Candidate Calculator

[K-Mac]

A short quiz to help you determine which candidate you most agree with. Mine came back with Tom

Tancredo 66%?!?

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

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Duncan Hunter ® 85.59%. Now who the heck is this guy?!?!

On some of the questions I had to answer loosely. For instance I decided to say "yes" on "Social Security Privatization" even though I don't support any of the plans offered under that label. (The label generally applies to government continuing to force you to save for your retirement but giving you more options than you have now.) I want to *truly* privatize it by taking government out of it totally. To the sorts of people who write these pages that's an extreme version of "Social Security Privatizataion" rather than actually being qualitatively different from what they think of, so I said yes--since the option I really want isn't listed. Polls suck.

There were many issues like this where what I really want isn't there, but might be lumped with yes or no anyway. I tried to "blunt" the impact of my semi-misleading answer by rating them of low importance even when it isn't.

[DarkWaters]

Needless to say, I think that candidate calculators that emphasis yes-or-no responses to topical political issues are not very helpful. I would be more interested in some sort of evaluation based on political principles.

Anyway, I still get amused by these things. I received a 65.67% match to Rudy Giuliani. This simplistic mechanism somewhat reflects my current preferences.

I find it amusing how Mike Gravel is currently the top-matched candidate.

Mine came back with Tom Tancredo 66%?!?

Immigrants must be the bane of your existence!

Duncan Hunter ® 85.59%. Now who the heck is this guy?!?!

Another generic Republican candidate who has no chance of winning the nomination. According to Wikipedia, Representative Hunter is anti-abortion lives, adamant about regulating immigration from Mexico and anti-free trade.

Edited September 26, 2007 by DarkWaters

[softwareNerd]

At the bottom of the page, they ask what candidate you support. I wonder if they use that as feedback to fine-tune their assumptions.

They say I should vote for Fred Thomson, with Brownback, Romney and Tancredo as runners-up. Since I don't like any of those, compared to Guiliani, it would have been nice if they provided more explanation. I wonder where DW and I differed on our inputs (click graphic for mine, E&OE).

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Another generic Republican candidate who has no chance of winning the nomination. According to Wikipedia, Representative Hunter is anti-abortion lives, adamant about regulating immigration from Mexico and anti-free trade.

Okay, I answered Pro choice, I did say I wanted to provide a path to citizenship (though I believe in having a fence so our government has a chance to weed out crooks and terrorists), and I did say I was pro free-trade.

Though I think in the latter case I said "less important" because "Free Trade" is (like "Social Security Privatization") also misused in modern political discourse. To the politicos it means long 1000 page treaties that are still full of trade restrictions. (If we truly wanted free trade we'd simply repeal our trade restrictions!)

In any case, I can't imagine how I turned out to be a good match for a guy described like this, unless it was my adamant pro-gun answers. Is he extremely pro-gun? A rhetorical question since somehow I just don't care enough to go find out.

I do recall that of the major candidates it said I am a close match to Fred "Russians Don't Take A Dump, Son, Without A Plan" Thompson. (A line his character said in Hunt For Red October, but I associate it with him.)

[K-Mac]

Choosing the answers for this quiz was much like voting for politicians...nothing quite matches exactly what you're looking for, so you just wing it and hope for the best.

[The Wrath]

72.22 for Tom Tancredo

[Cogito]

it would have been nice if they provided more explanation.

How the Scoring Works

We match you with candidates based upon how closely you align with their opinions on the issues, as well as how relevant those issues are to you. Here is a closer look on how we award points to the candidates.

• High Importance Issue
  • Candidate Matches You - 2 Points
    
  • Candidate is Neutral - 0 Points
    

  [*]Medium Importance Issue

  • Candidate Matches You - 1 Point
    
  • Candidate is Neutral - .5 Points
    

  [*]Low Importance Issue

  • Candidate Matches You - .5 Point
    
  • Candidate is Neutral - .25 Point
    

  [*]No points are given for issues marked unsure or not answered

My answers had no dems until halfway down the page.

[DavidOdden]

The questions were really poorly written. Do you support "Abortion Rights"? Well, it's not the government's business to prevent women from getting abortions: but "Abortion Rights" means "and free abortion provided by taxes". I support doing embryonic stem-cell research, I oppose a ban on it, and I oppose government funding of it. I oppose ANWR drilling in that this should not be government controlled land and it should be up to the owner of the land to use the land as he sees fit -- if the Sierra Club buys it, I don't think they should be forced to drill for oil. I oppose same-sex marriage in the same way I oppose heterosexual marriage -- it's not a government function.

[softwareNerd]

...explanation page...

Thanks Cogito. Now that I think about it, what I'd like to see is a little table that has the questions, and then two new columns:

• match-score, using their recommended candidate; and
  
• match-score, using the candidate I named
  

and, I'd like the option to filter out rows where the match-score is the same for the two candidates.

That way, I would get a snapshot that tells me why they think their match is "better" than mine. Then, I can decide if they're right, or if (say) something I marked "high" and on my candidate score better is perhaps a "super-high" in my mind.

Of course, I agree with David's comments about the types of questions. These polls are mostly a type of entertainment.

[JMeganSnow]

I got Tom Tancredo 67%. I don't even know why I took the test, I'm completely not following anything that has to do with the election next year, since it doesn't matter what I do anyway. I put down that I love immigrants, is Tancredo anti-immigration or something?

[Steve D'Ippolito]

I got Tom Tancredo 67%. I don't even know why I took the test, I'm completely not following anything that has to do with the election next year, since it doesn't matter what I do anyway. I put down that I love immigrants, is Tancredo anti-immigration or something?

Immigration--shut the border down now and kick out the illegal aliens NOW--is his signature issue.

[D'kian]

With these kinds of tests I try to see if I can guess the answers for the results I want.

I did, and came up with Rudy with a match of 84%

[BrassDragon]

I got Tancredo as the highest (in the upper 60s), like several others. I also put down pro-immigration things... so either he's pro-immigration, or the test isn't all that good.

[K-Mac]

I got Tancredo as the highest (in the upper 60s), like several others. I also put down pro-immigration things... so either he's pro-immigration, or the test isn't all that good.

I think he's VERY anti-illegal immigration. Weird. (The test probably isn't all that good either, but entertaining.)

Edited September 26, 2007 by K-Mac

[BrassDragon]

When I switched my views from being strongly pro-intervention in Iran (military and economic) to being anti-intervention, Ron Paul turned up as the favored candidate. Not surprising at all - as far as I know, I agree with him on everything except foreign policy. IMHO, he's the most compelling speaker. Too bad he's wrong on one of the most important issues (if not the most important).

Edited September 27, 2007 by BrassDragon

[Antonio]

A short quiz to help you determine which candidate you most agree with. Mine came back with Tom

Tancredo 66%?!?

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

I found this odd too. I was matched 75 percent with Kansas Sen. Tom Brownback, who is just about a caveman. Ron Paul was lower on the list, though after going to his Web site and reading his positions, and from what I have known from him, I would favor him among the major-party candidates. While I don't agree 100 percent with him, or anyone else for that matter, I would agree with him on most issues.

Without running this by someone with an expertise in statistical scoring, on the surface the rationale for the point system seems to make sense. But it must be flawed in overly weighing certain issues. I wonder if some of the mediums should have been answered as low. And, the definitions of issues were grossly oversimplified.

For instance, I suspect free trade in this sense meant support of NAFTA, WTO and other trade pacts. While I support free trade, I do not support turning over sovereignty to super-national organizations, nor government propping up this practice (which is not true free trade). So I answered yes, and therefore would be swayed away from the Ron Paul camp.

This reminds me a little bit about the World's Smallest Political Quiz, touted often by the Libertarian Party. I remember in college when a party rep was in the quad having people take the quiz (which at the time was called the "Freedom Survey"). Not surprisingly, there were more libertarians than anything else there, as has been the case on the Web version of the quiz. In that quiz as well, the questions are extremely simplified and I suspect worded so that many respondents end up in the libertarian quadrant.

[softwareNerd]

Here's another "candidate selection wizard", this time from ABC. In some ways more detailed, and in other ways more sketchy. What I like is that they took my advice (see above ) and show a summary at the end, telling you how each of the their top three suggestions match each of the poll-questions.

I got:

1. Guiliani
   
2. Brownback
   
3. Dodd
   

[Clawg]

Ron Paul 89%, followed by Gravel, Mccain and Tancredo (62.86% - 54.29%)

Here is another one, with more explanations for each question:

http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460

[TheEgoist]

For the first one I got

Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo ®

75.00% match

For the latest, I got Rudy, McCain, then Paul.

I did the second one before and got a different order, though the first 2 were the same. I think it might perceive me as more of a " moral conservative " because I don't support FEDERAL funding of stem cell research and alternative energy, although I support independent studies of both those things

[TheEgoist]

When I switched my views from being strongly pro-intervention in Iran (military and economic) to being anti-intervention, Ron Paul turned up as the favored candidate. Not surprising at all - as far as I know, I agree with him on everything except foreign policy. IMHO, he's the most compelling speaker. Too bad he's wrong on one of the most important issues (if not the most important).

Ron Paul is very much anti-immigration. He is possibly the most radical on the issue within the entire GOP. He wants an electrified wall put up, and servicemen across the 700 mile stretch. I think he has expressed a vision of this for the Canadian border which is a bit more than 700 miles...He wants abortion outlawed, but thinks it should be done state-by-state.

His foreign policy is worse than that of a Democrat. Not only will he leave our enemies untouched, but he desires to dismantle the CIA and thus crippling us.

These were just a few things I think you should know before simply saying Iran is the only situation you disagree with him on. He is not even a Libertarian, but a paleo-conservative with Free Market leanings.

[Clawg]

He wants abortion outlawed, but thinks it should be done state-by-state.

Giuliani wants to do it on the federal level ("Giuliani has promised to appoint judges in the mold of Chief Justice John Roberts and Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia").

His foreign policy is worse than that of a Democrat. Not only will he leave our enemies untouched,

He has a different definition of 'enemy'.

but he desires to dismantle the CIA and thus crippling us.

He wants to rebuild it, he doesn't want to stop gathering intelligence. When an agency fails at a structural level (the CIA had all information it needed to prevent e.g. 9/11), it needs to be restructured, not rewarded. Congress should be able to check what the CIA is doing.

[TheEgoist]

Giuliani wants to do it on the federal level ("Giuliani has promised to appoint judges in the mold of Chief Justice John Roberts and Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia").

I am honestly not that worried about Abortion ever becoming illegal, even with the appointment of Pro-Life Supreme court leaders.

He has a different definition of 'enemy'.

He has a foolish definition of " Enemy ", a suicidal one that says we must be hit before ever attacking, no matter what the proof is that there is an attack coming our way. Also, we must allow obviously rogue nations who are rabidly anti-semitic and anti-west to develop Nuclear power.

He wants to rebuild it, he doesn't want to stop gathering intelligence. When an agency fails at a structural level (the CIA had all information it needed to prevent e.g. 9/11), it needs to be restructured, not rewarded. Congress should be able to check what the CIA is doing.

He wants to completely dismantle it, and replace it with a weaker entity. As a Libertarian he hates any strong government agencies. The CIA is not an excellent agency, but you don't completely trash it.

Ron Paul claims he wants rid of the CIA and secret investigations, which is what the CIA does. I'm sure he'd be all up for spying as long as we're honest about it.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo6KIusCBoU

( Ignore the pretentious douche talking to Paul. The mere sound of his voice is painful