devi | Whooo should you vote for? Who who? Who who?

Well, this quiz by

hatmandu and friends has certainly fulfilled its stated goal of making me want to find out more. I don't know nearly enough about Kucinich, or indeed Gravel.

Who should you vote for?

Dennis Kucinich		120
Mike Gravel		108
Barack Obama		101
John Edwards		91
Hillary Clinton		87
Rudy Giuliani	-15
Ron Paul	-27
John McCain	-36
Fred Thompson	-72
Mitt Romney	-117
Duncan Hunter	-132
Mike Huckabee	-138

You expected: Barack Obama
Your recommendation: Dennis Kucinich

Party: Democratic

Born: 1946, Cleveland, Ohio

Family: Married three times; one daughter

Career: Radio talk-show host, lecturer, consultant

Political career: Cleveland City Council (1969); Mayor of Cleveland (1977-79); Incumbent Member of the US House of Representatives from Ohio's 10th district

Hot topic: Federally funded healthcare to all citizens

Did you know? When Kucinich refused to sell Muni Light, Cleveland's publicly owned electric utility, the Cleveland mafia put a hit on him. A hitman from Maryland planned to shoot him in the head during the Columbus Day Parade, but the plot fell apart when Kucinich was hospitalized and missed the event.

Supported by: Viggo Mortensen, Sean Penn

***

There are Obama posters popping up in Oxford already and it isn't even our election. Last night Dan and I found ourselves watching The Manchurian Candidate - the remake, that is - which I'd somehow thought was a running-and-shouting-and-exploding standard thriller. Instead it was a paranoia-filled conspiracy theory drama happening around a US election, clearly scripted by people who'd watched an awful lot of The West Wing. All the fake news footage with its clunky graphic design took me back to our all-night election party of 2004. Hey, party round mine this November! With donuts! And hopefully this one won't end in despair!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The trouble with that quiz is that the wording of the questions means most left-wing Europeans will get Dennis Kucinich. Because to us the idea of federally funded healthcare is pretty obvious and this is his defining policy. In the US it's far too radical, though. It would make him auto-lose against almost any Republican candidate.

Given that this quiz is entitled "Who Should You Vote For?" the Democrat Electability question could be reworded as "I'm happy for the Republicans to win the election because I was too idealistic to vote tactically". And then that question should be weighted by comparing your other answers to the leading Republican candidates and scaling up accordingly. It would end up being the only question that matters!

Probably true - but does it actually matter if Europeans get a candidate who's not likely to win? We can't vote, so the quiz is mainly interesting to us as a tool for finding out which candidate best matches our views, which may not be the one we think. Leave the tactical voting choices to people who actually can, I feel.

I see your point, but to me that's not interesting unless the candidate is credible.

After all, there are US politicians who aren't candidates at all who are a far better match for my views.

Whooo should you vote for? Who who? Who who?

no subject

no subject

no subject