Thanks to A Small Victory we have another political poll: President Match from AOL/Time. I’m sure that it will surprise none of you that Bush came in first and Lieberman in second…
(static)
Whaddya mean, it’s biased towards Democratic centrists? Shenanigans! I call shenanigans!
(Matthew noted this one first)
UPDATE: Well, that was a disturbing hiccup. Hopefully nobody lost a comment in the fixing of that triple posting.
Well, that was a disturbing hiccup.
It was trackback-a-licious on my end Moe đ But I didn’t note that preference poll at all — that’s Michele’s doing.
I got 100% W, 61% Lieberman, incidentally. I didn’t think there was a pro-DLC Dem bias in the questioning, either.
“It was trackback-a-licious on my end Moe”
Yeah, sorry about that. At first it wouldn’t save, then it cooked off three posts right after the other, and then the trackback pings wouldn’t delete… very, very weird.
Just saw the Paul Winter Consort last night. Seeing Henry Rollins next week. Batteries now charged up to pull the D lever, perhaps even with verve. đ
There’s an inaccuracy bias, is what there is. How does someone who strongly opposes U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, and who opposes gov’t funded health care, and strongly supports U.S. participation in NAFTA, to name a few things, get 100% match with Kucinich?
Whoa… Sharpton, then Kucinich, then Kerry and Dean (the last two within 1 point of each other). Then at the bottom, yep, Leiberman, followed by you-know-who.
Obviously not that biased toward Democratic centrists. đ
I had more or less the same experience as Katherine — 100% Kucinich despite definite disagreements. My guess is that they grade on a curve, so your best match automatically gets 100% even if you don’t totally agree.
The reason for the “democratic centrist” bias if you put “no opinion” is that they decided to categorize every opinion of Bush’s as “strongly x”. Does he really strongly favor hanging the 10 commandments all over town? Does Howard Dean really only somewhat oppose the marriage amendment? I don’t think so; I have no idea how they assigned those preferences.
And of course the prioritization is out of wack. They stick unrelated categories together, and overlook the fact that your priorities within a category might vary a lot more than your prioritization of the categories. I think I ended up with Kucinich because I picked “Crime/Education” as a relatively high priority because of education, and then my anti-death penalty and semi-pro-gun-control statements paired me with Dennis the Menace.
On the pro-Bush side, he gets as much credit for military service as Kerry and Clark by the lights of this poll.
If Kucinich were the democratic nominee I’d probably vote third party. There’s no category for “will not wreck federal budget” or “reflexively opposes use of military force”. A very silly exercise, all in all.
On the pro-Bush side, he gets as much credit for military service as Kerry and Clark by the lights of this poll.
Katherine, the poll is an either/or on the military service question, not a thermometer, just like the party affiliation. On that note, I wonder if I could still match up with Wes Clark if I put Republican and gave Democrat answers đ
Kucinich, Kerry, Dean. Bush last of all.
Kucinich, SHARPTON???, Kerry, Dean… where is my garrotte?
“I had more or less the same experience as Katherine — 100% Kucinich despite definite disagreements. My guess is that they grade on a curve, so your best match automatically gets 100% even if you don’t totally agree.”
Bingo–unless GWB is suddenly pro-choice and opposing a federal anti-gay marriage amendment and no one told me. . .:-).
Bush
Lieberman
Edwards
Kerry
Clark
Dean
Sharpton
Kucinich (40%)
Looks about right to me, although I actively loathe Sharpton more than Kucinich, and Clark (as the Bubba/Lady MacBubba surrogate) should probably be below Dean.
Well, I got
Dean 100
Kerry 98
Clark 98
Kucinich 94
Sharpton 94
Lieberman 90
Edwards 87
Bush 33
It’s broadly OK, but I put Edwards at #2, and give an edge to Clark over Kerry. And I rate Sharpton and Kucinich well below Lieberman. In fact, I wouldn’t vote in an election of either of them vs Bush.
I’d rather another 4 years of Bush than someone moving my party in that wrong a direction.
I found that humorous as well (besides Lieberman and maybe Edwards, there arenât any âDemocratic centristsâ in the race) since most of the questions seemed biased towards the Left if anything. For example:
No mention of the Free Trade of the Americas, expansion of trade with Africa, or steel tariffs yea or nay.
No mention of Medical Savings Accounts (or Health Care Accounts), allowing people to form risk pools outside of their employers, or giving the self-insured the same tax deductions as employers who provide their employees health care as part of their benefits package. With the exception of malpractice reform, these are pretty much Democratic default positions.
Funny how both âissues related to jobsâ seem to be issues which most credible economists agree would have the effect of increasing unemployment. Why not just throw in Howard Deanâs proposal to hike the payroll tax while you are at it?
No mention of market-placed incentives, focusing on more results-oriented policies like Bushâs New Source Review reform, private property rights protection, Kyoto yea or nay, or giving people more leeway to come up with their own way of meeting the standards.
I will give them credit for their Social Security questions though (except they really should have included a âCOLA adjustmentâ option) and I noticed that the two default positions of the Left of âraise taxesâ and/or âthe system is just fine La-la-laâ are unfortunately absent. đ
Might also have been more interesting had they included other Republicans… not that they’re in the running, so it’s irrelephant, I know; but I’d be curious to know how much range there is in that spectrum.