Trouble Picking A Candidate?

[showcase]

Let the internet do it for you! In a few short minutes, this engine will pick the candidate that best represents your positions on the issues:

www.presidentmatch.com/Main.jsp2

In the interest of full disclosure:

Kerry 98%

Bush 9%

[jerseyhoya34]

Good thread... I'm going to respond and kick it up to the top of the Board.

Here are my results:
1) Kerry: 100%
2) Kucinich/Clark: 93%
4) Edwards: 87%
5) Dean/Sharpton: 84%
7) Lieberman: 79%
8) Bush: 31%

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Nice thread!

Kerry 97%
Dean 92%
Edwards 81%
Lieberman 79%
Bush 19%

Sorry, Bando, your boy fell in at 4th for me too. . . .

[thebin]

Bush 100% (somewhat to my suprise given my answers re: gay rights)
Lieberman 79
Kerry 76
....
Kucinich at bottom with 34%

Either the thing is flawed- or you have to vote radical, straight ticket , left wing to come up with Bush at less than 10% when I have Kucinich at 34%! I wonder how much more of my salary would be taken from my family and me and given to the government if someone who has Kerry at 100% had their way? To those of you who obviously opted to increase government spending for every social program they listed- do you think any Americans should ever have to fork over half their hard earned money to the govt? Or would you gut defense spending or something? Because to get Kerry at 100%, you had to be throwing out vague support to things like universal health care which could only be accomplioshed by pushing me into a 50% tax bracket I am guessing- which I think is near criminal.

[Gold Hoya]

I agree with thebin that this thing is flawed ...

Bush 100%
Lieberman 88%
Edwards 73%
Kerry 73%
Clark 72%
Sharpton 70%
Dean 67%
Kucinich 57%

How exactly can I be 100% on President Bush (despite opposing his position on several issues) and still be 57% for Kucinich?

_{apparently if you put three question marks in sequence it automatically gives you the question/frown smiley. I like new the edit function!}

[thebin]

Yeah- Sharpton at 70 and Bush at 100? The thing is worthless. Someone has Lieberman at 79- but Bush at 19? No way those two are that far apart. I am too much of a fiscal conservative and social libertarian to have Bush at 100%. And it is just absurd that anyone could have Bush at under 10%. Why are the numbers so high for left wing quacks like Kucinich and Sharpton but below 10% for in many ways moderate Republican like Bush? I think the questions seemed awfully charged and far from nuanced. But at any rate, I would be quite embarrassed to have Kucinich at 93% Jersey! And how in hell did it spit out Clark and Kucinich at the same score?

[jerseyhoya34]

Haha... This thing makes about much sense as a three dollar bill (or even Reagan's head on a dime).

The only partial explanation that I can provide is that it must come down to some extent to how your rank the different issue areas. For example, if you went conservative on fiscal issues and libertarian on other issues and proceeded to rank the fiscal issues as being most important, you might come up with Bush at 100%. Not saying that you did that, but it might come down to the ranking part of it.

I can offer no response to how I got 93% for Kucinich as well as Clark. Perhaps I am in line with Dennis on social issues and that somehow influenced the overall tally. What I can say is that my responses were "strong" on national security, progressive on social issues, and liberal on fiscal policy (i.e. balanced budget).

I have a couple of other candidate selectors and will post new threads on each.

[showcase]

I not sure any of these things are to be taken too seriously; in answering the questions, I thought it left a lot to be desired, and there's no indication what criteria were used for establishing any given candidate's profile.

I think anyone looking to any internet profiler for anything other than mild entertainment and some throught provoking may be suffering from a serious deficiency in perspective.

[thebin]

There is just no need for that kind of personal insult showcase. I don't think anyone is "suffering from a serious deficiency in perspective." Just pointing out that thing is spitting out bizarre results.

[showcase]

Hey, nothing personal, 'bin; just seemed like you were missing the point of these things in denouncing this one as "worthless," as they're all pretty "worthless" in one way or another. I was only trying to suggest that these things generally lack any value as a predictive tool, and thus their "worth" may be more properly assessed based on other criteria.