Friday, December 21, 2007

Automated Candidate Selection

I tried two different automated candidate selectors for the '08 presidential race. First was one from USA Today that they put together a while ago. Here are my results from that one:
  1. Mitt Romney
  2. Rudy Giuliani
  3. Mike Huckabee
Not surprising results.

I then took the quiz from American Public Media hosted at KCPW. I didn't like that quiz as much since I had a hard time finding answers I liked, or several answers were very similar, but I think a candidate only got points if you chose their exact answer. Here are those results:
  1. Duncan Hunter
  2. John McCain
  3. Fred Thompson
Thank goodness for automated candidate selection! At least it let me know that I'm a Republican.

My wife took the tests too. In USA Today she should be for Romney, Hunter, Thompson. In the KCPW survey she should be for Tancredo, Huckabee, Hunter.

To take the USA Today poll and compare your answers against mine, click here. For the KCPW poll, click here.

1 comment:

Scott Hinrichs said...

As I have said before, I don't put much stock in these kinds of polls. They do not adequately capture how I personally weight each issue, nor do they capture other important qualifications for governance, including personality, executive experience, ability to work with others, personal integrity, love of country, etc. Most (all?) politicians govern differently than what they say their issue positions are when they campaign. This is because they largely respond to system incentives once in office. So, some of these other factors are arguably more important than how I match up on position statements.

I could significantly disagree with a candidate on all but three or four major issues, as long as he/she rated well in some of these other important factors. So, while these polls might be of passing interest, they are only marginally useful as a tool for making voting decisions.