As heated and highly partisan as the presidential campaign is, it’s difficult to imagine someone still being on the fence about which candidate to support. It’s not like there are two moderates circling each other somewhere in the muddled middle ground. Mitt Romney and the Republicans are at opposite ends of the spectrum from Barack Obama and the Democrats.
But for the curious, or those still trying to decide, the Christian Science Monitor is offering two quizzes designed to show you how your thinking compares with each candidate. After you answer all the questions in each quiz, you’ll get a little report of sorts, followed by the candidate’s position on each of the questions you’ve just answered.
Based on my results, reported below, I’d have to say the quizzes were more informative about the candidates than about my thinking, which appears to be a wee bit confused (“pied,” perhaps):
Are you more (or less) liberal than President Obama?
Congratulations! You’re more liberal than President Obama!
You’re proudly towing the liberal line, canvas tote bag and all. You’ve probably been frustrated with President Obama’s policies on more than one occasion, especially when he compromises with Republicans. You probably miss the Clinton years, and may have even been a Hillary supporter in ’08.
Are you more (or less) conservative than Mitt Romney?
Romney all the way!
For the most part, you agree with Romney’s ideas. You consider yourself a Republican, and you’re ready for the GOP to take back the White House!
Oh well, it was an interesting experiment. And it did result in useful listings of the candidates’ positions.
That’s hilarious PT, and a bit of a relief too. I was afraid that I was the only one out here who’s both more liberal AND more conservative than those guys are! 😆
That’s why I’m an independent. I don’t fit in anyplace else. And here I thought being “moderate” was a logical approach.
It is not hard to decide which to vote for. Just give it some thought.
1. Romney wants to fix the budget by getting rid of Medicare. He starts at the bottom where those who need Medical Care, the poor and the needy, get hit first and forever. He does not even think of taking from the Banks. With him, the rich get richer and the middle class gets poorer….Nothing in between for him.
2. Obama wants to help those who need it and get the very rich to help pay. Obama is doing a good job now..After all the Country cannot be fixed in one day. The mess we are in began with the Bush Administration, the father and son. Then they left the mess to the next president to fix.
Was Rome built in a day?
I do not want to even think of what will happen to America if the wrong man gets elected. Open your eyes America…do you want to follow the rich while you get poor? Do you want your family to need medical care and all you have are vouchers to pay with? And if your chosen Doctor does not accept the vouchers??? Think, can you afford the cost of medical care without Medicare?
I think not! Maybe you do not think Obama is perfect, but at least he is trying to help us all. Give him a chance and do not fall for the lies that Mitt Romney and his team spout.
God Forbid!
Younger adults may not be that concerned about their health care. But it’s certainly a concern for me. A lot of doctors in the Denver area, and nationwide I assume, do not accept Medicare patients. In the year before I started on Medicare, I decided I had to find a better doctor — and I had to make sure I not only found a new one that I liked and who wasn’t going to retire in the next ten or fifteen years, but who would accept Medicare. That certainly limited my options. I now have a doctor I like, and I’m not about to vote for anyone who would mess that up and cause me to have to go doctor-shopping again (I’m very picky about doctors).
This was an interesting exercise. One thing I found was that I often wasn’t satisfied with the choices given, but it was also apparent just how difficult such choices are. The Gitmo situation is a good example; its existence is a black eye for America because the situation there flies in the face of American values, values of justice, fairness and due process. Yet, terrorists were mostly apprehended overseas and the circumstances confound the application of normal rules of evidence and testimony. Flying in bunches of Afghan witnesses, for example, isn’t practical, not to mention that too much time has elapsed in most cases. There simply is no good solution and the present situation is likely the least bad one.
In the case of healthcare, my choice in the best of all worlds would be a Public Option which would result in a government-run system operated not for profit but as a basic right for the public good. But at the same time I know that is not politically realistic, so do I choose a compromise solution on the quiz?
It was tough choosing answers in some cases, not only because the issues were so complex but because in some cases the answers offered included both things I agreed with and things I disagreed with. And with relatively few questions, 21 and 18 as I recall, changing just one or two responses could drastically alter the results. Especially for someone like me, who waffles somewhere in the middle on most issues.
Thank you for your comment Jacksmith. I’ve moved it to the thread regarding the SCOTUS decision, SCOTUS upholds Affordable Care Act
Article One, Section Eight of the U. S. Constitution lists every federally authorized power for which the congress is allowed to lay and collect taxes to support. Finding a candidate who believes that powers and rights not listed there are reserved to the states and the people – while at the same time – believing that the federal government has no authority to expand on the powers listed HAS GOT TO BE BOTH more way liberal than Obama and way more conservative than Romney.
I guess my brain is numb today. I don’t see how those positions are anything but conservative, as in, strictly limited federal government.
Oh, Jeez… here was my result from the Obama one. Although for some answers, I had to choose the one closest to how I felt even though that answer did not properly express my opinion. Here:
You’re definitely a lefty!
Your politics are considered radical by many, and sometimes you even agree with communist policies. You disagree with most of President Obama’s decisions, but you may not have voted for him anyway. Someone like Ralph Nader would be a better candidate for you.
A commie? Okey-dokey….. whatever.
As I’ve said before, we have to be very careful about labels. Commie is inflammatory; agreeing with some communist policies, maybe not so much. There’s probably some good in most governing systems. Now, my question is, are you also to the right of Romney? I’m still trying to figure out how I ended up both left of Obama and right of Romney!
I didn’t finish the Romney one. It was late and the questions were taking too long, and very similar to the Obama quiz, just slightly different answers. When the description of me said slightly commie, it then turned into a joke to me.
It did take a while to work through both of them. I almost didn’t do the second one for that reason, but curiosity got the best of me.
I think those who have not decided must be those who do not care. That’s the only thing I can come up with. What else could it be? I’ve thought about the middle ground for quite some time. Who are these campaign ads supposed to convince? Looking at how they’re structured, they don’t encourage anyone to vote FOR someone, they’re intended to horrify undecided voters about the OTHER guy. Since this is the tactic, the undecided voters must be assumed by both sides to know very little about the actual issues. So this is what it comes down to. The decided voters on both sides apparently equal out, and the actual election is decided by… people who don’t care!
That’s… well… amazing!
‘Tis depressing, Dood, I agree. A conservative classmate of mine, an academically very smart guy (nuclear engineer) sent me a scurrilous email carrying Obama-demeaning material from ABO. I had to google that – turns out to be a super PAC, the acronym meaning Anybody But Obama. That pretty well sums up their purpose – forget the issues, it’s all personal. So, it is about more than those who don’t care, it’s about exploiting prejudices and fears. It’s about capturing the attentions of busy people who take government for granted, political warfare on the fringes of the voter pool. If my classmate can be hoodwinked with confirmation bias, anybody is fair game.
I guess those who fit into the “I don/t care” group, might also be in the “I do not know but my friend said” group and I listen to him!!!
I know who to vote for by knowing who ai NOT to vote for…..It is as easy as that. A no vote brings the bad guy in so there are not many choices to make….Do you agree?
@ Sondrac,
Um, actually, no. I don’t see the situation as one of them being the “bad” guy. Despite the negative ads and negative rhetoric of the primary process and the campaign I believe our political process, including political “debates” is pretty thorough in vetting candidates. It is rigorous and lengthy, so I am fairly comfortable that it will produce a pretty good candidate. To me, the choice is not between good and bad but rather nuances of philosophy. What kind of Supreme Court justices would he pick? Would he react maturely and thoughtfully to another 9/11? Can we trust him to tell us the truth, even if it’s unpleasant? How big is his ego? Those kinds of questions.
Now, having praised the political vetting process, I do have one caution: John Edwards had everybody fooled. That kind of thing does concern me, and when one candidate is discovered to be secretive, as in having offshore bank accounts and in refusing to make public his tax returns, my BS meter pegs. If Romney continues to stonewall on that, it’s a deal-breaker for me.
A big part of the problem is our campaign season being allowed to run so long. It exhausts everyone … almost to the point of not caring and just wanting it to be over. It doesn’t take 12-18 months for candidates to make their cases to the voters and for the voters to decide. It costs a ton of money and distracts from all sorts of other things. We should limit the campaign seasons to, say, 6 months, max.
I agree with you! We should start a vote to cut back the campaign. There are other papers being signed and sent around. This one is most important.
We can no longer vote in an Abe Lincoln. He would be too poor to even try. There is no reason that so much money has to be spend on TV ads. I have come to the point when I delete them as soon as I see them, and their information, and the fact they use false voices over well known faces is the worse I have ever seen.
Lets start a campaign to cut the campain plus the funds more than in half. Then the down to earth man or woman would have a chance. As it stands now only the rich can even put their name into the hat.
I think I am going to start one of those voting sites that get passed around. If a woman who was teased on the school bus could get hundreds of thousands of money, we might be able to get an equal amount of signers who agree. Anyone agree?
Better be careful here! If we had had a shorter primary season, John Edwards might have been President. Think about it.
Yes you are right. never quite thought about it. That would have been one big mess up. Thanks for the words of wisdom.
Up here the electioneering is capped at six weeks, and the election can (can) be called anytime during the five year reign of terr… mandate of the party in power. A minority gov’t can fall at anytime over a vote of confidence, but otherwise it’s every four to five years whether the gov’t likes it or not.
Contributions are capped at $1200 / person or business, and we have no SuperPacs, or anything remotely like them. Of course, in Canada, corporations are not people, because that would be silly.
There are limits for third party spending during elections. And every Political Party must account for every dime spent, as well as taken in, and the information is public.
Maybe this could help your cause… dig around a little, you might find it interesting:
http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=pol&document=index&dir=lim&lang=e
Sold! Send us one copy of your system and we’ll try to get it installed within the week. … yeah, right.
I’ll start watching the ads when they turn positive and start telling me what the candidate is going to do for me and America.
…thing is, if you take away the Party Politics they both have to incorporate into their campaigns, they’re not that different. I don’t get the sense that this election is about the Obamittens, but more about the projections of the Parties policies onto the blank screens that are Romarack.
That’s more than I’ve gotten out of it. So far all I can tell is they are trying to outspend each other making ridiculous attack ads about each other, spreading lots of heat but very little light about the candidates. Pathetic.