SECOND-GUESS YOUR CHOICE FOR PRESIDENT


sharptonVia Pernicious BloggageSelectSmart has a new questionnaire to help you identify your best choice for president based on his/her voting record, not just what he/she says on the podium. The selector told me I should be pushing for Al Sharpton instead of Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich finished up tied as my second choice with Clark & Dean, but that’s almost entirely because of his recent about-face on women’s reproductive choice.

I do like Sharpton’s positions, and he’s certainly got style. The only thing that concerns me is that the environment does not make his Top 10 list, while it does make Kucinich’s. Goes to show no survey is perfect. Nevertheless, it’s worth a try, and it has made me feel better about Clark & Dean, the only two liberal candidates that seem to have a real chance to win in 2004.

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4 Responses to SECOND-GUESS YOUR CHOICE FOR PRESIDENT

  1. Kev says:

    SelectSmart is the most ill-behaved web site I have ever used. It caused IE to crash multiple times — yeah, partly my own fault that I kept trying to use it! I could sort of get it to work. But, it locked up my entire machine and trashed all my internet preferences. Its a nice idea, but it’s horribly done. I also suspect it tells you to vote for Al Sharpton for most combination of answers. It did for me, despite having some conservative answers. It doesnt make any sense at all.

  2. Marijo says:

    The political compass thingie page now has a graph showing the candidates positions based at least partly on their voting records. Kucinich and Sharpton were the only ones who fell into the bottom left liberal quadrant. All others were with Bush in the top right quadrant, although slightly further left than Bush. I was surprised by the relative placements, too. Electability is a very real concern in this coming election, however, and both Kucinich and Sharpton fail on that criterion.

  3. Dave Pollard says:

    Kev: You’re right Kev. Second time I went in I had the same problem. Sorry to any readers who unwittingly went there and had problems.Marijo: I’m a little concerned that these weren’t the candidates’ own scores but some panel’s assessment of them. I think that would inevitably moderate the scores. But since Kucinich is closer to the ‘centre’ than Bush, it seems to me that he should be electable.

  4. Raging Bee says:

    Oh yeah, Sharpton has “style” allright – it’s called irresponsible rabble-rousing. During the Tawana Brawley “rape” case, Sharpton made his name by doing everything he could to inflame an already delicate situation as much as possible, and could have started a deadly race-riot. Also, Brawley’s allegations turned out to be false, and Sharpton was successfully sued for slander by the white NY cop whom he accused of raping her.If a white bigot pulled a stunt like this (i.e., falsely accusing a black man of raping a white woman), we would never forgive him. So why should Sharpton get a free pass? Is “style” more important than moral consistency or maturity in handling race relations?PS: I found Sharpton’s attacks on Dean’s track-record on race totally phony. African-Americans make up less than 1% of Vermont’s population – of course there won’t be many of them in a Dean cabinet.

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