Via Jake, we get a candidate selector for the US election. While the company behind it is Dutch, the questions seem fairly well-tuned, and the results seem to be right. The same company has apparently been pretty popular in the Netherlands. The only thing that will make the results wonky is that the candidates are tightly clustered, which presumably makes the results very sensitive to shades of meaning, and small changes in answers could, presumably, change your favored candidate.
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Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at the National Center for Science Education. He is also a graduate student at the University of Kansas, completing a doctorate in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. When not modeling species distributions or battling creationists, he writes about developments in progressive politics and the sciences.
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« On the "upset" in New Hampshire | Main | North Carolina shows how a state builds a biotech industry »
The universe tells me to vote Obama
Category: Policy and Politics
Posted on: January 10, 2008 4:10 PM, by Josh Rosenau
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Comments
Nice toy. Looks like I'm just a little bit further left than you, but still far closer to Obama than anyone else. Makes sense then that I support him...if only I could vote.
Posted by: IanR | January 11, 2008 9:32 AM
I come out just a tad to the economic right of you, but still right by Obama. But yes the way the candidates are clustered really makes the outcome sensitive to slight differences in interpretation. At least the Republicans and Democrats are clearly in separate clusters.
Posted by: Paul Decelles | January 11, 2008 10:16 PM
There's something deeply flawed about this test.
It shows John Edwards to the right of Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson on the economic axis.
It doesn't show Ron Paul--who wants to abolish social security, the Federal Reserve, anti-discrimination legislation--as furthest to the right on economics.
It doesn't ask a question about the right to form a union. It doesn't ask a question about so-called free trade.
Posted by: Stuart Elliott | January 12, 2008 7:52 AM
And it only has four Democratic candidates, too. There should be a face out there where you (and I) am.
Posted by: The Ridger | January 12, 2008 9:24 PM