Thursday, July 19, 2012

Stacking up with the candidates

Ryan Murphy encourages me to take this political quiz, which is actually pretty good. The questions aren't awful, it allws you to note intensity, and it has some good alternative answers you can provide. I'm only working on a revise and resubmit I don't want to do, so what the heck.

The only thing I was a little surprised about is how high the Republicans and libertarians were ranked (Ryan matched 33% with Obama, so I figured my "bad match" would be that low too). I got:

Barack Obama: 78%
Jill Stein (Green Party): 66%
Gary Johnson: 65%
Ron Paul: 57%
Mitt Romney: 57%
Virginia Voters: 56%
All Voters: 56%

The identical matching with Ron Paul and Mitt Romney does not surprise me. Libertarians often talk about how the libertarian candidate is the stand-out and the Republican and Democrat are just two sides of essentially the same coin. What you've got to realize is that perceptions like that are all relative. The Romney/Paul rankings are about how I feel too: they're both equally bad. You could even say they're two sides of the same coin. Slightly different variations on the same basic theme. They both miss some of the really essential points we're facing (hell, even Obama misses those points a lot of times!).

I think the quiz might have gotten the wrong impression with some of my "leave it to the states" responses on health care, etc. I actually see eye to eye with Obama and Democrats on a lot (not all) of the actual policy, but I'd like to see a lot more state level variability and control. That's not quite Ron Paul federalism (which I think the quiz assumed), but it's true it's not really what Obama and Democrats want to see either.

7 comments:

  1. I got:

    Gary Johnson -- 92%
    Ron Paul -- 80%
    Jimmy McMillan -- 70%
    Mitt Romney -- 62%
    Barack Obama -- 61%
    American Voters -- 89%

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    Replies
    1. Jonathan-

      This is unrelated. I recently looked at the wikipedia article on Richard Cantillon, and found it hugely improved compared to a few years ago. It seemed to share a lot of references with your mises.org article on Cantillon, making me think it might be your work. If so, thank you for doing that!

      Delete
    2. Yea, that was we, I think two years ago. If you search through the history at some point you'll find a string of "Catalan" edits.

      Delete
  2. Ron Paul 98%
    Gary Johnson 95%
    Mitt Romney 82%
    Barack Obama 13%
    Pennsylvania Voters 37%
    American Voters 33%

    My top two issues were foreign policy and the economy. I think that my supposed agreement with Mitt and Obama is a bit higher than reality (closer to 30% and 4% respectively). As for agreement with the public, I would say that is about right. I rarely disagree with Ron Paul's stances (though, I do at times), so 98% seems about right.

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  3. It's striking in how many states Ron Paul and Gary Johnson lead, but how little of that actually translated into primary turnout.

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  4. Gary Johnoson 78%
    Jill Stein 76%
    Barack Obama 75%
    Ron Paul 65%
    Mitt Romney 13%

    I'm extremely surprised! I might have overstated the importance in some of the question because I'm pretty sure I want to vote for Romney! I guess because I'm a pragmatist and realistic, I'm not expecting some of the drug, health care, and immigration issues be settled out the way I want them to even though I think they're very important.

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  5. Barack Obama 91%
    Jill Stein 80%
    Stewart Alexander 76%
    Ron Paul 46%
    Mitt Romney 20%
    American Voters 79%
    Who you side with by party...
    91% Democratic
    80% Green
    55% Libertarian
    20% Republican

    I am surprised I ranked as high as I did against Ron Paul and the Libertarian Party. Probably a result of my having an isolationist streak. I am surprised I ranked as low as I did against Romney - I did not think he had committed himself to enough policy positions to make that possible. (Although I do have complete contempt for Romney's tax reform plan since he leaves out all the hard parts)

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