FIRST A2K STRAW POLL White House 2008

I agree. I still think Cycloptichorn's post was funny, (and that it didn't contain as much meaning as you ascribed to it) but I agree with what you say about the benefits of real information -- even if it's short and sweet -- being easier to find.

OK, so I heard that there is a really cool site called www.whereIstand.com that brings info together on positions taken by presidential candidates and public figures in general - havent really checked it out yet. Will do

But OK - here's how we do it in parts of Europe. If you'll excuse me for switching the discussion from the candidates' own websites to the news media.

This is something I've been wanting to remark on since I saw the Le Monde ahead of the first round of the French presidential elections (will get to that) - but I hadnt gotten round to it yet.

In Holland, at least thats how it used to be with national elections, a week or so before they took place, the newspaper (de Volkskrant, for example), would publish this big table. One page, say.

This table listed, say, five or ten subjects (foreign policy, health care, (un)employment, etc). And in the boxes next to each subject, for each party, it would summarise its position in one paragraph. They want this, they want that, and generally they think this.

End. Perfect!

Now I dont know whether they still do this, because it might be that they stopped once the election test websites became so super popular. You go to the Kieswijzer.nl site, and there you fill in a survey, of I dunno, twenty questions. Twenty times you indicate whether you agree or disagree with a given position. At the end you can, if you want, give extra weight to the ones you feel strongly about. Click "Finish" and presto, it gives you an overview of which party is closest to your views, and which ones are less close, or not close at all. (The site takes its info from the parties themselves - its popular enough for the parties to eagerly provide it.)

Last time before I left, at the national elections, about one in four or one in three of all Dutch voters used it. Massive. They didnt necessarily vote for the party they were recommended of course, but it was an easy way to check your affinities on the actual issues. They've started such sites in Germany and Belgium too.

OK, now France for example. Presidential elections last weekend. Last month was the first round, with a dozen or so candidates, five or six important ones.

In the newspaper Le Monde - the NYT of France - they had a series. Every day or couple of days, they had an article, one/third of one page or something, with a few columns. For example: health care. Five columns - summarising the position of the five main presidential candidates.

Then, the weekend before the elections, they had a special supplement, where the lot of 'em was brought together. So on each issue, you could handily read up bite-sized descriptions of what each of the main candidates thought.

So simple!

Do any US newspapers do this, at all? Like, during the primaries? Just listing the candidates and summarising bite-sized descriptions of what each of 'em says about immigration, Iraq, whatever?

I'm sure there's specialised websites that do it - but then you're off into relative wonkdom already. Unless there's one that has a reach and simplicity comparable to that of the Dutch Kieswijzer, of course.

I dunno. It just seems so simple to do.. and I'm sure American readers would like it too, no?

Only the politicians might not like it, I guess, if they think they can sell themselves better if the voters actually know less about their actual concrete positions, and see only emotive ads about their "values" and "character"..

Local papers do something like that, yeah. The League of Women Voters puts out a thing I always peruse before voting.

This looks very cool (a LWV project) but not that current yet -- may get more current, may stay more local and how-to-vote. "Candidate Information" as a category seems promising though.

http://www.vote411.org/

Nimh, I honestly don't think non-wonks want this. You don't really see people complaining that it doesn't exist.

You are greatly overestimating the intelligence of the average voter, the drive to learn about the candidates, the sense of importance of doing so.

You see, it hurts their heads to think about such things. These issues are complicated. I'm not sure what a 2-minute presentation on health care, or Iraq, would look like, if it didn't look like the shallow tripe that we currently see. Splitting the baby in three, satisfying the casual reader and the in-depth reader AND the dumb reader (who votes too!), is a tough solution to implement.

Given that some of these campaigns have barely crawled out of the primordial sea of electoral campaigning, onto the dry and warm sands of the internet, it may take quite a bit of evolution before they are ready to impress anyone - especially a wonk like us

Cycloptichorn

I don't get it either, Nimh. One would think every candidate would want to do it. A simple outline with bullet points to start, with "click for more details"... all the way down to the most comprehensive information they have available seems like an idiotic thing to NOT provide. It seems to me; not only should independent sources assemble this; but a smart campaign manager should have the work done themselves.

Dennis Kucinich/Ron Paul

I spent some time, well, not hours, but some, looking up Richardson. Ending up with not much, some I liked, and two anecdotal items I don't. I'll admit I don't have the internet swiftness of some. Plus I'm at a disadvantage because I don't get the local papers. They're not available online except for a price, and money counts for me. I do read the free Santa Fe New Mexican, every ten days or so.

I do wish people who are candidates would work up their opinions/actions To Date, with temporizing where they are in consideration, as in, just saying so.

Exactly.

Meanwhile, I expect some of the current field of candidates to drop out due to lack of enthusiastic support and its possible another one or two will get in. I think it was John McCain who quipped that a presidential candidate makes his intentions known in stages, testing the waters at each stage: 1) You deny you are running 2) You admit you may think about running 3) You announce that you have thought about running 4) You announce that you may have an important announcement soon; 5) You announce that you will declare your candidacy 6) You declare your candidacy

So....stage one? Two? Four? Five?

Go dys!

surely to god we wouldn't be stupid enough to put Fred Thompson in office.... of course I said that about bush....of course WE didn't put bush in office....

To go back to the info thing for a minute, I think that one other element is that for whatever reasons, Americans are less tolerant of politicians changing their minds than other people are. I think that's pertinent because politicians are wary of saying anything too specific that can come back later and bite them in the butt.

If they say they're for supporting families, fine, that could take a few forms, and is a guiding principle that is unlikely to change. But if they say that the government should mandate paid parental leave, and then later realize that it's untenable and decide it's not such a good idea after all, they're in trouble.

I think Americans are as capable as anybody of allowing somebody to change their mind, but frequently won't allow it because it is politically expedient to use a 'flip flop' against somebody. I personally admire somebody who says that he thinks paid parental leave was a good thing, but once he got down to it and did the math, he realized that it could hurt more people than it helped. So he is backing off that.

He is unlikely to be allowed to do that by the 'other party', however, as he will not be quoted in context and they'll make it look as callous and/or wishy washy as possible.

That, for me, is the truly ugly nature of politics.

I personally admire politicians who do their research before developing their position. Clearly, there can be changes, and outside of the U.S., it does seem to be somewhat more acceptable.

But still, I'd recommend they do the research first, that'll make the position make sense to begin with. It will also make their debates easier to follow. Debates between politicians who know "sound bites" aren't really of any use to anyone.

I agree with that, ehBeth.

I would too if it was feasible, but it is not. Most politicians have neither the time nor the resources to do the research on every issue while they are campaigning. When the question is thrown to them by a reporter or in a debate or by a citizen at a town hall meeting, etc. they have to have an answer and, in today's political climate, "I don't know", or "I haven't established a position on that yet" is never acceptable. That would be a sure way to be characterized as 'uninformed' or 'uncaring' or 'ignorant' or 'without conviction' or 'playing to poltiical expediency' or 'wishy washy'.

So they come up with what sounds good to them, i.e. "I think paid parental leave would be a good thing" which will be billed by the League of Women Voters or some other position-gathering group as "Senator so-and-so favors paid parental leave" and it will be doled out in sound bites either as his position or as 'evidence' that he flip flopped on the issue later.

Further when his position is shown as "not favoring paid parental leave", he won't get the benefit of having his reasons publicized along with the positions. He'll be criticized by proponents of that benefit as opposing it and therefore not giving a damn about family values or helping families.

And so it goes for any position a candidate takes in our instant information sound bite world. I think most people don't take the time to read an explanation for a position. Frankly, I doubt that many people care once they've decided who makes their heart go pitty pat.

Again it's one of the uglier and less edifying sides of politics.

That's part of the problem, though. That should be the emphasis in the lead-up to an election. A candidate should be fleshing out already-held opinions and researching issues he or she hasn't yet decided on. And getting all of that stuff established so that it can be conveyed to the voter, so the voter knows what to expect.

I agree that a lot of time is taken up with "campaigning," but I think that American "campaigning" contains way too much frippery and not enough substance.

I am not sure that it will hurt him very much, but Obama just made a pretty bad gaffe relative to the tornado victims. He was strongly complaining how the war in Iraq was making National Guard or reserve equipment unavailable domestically, pointing to the "10,000" killed by the tornado. In actuality, only 10 died.

Yeh, was talked about on the Obama thread.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2649218#2649218