Outside the Beltway

CANDIDATE QUIZ

· Monday, June 30, 2003 · 7 comments

I took the SelectSmart.com 2004 AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE SELECTOR quiz, which seems reasonable enough in terms of the choices offered, and got some rather interesting results.

1. Bush, George W. – US President (100%)
2. Libertarian Candidate (81%)
3. Lieberman Senator Joe CT – Democrat (58%)
4. Kerry, Senator John, MA – Democrat (57%)
5. Kucinich, Cong. Dennis, OH – Democrat (52%)
6. Gephardt, Cong. Dick, MO – Democrat (48%)
7. Edwards, Senator John, NC – Democrat (45%)
8. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT – Democrat (43%)
9. Phillips, Howard – Constitution – (40%)
10. Sharpton, Reverend Al – Democrat – (30%)
11. Graham, Senator Bob, FL – Democrat – (24%)
12. Moseley-Braun, Fmr Senator Carol IL -Democrat (8%)
13. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. – Democrat (-8%)

The first three strike me as plausible as to the preferences although not the percentages; I know I disagree with President Bush on several of the issues polled. But I’m very perplexed that Kerry and Kucinich are ranked higher than Gephardt or Graham. Indeed, Graham ranks below Al Sharpton on this listing, which is patently absurd. I think I’d prefer a randomly selected death row inmate to Sharpton.

(Hat tips: John Lemon and CSW)

FILED UNDER: 2004 Election, , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. John Lemon says:
    Monday, 30 June 2003 at 14:57

    I think it was your unending support for a Department of Peace that ranked you high with Kucinich. The really scary thing is that you didn’t get a “negative” number for LaRouche, as most people have been!

  2. Kristopher says:
    Monday, 30 June 2003 at 15:14

    The 100% indicates that President Bush most closely matches your beliefs. Then each candidate is measured based on that standard. It doesn’t mean you agree with him 100%.

  3. James Joyner says:
    Monday, 30 June 2003 at 15:18

    Interesting. A weird definition of 100% 🙂

  4. James Joyner says:
    Monday, 30 June 2003 at 15:30

    And my LaRouche score WAS minus eight; I just erased the minus sign when I was editing the code for the post. Which, actually, is rather odd–how you can be minus agreement I don’t get.

  5. Chris Lawrence says:
    Monday, 30 June 2003 at 16:00

    Seems deeply buggy to me. I can buy the highest match at 100% (though I seriously doubt I’d agree 100% with the eventual Libertarian nominee, since he’ll undoubtably be anti-war), but I can’t see a negative percentage agreement.

    Though, if it were possible with anyone, it would have to be LaRouche.

  6. Xrlq says:
    Tuesday, 1 July 2003 at 13:38

    I got the -8% match with LaRouche, too. Maybe it just means that we disagree with him on 92% of the issues, and really, really, double-dog disagree with him on the other 8%.

  7. Daniel Morris says:
    Tuesday, 1 July 2003 at 18:33

    Maybe it means with disagree with LaRouche so intensely, that on 8% of the issues, we go right through the other side and end up agreeing with him, but for completely different reasons!

    Or the whole thing’s just whacked. You decide.

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