Posted on 10/24/2007 12:30:50 PM PDT by Calpernia
Several websites are offering compass headings to voters who feel lost in the big field of presidential candidates.
Sites such as selectsmart.com and vajoe.com seek to match people with candidates through questionnaires that cover immigration, taxes, abortion and other issues.
“It looks to me as if matchmaking and dating have intersected with running for president,” said John Zogby, head of the independent polling firm, Zogby International. “I guess it was inevitable.”
Although the questionnaires have no value as scientific polls, opinion experts say they may give voters who are unfamiliar with the herd of candidates a starting point in the 2008 election.
At vajoe.com, a privately owned site geared toward military service members and veterans, the “Candidate Calculator” has attracted about 1.2 million responses, according to a website counter.
The questionnaire lists issues such as “border fence” and “same sex marriage” and asks respondents, “Do you support?” After answering “yes” or “no,” respondents mark whether the issue is of high, medium or low importance. Respondents may click on each issue to get background information. Clicking on “border fence,” for example, brings up the National Public Radio website and a 2006 Q&A about security along the U.S. border with Mexico.
Answering questions along a conservative line on vajoe.com produced a top match with U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. A consistent liberal response connected with U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio.
The results were about the same at selectsmart.com, where Kucinich also popped up after a liberal response and Tancredo landed just behind the top conservative match, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.
The selectsmart.com site asks questions centered on a respondent’s “ideal candidate,” and also gauges voters’ preferences for a candidate’s age, political experience and marital history. Both that site and vajoe.com match respondents with a sliding scale of candidates, from ideological mates to those who wouldn’t get a first date.
Minnesota Public Radio’s website, minnesota.publicradio.org, also features a candidate-matching questionnaire, but the site calls it a “survey” and warns it is “not designed to tell you what candidate you should vote for. It is intended only to help you think about your positions and then introduce you to the candidates.”
None of the sites offers a randomly-selected, representative poll of American voters, opinion experts stressed.
“I think people will make up their minds based on other things than filling out a questionnaire,” said Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies public opinion.
“It’s better than nothing, but it’s only half the story,” said Frank Luntz, a communications expert based in Washington.
The other big piece is the candidate’s character, Luntz said.
“Personalities are as important as where they stand,” he said.
Luntz cited leading Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Their stances on the issues are similar, he said, “but one of them is very much a polarizer [Clinton] and the other one is very much a unifier [Obama].”
While candidate calculators may be a useful source to learn more about candidates, Zogby said, “the key question is the role of personalities.” Voters, he said, choose a president based on their perceptions of leadership abilities, among other factors.
“Character traits are extremely important, especially for voters in the middle who can go either way, who don’t usually vote ideologically, or who float ideologically,” Zogby said.
So, basically, these morons are voting for people they clearly aren't aligned with on the issues...I know I shouldn't be surprised, but that really makes my head hurt.
Umm, thanks for the census link; I don’t know what it is for. The Log Cabins aren’t broken out in there; but I appreciate it.
Applying for Log Cabin endorsement is a major issue with me and with others that understand who they are. I’m glad it doesn’t bother you. But I and others want no part of an organization that has money funneled by David Mixner who was an organizer of the Vietnam antiwar marches, who also set up the democratic Victory Funds, who was Bill Clinton’s gay political advisor, and who funds the Point Foundation, a scholarship program to turn “gay” kids into homosexual activists.
You go ahead and support that though. Cause, when you apply for Log Cabin endorsement, you sign a contract with them. You will be supporting the whims of LCR, not the candidate.
>>>had just voluntarily endorsed Romney
LCR has definitions for support and endorsement. They an lend support to anyone. But an endorsement has to be applied for and contains an entirely different process.
I have threads here on it if you want to know more, I will ping you to them.
I also have threads on David Mixner. I can ping you to those too.
Let me know.
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