... which is why he is doomed.

qvantamon, your link put me with Obama... which is wrong. I'm WAY more liberal than he is.

According to the Fox link I'm closest to Clinton and Kucinich (tied 60%).

According to the Electoral Compass I'm closest to Obama (and furtherest from Thompson).

Every candidate fell between 20 and 30% for me, so I think that means I get to vote for whomever I want.

While I scored in the middle -and thus not near anyone- in Electoral Compass my substantive agreement was between 60 and 70% for almost all the candidates... which seems weird considering the wasteland of moderatism my pencil is sitting in. (Incidentally, if all the candidates on either side are jumbled that closely together... what's the fucking point? (that's rhetorical, don't answer))

For better or worse, I tend to vote for those that can (or who I feel can) construct a coherent plan behind their ideologies so long as it agrees with my general ideals and concerns. So, maybe by some bizarre chance, the graphs are right.

While I think you're exactly correct, qvantamon, I think there's also a problem in asking WHAT SHOULD BE nuanced political ideas as black/white/pretend-gray produces a lot of erroneous data for anyone but those at the extremes and/or spoon-fed beliefs.

For instance, the statement from Electoral Compass: "The death penalty tends to deter crime". Without getting into the details of why: I somewhat disagree with this statement, I would strongly agree with "The death penalty is sometimes necessary" and I would strongly agree if you said "There is too high a chance for error in the judicial system for the death penalty to be effective."

My opinion on the fairly simple issue of the death penalty could be mapped all over the place depending on how the "question" is asked. On the issue, I could be paired with someone who would take the exact opposite stance on each individual statement, simply because they'd also fall somewhere in the center.

And that's why these things are pretty much useless.

There's probably a way to design a very sophisticated one, but at that point you might as well just read about the candidates and make up your own mind.

(This is way too long, but I'm not generally in on political threads, so give me a break.)

Don't get me wrong, I agree that all these sorts of tests are quite limited (and I get icked out just typing 'Fox News,' but I left that out of my post title because I was afraid people would take up an argument about it with me .

Nevertheless, they're interesting to look at. I also came up Kucinich first, Clinton next. But that doesn't mean I'll vote for them. Though it's really important to know positions on issues, and there are certainly pne or two dealbreaker issues for me, I am like pokermonk in that what I'm looking for is strong leadership ability in a candidate whose general ballpark is the correct one for me. As far as I'm concerned, personal integrity, judgement, and leadership skill are more important to success at the job than agreeing with me on every position is.

I fear that Americans today approach the election process as if it were one of those giant "Hong Kong Buffets" in which we should expect to be able to pick everything we want to eat, from coconut ambrosia salad to fried chicken to lobster claws. But an exact match with issues I care about is not the sole consideration in choosing a president. What actually happens when people get into office is not that they immediately put in place every position they have stood for. They can't, because they become part of a system with checks and balances. They need to be able to sway opinion, get teams together, listen to wise counsel, and dare I say, compromise sometimes. That comes down to leadership experience and personality factors. As long as someone shows a genuine history of embracing the ideals of my party, I'm happy to be a little flexible on my specific issue positions (understanding that the democratic process will modify them anyway) in order to select a candidate who I think will be the more effective leader.

I know back in July I matched Kucinich. He'll be dead in the water by the time of my primary, which hopefully will sill count. If it does, I'm voting Obama.

I got 60% Edwards.

Another vote for Kucinich.

(And maybe it's too inside-baseball, but I'd love to look deeper at candidates' answers, and how this thing's weighted. They told me Clinton was third-closest (after Gravel, natch), and I can't imagine how that could possibly be true.)

Electoral Compass says I'm an Obama man, perhaps because their list of Dems only includes Clinton, Edwards, Obama and Richardson. And while the Matchmaker thought that Romney was my polar opposite, EC says Thompson.

Matchmaker: Clinton and Kucinich (in that order) tied at 58%.

Electoral Compass: Obama with Clinton and Richards fairly close.

I'm so confused! j/k

Fox: Clinton and Chris Dodd, in a tie.
Electoral Compass: Obama. This makes more sense since their political map puts Obama to the north of the rest of Democrats on social issues and to the east of them on economic issues, which I think matches my views pretty well.

Oddly, on political compass, it would appear that John Edwards is the most centrist candidate.

Kucinich, 75%.

I also just learned that Obama smokes cigarettes, which surprised me for some reason. Anyone know who the last cig smoking pres was (please leave Lewinsky jokes at the door)?

Clinton is very liberal when it comes to domestic issues. She's perceived as a more conservative Democrat because of her foreign policy platform.

My favorite question on that quiz was "Drug use is immoral: enforce laws against it." Ummm, I'm pretty sure I can disagree with the first part of that statement, yet agree with the second part.