I have long held that a vast majority of the American voting public is woefully under-educated (or completely uneducated) when it comes to civics, current events, domestic policies, foreign affairs,
economics, and history. It is simply a fact that most of our
populace is sadly ignorant. I don’t
necessarily mean this as a pejorative indictment against them. I understand that most Americans are simply
busy trying to raise a family, go to work, and pay the bills. Paying attention to politics and the issues
of the day as they relate to the governing of our nation simply aren’t as high
of a priority for most people with the scant time they have left in the day. Understandable. I do get it.
That being said, if we don’t pay attention to these issues,
when the time comes to vote, we are not knowledgeable about which candidate
truly represents our own views on issues.
We, therefore, often end up voting for a candidate based on sound bites
in the media, or what is trending on Facebook.
We vote by what is popular without understanding the ramifications of
what our decisions truly should be, based on our own values. This is how we end up with un-qualified and
integrity-challenged candidates such as Barack Obama in the White House.
Luckily, I have come across a website that can help those
Americans that might not have the time to conduct the research needed into the
myriads of candidates and their positions that are running for president. This site is isidewith.com.
This website has compiled the various positions of each
presidential candidate based on their stated stance on any given issue and
created a quiz for voters to take to see which candidate most closely reflects the
voter’s given views. If a candidate speaks
repeatedly on a given issue during their campaign, then their passion score for
that given issue goes up. If they pull a
Romney or an Obama and flip flop on a particular matter, their most current
position will be used to match your response, but their passion score on that
issue will go down.
It takes anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes to complete
this fairly comprehensive quiz. When
doing this quiz, please note that there is a sliding scale to the left of each
question that you need to adjust according to how important you think a
particular issue is. The quiz’s algorithm
judges the passion/conviction of the candidate with the importance level you
deemed the given issue. Further, please
be aware that each question in the quiz will often have more than just “yes” or
“no” options for your response listed under “other stances”. To get the most accurate results of which
candidate best represents your views, check to see if there is a better answer
there besides just the yes or no responses accordingly.
There are eight sections of issues in this comprehensive quiz:
social, environmental, economic, domestic policy, healthcare, education, foreign
policy, and immigration. Note that each
of these eight sections start with just a handful of questions on the
quiz. At the bottom of each section is a
text link to show additional questions. Your results for the quiz will be much
more accurate if you answer all of these questions under each section and
determine how important each issue is to you on the sliding scale previously
mentioned.
My quiz results were not horribly surprising to me, as I have done a lot of research and am definitely more up to date on political issues and current events than is the average American voter. While I have not chosen a candidate that I
will back in the primary election to date, there are a handful of people that I
am considering as possibilities. The top
four best matches with my views and values were indeed the candidates
I am currently considering. Further, the
candidates I have least in common with are indeed at the bottom of the results
list where they should be.
I recommend this quiz for all American voters, whether
politically educated or not. I think
some people will actually be surprised that the candidate that best reflects
their viewpoints may not be the person they thought it would be. If this prompts otherwise politically
ignorant American voters to delve a little deeper into the candidates before
casting their all-important vote, then this is indeed a valuable tool, and one
that is sorely needed.
My results are below:
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