Politics

[altivo]

All right, I took the quiz. It failed to ask some questions that I think are very important just now, such as those related to religious beliefs and social or economic policy. The truth is, not one of these candidates inspires my support. Most of them incite only nausea and disgust, and I feel they are all publicity hogs rather than actual people with values and ideas. Every one of them would sell their grandmother to the highest bidder.

89% Mike Gravel
88% Dennis Kucinich
83% John Edwards
81% Barack Obama
78% Hillary Clinton
76% Joe Biden
76% Chris Dodd
69% Bill Richardson
39% Rudy Giuliani
32% John McCain
28% Mitt Romney
26% Ron Paul
25% Mike Huckabee
20% Tom Tancredo
11% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Comments

[animist.livejournal.com]

That's why I don't have much use such quizzes... just don't have the time!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's a reasonable check to make sure I haven't overlooked something large. It only took 5 minutes or so.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

I took the test and I agree, its not even
remotely accurate in any real sense.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The quiz is OK for as far as it goes, that just isn't very far. There is a much more comprehensive one on OK Cupid that also gives a graphical analysis of the various candidates views and how they compare. It still doesn't ask a question I feel is crucial after this last administration:

"Do you feel that personal religious opinions and beliefs should affect public policy decisions that affect millions of people and may be very difficult to reverse or alter?"

[linnaeus.livejournal.com]

It's interesting, but I agree that it leaves too many important things unasked, and on too many questions the only available options force one into choices that don't match my views. I suppose that's fair if none of the candidates match one's views, though...

69% Bill Richardson
68% Chris Dodd
68% Hillary Clinton
66% Barack Obama
66% John Edwards
60% Mike Gravel
56% Joe Biden
55% John McCain
54% Dennis Kucinich
50% Rudy Giuliani
48% Mike Huckabee
44% Mitt Romney
42% Tom Tancredo
35% Fred Thompson
25% Ron Paul

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

[schnee.livejournal.com]

See? You got Gravel and Kucinich at the top, too! :)

As for selling grandmothers, I think that's pretty much a requirement if you want to become a politician. :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

See, I keep telling people that I can't stand for election to anything. I have no grandmas left to sell. My last one died years ago.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think the answers to the questions were made up directly from candidate statements. So just like in the actual election, your only choices are the ones offered by the actual candidates, and just like an actual election, they all stink.

There's a much more detailed quiz on OK Cupid, but taking it feels exactly the same.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Oh.. I'm sorry to hear that.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks but it's OK. I came to terms with it long ago and besides, they both left me incredibly twisty family trees to figure out.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

*smiles and hugs* OK. Hmmm, incredibly twisted family trees? Sounds interesting. ^^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I should write about it sometime, though human genealogy is probably not all that exciting to most of my furry friends.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't worry about that... it's your journal.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Sure, but it's also a social thing. And my genealogical research, which is boring to most anyone other than myself and other genealogists, is recorded elsewhere.

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

Well, that quiz might as well be modified now to remove the ones who have dropped out. Telling someone their ideas line up with an ex-candidate isn't that beneficial in my oppinion

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Mmm. Well, it's up to you...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

If I were currently involved in active research, it would no doubt appear occasionally. I haven't really done any in the last decade. This is not so much because there isn't more I could do, but because it reached a point where it was going to involve some expensive travel and so forth.

One grandmother was half French Canadian, and her grandparents escaped from Quebec during the rebellions of 1836-37, making them very difficult to track back, but probably not impossible.

The other was of Pennsylvania German descent, and her Himmelwright/Himmelreich ancestry is utterly tangled and mysterious. Himmelwright is a large family that almost exclusively traces back to Pennsylvania and then to Germany. Many of them moved around a lot, so they are hard to track through census or cemetery records. Most of them were poor, so land ownership records are of limited help as well. Worst of all, they tended to use and reuse a small list of common German biblically-derived names, like Jakob, Anna, Rebekah, and Elisabeth, so there are often dozens with the same name at any given time. Add to that the fact that apparently more than half of them were employed as millers, so occupation is not much help in distinguishing them even when you can find records.

[cozycabbage.livejournal.com]

And my parents go on about how the internet is dangerous because people can find you.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Hmm... that's complicated indeed, yes.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Sure. They can find me. I've been visible on the internet since... oh, about 1990. Oddly enough, nothing peculiar seems to have happened because of it. After all, I've been listed in the phone book too, since some time in the 1970s and other than getting junk mail and junk phone calls, nothing much has come of that either. ;p

It's strange the paranoias people come up with, isn't it?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Heh. I seem to have about as much German as I do Canadian. In fact, two thirds of the Canadian ancestry came from the colonies during the American Revolution. They were Loyalists who fled to Canada, then came back to the US during the Civil War era. But they came to America from Germany, it appears, some generations earlier.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Neat. :) Mmm, they sure came over quite early, then, too...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Apparently in the early 1700s, yes. I think they were religious dissenters, like so many of the early American colonists. The Himmelreich clan appear to have been Mennonites from Germany. The Ashtons were Quakers from England. Those are both in my mother's lineage. The Phillips line on my father's side seem to have been Palatinate Protestants from Germany.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's one of the major flaws in our system now. Candidates drop like flies in the first month or so, long before anyone has a chance to actually support them. Iowa and New Jersey have way too much influence on the nominations.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

*noddles*