Jan 25, 2008

Its a simple fact that most people aren’t smart enough to participate in politics.  That’s not a slam on individuals as much as it is an indictment of our current political process.  I’ve never minded when someone votes differently than I do - it is their national right and responsibility to do so.  What I DO mind greatly is people who vote in near complete ignorance of the facts.  Fortunately, more and more tools are being made available to help everyone be a little more informed.

Take for instance Glassbooth- this site makes it easier to begin to understand where specific candidates stand on some of the issues that may or may not be important to you.  It asks you to weight issues with specific importance to you, and then asks you to agree or disagree with a series of statements.  It compares your answers with the documented statements of various candidates and gives you a percentage rating for the top three candidates that are closest to your positions.  You can also choose any other candidate to see how close (or far) you are from each other’s views and beliefs. 

Here’s a great example of its usefulness - for my answers, much to my surprise, John McCain came back as my best candidate.  While I greatly respect the man, I never would have picked him as my first choice.  Now, I may, because his views were well explained an related to my specific concerns.  Yes, I may disagree with him on certain points, but for my weighted concerns, he was the closest to my viewpoints.  That was a big eye opener for me - and I would consider myself fairly diligent in learning the issues, learning the viewpoints, and knowing who believes in what.  Even still, I was wrong!

Now, to be fair, he was followed fairly closely by Mike Huckabee, who is the candidate that I would have said is closest to my beliefs, but the site outlined exactly why McCain was a “better” choice for my vote if I was voting exclusively based on my beliefs.  Of course, electability has to come into play when deciding who to vote for too - but this site enables you to quickly narrow the pack of candidates to individuals based upon your own criteria, rather than YOU having to wade through THEIR platform to see if you agree with it.  Pretty neat if you ask me!

So, take ten minutes out of your day and visit Glassbooth - at least then when you vote, you’ll really know why you are voting the way you are.  Won’t that be a refreshing feeling?  Yeah, for me too… 

Election 2008, Voter Cheat Sheet, Glassbooth