SECOND A2K STRAW POLL White House 2008

After a quick plunge on the issues link of the candidates' pages (I read only dems, for now), my choices are 1. Richardson; 2. Obama.
Of course my range of interests ("my personal agenda") is somewhat different from that of American citizens.

(Kucinich was interesting; he sounds great for some things, but looney on others).

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This may help you all. It matched me up with Hillary. It is your candidate calculator.

http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html

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The calculator matched me with Kucinich and Gravel, and both are against free-trade, which I strongly support.
Rolling Eyes

Obama came third.

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According to that calculator,I am most closely matched with Fred Thompson...86.90% match

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It matched me with John Cox and I never heard of the dude.

I read his web page....no I wouldn't vote for him.

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I am a human and not a consumer in USA
I beg and appeal all those americans not to change the horse .
Vote any one but not a duplicate replica( I mean the so called Dems)
It is not an advice but request.
America is the land of immense opportunity if
you are a consumer with credit card.

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It matched me with Dennis.

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fbaezer wrote:

The calculator matched me with Kucinich and Gravel, and both are against free-trade, which I strongly support.

Obama came third.

I got Kucinich, 93,1% Laughing

At least Edwards came second:

2. Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (D) - 82.76%
3. New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) - 79.31%
4. Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D) - 79.31%

Its cool that there is a calculator like that - better judge on issues/positions than on personality or the hype trivia of the day.

But I got serious issues with the focus of this calculator. It's immensely balanced towards cultural issues, and has the socio-economic meat of political decision-making relegated to a few questions at the end.

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It matched me with Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D); who in the world is that?

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nimh wrote:

But I got serious issues with the focus of this calculator. It's immensely balanced towards cultural issues, and has the socio-economic meat of political decision-making relegated to a few questions at the end.

*nods* It doesn't even do a decent job on the cultural issues. Riase the minimum wage? Maybe... It doesn't give any indication as to what level it'd be raised to however. Abortion Rights? Sure! Why not? I don't buy into the idea that tax $$ should be used to pay for it though.

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OK, wait I only ever used medium and high importance, never low importance. Lemme go back and use low as well and see what happens...:

Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich (D) - 92.59% match

Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (D) - 82.41%
New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) - 81.48%
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (D) - 77.78%

Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D) - 76.85%
Delaware Senator Joseph Biden (D) - 74.07%
Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) - 70.37%
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) - 59.26%
Texas Representative Ron Paul (R) - 38.89%
Arizona Senator John McCain (R) - 27.78%
Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson (R) - 25.00%
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) - 18.52%
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) - 18.52%
Businessman John Cox (R) - 14.81%

California Representative Duncan Hunter (R) - 14.81%
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) - 9.26%
Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo (R) - 8.33%
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) - 7.41%

For some reason, I dont have a Fred Thompson though. Anastasia had a Fred Thompson - he was at the bottom of her list. (Kucinich and Gravel were on top.. Embarrassed

)

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revel wrote:

It matched me with Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D); who in the world is that?

The loony one Smile

So.. on the right of the results page, it has a list of Most Top-Matched Candidates, and at the top are:

# Gravel - 17.77%
# Kucinich - 13.00%
# Tommy Thompson - 10.17%
# Romney - 9.87%
# Giuliani - 9.07%
# Biden - 6.12%

Umm.. ok, so three random possibilities:

# the test is slanted
# a lot of really liberal people take the test
# Americans are a lot more liberal than they'd admit or act on in real life

Smile

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One thing the calculator got right for me is Tom Tancredo at the very last place.

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nimh wrote:

Umm.. ok, so three random possibilities:

# the test is slanted
# a lot of really liberal people take the test
# Americans are a lot more liberal than they'd admit or act on in real life

Here's a quick test for you. Go in and mark all of the boxes as "Unsure" and "Medium".

According to their own legend if you mark "Unsure" then that issue isn't scored. They still will give you Joe Biden as a result though. Razz

BUt their legend seems screwy anyway. If the candiate is neutral on an item you don't get any points for it if you rate it as a "High Imporatance" issue. If you rate it as "Medium" or "Low" importance and they are neutral on it you do get points. And the points for Medium importance are more than they are for Low importance. It doesn't make any sense at all.

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nimh wrote:

Umm.. ok, so three random possibilities:

# the test is slanted
# a lot of really liberal people take the test
# Americans are a lot more liberal than they'd admit or act on in real life

I just played with the test a bit and it turns out that it is cooked.

For example, if you go in and mark all of the issues except NCLB as "Unsure" and then mark NCLB as "Yes" and then press the "Finish" button you'll get a list of 13 candidates that match you 100%.

Now go back do the same thing and mark NCLB as "No: and click "Finish". You'll get a list of 9 candidates that match you 100%.

But there are only 19 candidates in their system so how does 13 with yes and 9 with no add up? 19 candidates but 22 positions.

It turns out that they have Guilani, Obama and Tommy Thompson listed as agreeing with both positions.

- Both Thompsons also agree with the Yes and No positions on Stem Cell research
- Guliani, Gravel, Richardson, Hunter and Tommy Thompson all agree with both sides of the ANWR issue
- Biden, Edwards, Guliani, Obama, and Hunter all agree with both sides on Kyoto.
- The Assault Weapons Ban issue is a little trickier. Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Kucinich, and Obama all match 100% if you select "Yes". Then they match 50% if you select "No". ?? 6 other candidates match 50% either way you go with it.
- etc...

I'm sure some of these would come as a surprise to the candidates themselves! Razz

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fishin wrote:

It turns out that they have Guilani, Obama and Tommy Thompson listed as agreeing with both positions.

- Both Thompsons also agree with the Yes and No positions on Stem Cell research
- Guliani, Gravel, Richardson, Hunter and Tommy Thompson all agree with both sides of the ANWR issue
- Biden, Edwards, Guliani, Obama, and Hunter all agree with both sides on Kyoto.
- The Assault Weapons Ban issue is a little trickier. Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Kucinich, and Obama all match 100% if you select "Yes". Then they match 50% if you select "No". ?? 6 other candidates match 50% either way you go with it.
- etc...

Wow, thats some digging you did! And what a result! Razz

Very funny.

The only halfway defensible explanation I can think of is that for a number of candidates, they found no clear position either in favour or against the issue at hand. In that case they should, then, of course, have inluded those politicians neither in the list of recommended politicians when you only select that one item and express being in favour of it, nor when you only select that one and express being against it. But it looks like instead they will recommend him in both cases. Thats odd but could at least be a practical explanation.

On a related note, it sounds more like the test is half-baked than cooked (heh) -- ie, incompetent rather than deliberately biased. I mean, because the doubles you discovered dont seem to particularly benefit specific candidates..

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Tom Tancredo - 90.91%

Then all tied at 86.36

Cox
Romney
F. Thompson {my pick in the poll}

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nimh wrote:

fishin wrote:
It turns out that they have Guilani, Obama and Tommy Thompson listed as agreeing with both positions.

- Both Thompsons also agree with the Yes and No positions on Stem Cell research
- Guliani, Gravel, Richardson, Hunter and Tommy Thompson all agree with both sides of the ANWR issue
- Biden, Edwards, Guliani, Obama, and Hunter all agree with both sides on Kyoto.
- The Assault Weapons Ban issue is a little trickier. Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Kucinich, and Obama all match 100% if you select "Yes". Then they match 50% if you select "No". ?? 6 other candidates match 50% either way you go with it.
- etc...

Wow, thats some digging you did! And what a result!

Very funny.

The only halfway defensible explanation I can think of is that for a number of candidates, they found no clear position either in favour or against the issue at hand. In that case they should, then, of course, have inluded those politicians neither in the list of recommended politicians when you only select that one item and express being in favour of it, nor when you only select that one and express being against it. But it looks like instead they will recommend him in both cases. Thats odd but could at least be a practical explanation.

On a related note, it sounds more like the test is half-baked than cooked (heh) -- ie, incompetent rather than deliberately biased. I mean, because the doubles you discovered dont seem to particularly benefit specific candidates..

I did some other digging and it gets even screwier. For example, I did all of the testing above with the "Medium" setting. If I go back and do the Kyoto one again I get no match with Biden, Guliani or Obama either way and Edwards shows up as a 100% match on "Yes" and 0% on "No" while Hunuter shows up as 0% on "Yes" and 100% on "No". At "Medium" importance they are all 100% matches both ways.

But it is cooked. Because of the point scoring, the test is skewed toward candidates with the extreme positions on each issue. Candidates with more extreme positions rack up points whenever you mark anything as having "High" importance while moderate candidates won't get any points for any of those.

I'd have to go into a much more lengthy description to explain it but if you play with it for a while you'll see it.

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fishin wrote:

But it is cooked. Because of the point scoring, the test is skewed toward candidates with the extreme positions on each issue. [..] I'd have to go into a much more lengthy description to explain it but if you play with it for a while you'll see it.

I'll take your word for it Smile

It certainly seems to apply to the results Stasia and I got.. :wink:

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nimh wrote:

I got Kucinich, 93,1%

so did i.

83.95%

followed by;

New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) - 75.31%
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (D) - 72.84%
Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (D) - 69.75%

of the republicans, i like ron paul on a lot of things. he's mostly a libertarian in republican's clothing.

i like mike huckabee as well. i think he's a genuinely nice person. and he has some good ideas. but i can't vote for him because of the whole religious agenda thing.

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SECOND A2K STRAW POLL White House 2008

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