[Psudo]

USA Today has a pretty cool quiz to help you determine which candidates for US President most closely match your opinions on issues. It shows them ranked as a bar graph at the bottom of the quiz, and even lets you choose how important to you each issue is. I'm very impressed with it.

[Tiler]

Mike Gavel, Fred Thompson, and Ron Paul.

It's an good test, but I don't like how the questions are 'all or nothing'. For example, if you were to think that the war in Iraq shouldn't have been fought due to lack of WMDs, it would give you no points to a candidate that supports the war, but it also wouldn't give you points for a candidate against the war if they're rational wasn't something to do with WMDs.

I also think they got some positions wrong. For example, Ron Paul wants to implement a sales tax, but they gave his stance as 'Scrap the current system and start over'... despite that the very quote they chose to show his stance SAID "We need a fair tax system...". I suppose getting rid of the IRS is taking it a step farther, but it ties into my earlier problem with the quiz.

[WBenson]

Gravel, Kucinich, and I'm not sure who else, because I answered the last question with experience in the Senate, even though I didn't think any of them was more important than the others, so it gave me McCain. Before that, I think Hunter was 3rd, even though I abhor his views on most things.

[Psudo]

Tiler, they probably took "We need a fair tax system" to mean "We need a Fair Tax system". That is the connotation the phrase "fair tax" has taken lately, and it would be pretty speculative to imagine Ron Paul did not know that and was not referencing it.

[fire_i]

I'm not American, but I tried this anyway.

Gives my Huckabee, Gravel, Kucinich before I adjusted the sliders. McCain, Gravel, Huckabee after I did.

Thing is, I can't stand Huckabee at all... I also strongly disagree with McCain (and the Republicans overall) on many issues. All and all this seems pretty unnacurate to me. Good idea behind it, though. There should have been an option to select how much you like/dislike each proposition individually.

I'm amused Gravel came up there, as he really is the one and only minor candidate I really care about. Him being a franco-american adds to the... coincidence (That's not the word I'm looking for, but it's the best I can come up with).

[Clogeroo]

Ron Paul

[Psudo]

fire_i, "irony"?

[Calbeck]

I immediately had a problem with the immigration question, because most of the proposed solutions are equally sensible (in my opinion) and none are contradictory to each other. Choosing just one suggests that I don't support any of the other options.

I came up with Romney, Guiliani, or Tancredo...none of whom I'm particularly enamored with.

[Rususeruru]

I got Dodd, Romney and O'Bama... only one of which I actually know much of/would vote for.

[fire_i]

Psudo wrote:

fire_i, "irony"?

Makes sense, yes.

[ejacksonian]

I've seen many of these tests before, but none of them are adequate. The problem is you need to separate action from intent, purposes, or motivation. Just because two people may agree on action doesn't mean they have same motivations. It's also true the other way around - just because may have the same motivations, intentions, or purposes may not agree on the same actions.

[Scape]

As expected... Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel and Duncan Hunter.

[ejacksonian]

Scape wrote:

As expected... Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel and Duncan Hunter.

One of them doesn't fit.

[Scape]

I have to assume you mean Hunter. Should have been Ron Paul right?

[Calbeck]

o/` Which of these candidates doesn't belong here, which of these guys, can you tell me which one? o/`

I got Hunter instead of Tancredo on a second run-through when I decided to choose differently on the tax question (another one where multiple answers seem to be mutually compatible).