Let’s try something really new this next presidential election. Let’s ignore the media hype and vote for the candidate that best represents each of our own values. Do you think you already know who that is? Are you sure? You may be surprised. Try the candidate calculator.
First, if you are not registered to vote, please do so. The process works a lot better when those of us who are eligible to vote do. Next, if your polling place uses Diebold or other computerized voting machines, if you have any way to vote using paper, do that too. Many states, unfortunately not including New York, allow voting by absentee ballot even if you are not leaving the state. Find out the rules in your state. If you use voting machines that do not provide a paper receipt and can vote by absentee ballot, this is a way to ensure that your vote is counted. I would also recommend, even if you don’t like either party, register with one of them so that you can vote in the primary.
Now back to the correct candidate for whom to vote. Obviously, there is no single right answer for everyone. That’s part of what democracy means. However, this is a really good time to avoid the hype created by the media that is owned by large corporations. Your best interests are unlikely to be represented by corporate America.
So, if you have not already written your choice in concrete, try this surprisingly accurate quiz that matches your feelings on the issues with the current presidential candidates. If you have already chosen your candidate, try this for fun anyway to see whether your choice really is the best on all of the issues. You might be surprised.
After you’re done, verify that the candidate really is the best on the issues. Then you’ll have to make up your mind whether you really do agree and whether your best candidate on the issues has a reasonable chance of getting elected. However, I would strongly suggest that you make that decision for yourself without letting NBC/ABC/Fox/CNN/New York Times/Fox Street Journal/Pravda make up your mind for you.
Note: I first saw this on Dvorak a while ago. If you want to see the results of a wider audience, go there. Many people posted their results. I do not believe this to be rigged in any way. It just may be that the front runners happen not to be the best for many people. If you’re curious about me, I came up with Kucinich, checked him out and found his policies far better than the rest. I will vote for him.
Hope you had fun with this. Vote your own conscience, but please vote.
The Misanthropic Principle 
Yes, Kucinich is my candidate of choice – if only…
Huckabee for me!! He doesn’t have a chance, but I’m voting for him anyway! Im so tired of hacks!!
Higghawker
Lets see. Is your advice to vote your values or to be pragmatic? “Then you’ll have to make up your mind whether you really do agree and whether your best candidate on the issues has a reasonable chance of getting elected.”
It is totally true that the folks who voted for Nader elected George Bush. And yet for many people, and on many issues, Nader had the better policy positions. Trying to decide who is going to be electable is more on the hype side of the line than the values side?
None of my values candidates EVER have a chance of winning.
bobbo,
Good point. But, in this case, I was speaking primarily about the primary. I think voting one’s values in the primary and then voting for one of the two in the general might be a good way to split the difference in those two tacks. I think in this case, there are candidates that have a chance, but the corporate media does not like them so refuses to report on them. I would like to buck (fuck?) the corporations, at least in the primary.
Scott,
Thanks for the chance to check out the calculator. It was interesting, and being from N.E. Ohio I have watched Mr. Kucinich for many years. He has many of the same views I do, particlarly concerning the environment. I feel the people of his district have done well in continuing to keep him in the House of Representatives. I am not a prowar type of person. I disagreed with the war in Iraq from the start. Al Quaida was in Afghanistan, and now the high mountains of W. Pakistan. Saddam was not a nice guy, and was a threat to is own people, but did not represent a threat to the world, nor did he allow terrorists in his country. One of his pet projects was to pay the families of suicide bombers who killed Israelis. Since his demise this practice has stopped, but there should have been another way. He was a Known Quantity. He kept Iran in check in the region.
Iran on the other hand committed the very first terrorist attacks of Islam on the U.S. In 1979, after the Islamic Revolution in Persia, Ahmadinejad was the leader of the college students who held 51 U.S. embassy workers hostage for over a year. In 1982, a newly formed Hizbullah under direct Iranian orders bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Later the sane year they bombed the barracks of both the French and U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, both countries being there as U.N. peacekeeping forces between the Lebanese government and armed Fatah militants. 241 Marines were killed in one of the largest conventional explosions in history. The
French lost 54 paratroopers and immediately bombed Iranian Republican Guard forces in the Baquaa Valley. The U.S., under Ronald Reagan, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger did nothing! If the U.S. had retaliated then, we may not be facing Iran’s nuclear ambitions today, but we did not.
Bush had already called N. Korea, Iran, and Syria an “axis of evil.” If there was a country that needed to be bombed after Afghanistan, it was obviously Iran. But Bush took it upon himself to use U.S. Armed forces for his own personal grudge against Saddam Hussein, and there we remain. Iran has never stopped the enrichment of uranium nor their nuclear ambitions which were known about well before we invaded Iraq. I did not mean to write an entire blog here, but the point is that some wars are necessary….and the incompetence of our current President did not annull that. Iran is still a growing threat.
In the coming years America must choose it’s military actions wisely, and without regret. Bush has only made it harder to do the things that really NEEDED done. To my thinking, Kucinich is a pacifist. He is the kind of guy that would still be saying, “Let’s talk about it,” when the time for talking was far past and in this dangerous world, which Bush has only made more dangerous, we need a leader who CAN and is WILLING to talk and negotiate, but is also enough of a realist to know when military action is needed. I feel Barack Obama is that man. Ty for your own remarks on my blog and God Bless America.
babaoriley1,
I mostly agree with your take on the war, except that you left out the Saudis, including the whole bin Laden family. And, I agree that we’ve now soo overextended ourselves in Iraq that we may not be able to deal with Iran.
However, I firmly believe that global warming, if left unchecked, will almost certainly cause global civilizational collapse and even has the potential to cause human extinction. It’s can find no more important issue than that. And, on that, Kucinich is far and away the best.
Babba and Scott – – you both have a bedrock of military intervention in world affairs as your model of the GOUSA’s unilaterally activated role in this world. tsk tsk. How can non-military or joint military solutions even be tried with such a mindset prevailing?
Scott, re global warming==you are now taking a valid concern that needs to be addressed and are becoming overly concerned. End of the world scenarios are dead end positions, even though surely sometime, somehow, there will be an end to the world. Ever notice it is usually the issues you aren’t worried about that get you? Remain engaged, but get rational. To be continued on your Al Gore challenge thread.
bobbo,
I do not say the world will end. The world is a rock. It is fine. It will be fine until the sun goes nova. Environmental concerns however are more than real. They truly will cause a huge human die off. This is true no matter what we do because our population is literally and truly unsustainable. That’s what unsustainable means. The questions are:
1) Can we do anything to minimize the affect?
2) Can we reduce our population before it is reduced for us?
3) What will the sustainable population of humans be afterward?
4) Will humans go extinct due to our own actions?
5) Is it moral for us to continue to increase the severity of the sixth great extinction?
I’m sure there are many more such questions that we can ask. That will do for a start. Personally, I am prepared. I will die in the first wave of the great human die off if it comes during my time. I am utterly dependent on medical technology and our civilization for my survival. Either way though, it won’t matter. I am a proud Darwinian failure.
Dont play word games. NOBODY cares about the rock, only our existence on it.
and, you have NO proof, evidence, studies etc on the carrying capacity of the earth. Only a chicken little scenario. Very bad thing for a scientific oriented poster. Is this by unrecognized zeal, or purposeful?
Disease, genetic experiment gone wrong, nuclear exchange may be 3 of the bigger more likely population decimaters/civilization enders==and pretty much they can happen regardless of population count.
When respecting earth ((err, maximizing the carrying capacity of the earth?)) becomes quazi religious or “universally believed” it will change everything. Once benign energy sources is figured out, carrying capacity of earth is unlimited. True, wildlife has to go, but who you gonna favor? Another family in the congo, or the great apes?
Actually, I have no proof of exactly what the carrying capacity is for the planet. However, I do have proof that it is far lower than the current number. From Plan B 2.0 by Lester Brown, we are already past peak grain production on all three of the major staple crops humans eat. We are also past peak fisheries output, despite improved fishing technology. We have been pulling less fish from the oceans since 1983, and this is the major source of protein for a billion of the world’s people. So, how can we continue to increase our population or even remain at current population with widespread desertification, aquifer depletion, topsoil depletion and all the rest?
Very interesting. What’s interesting is that they both are running for President and have the courage to stand up for what they believe in. Real change comes from people like this and not the elite front runners who put money and power above all else. People like this keep my hope alive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin_True_Patriot_Act
Higghawker,
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. This is a wonderful bill. It is a ray of hope in a time that feels nearly hopeless. I’m going to cross reference this in another thread where I discuss the crap that gets bipartisan support. Sometimes it isn’t crap at all.
OK. I have to add this ONN report to the topic. They’ve totally nailed it.