Survey Says…

Here’s a fun little survey that measures how you feel about 25 of the most important issues in the upcoming American political election and how you prioritize them and then matches it up with political candidates. It’s obviously not an exact science, but it seems like it does a pretty decent job for a simple toy, as it allows you to disregard issues you don’t care about or feel are unimportant to the election and also assigns significant weight to your “key” issues. I wouldn’t encourage that this take the place of reading about the candidates’ positions and deciding who best matches your thoughts before voting (or stating repeatedly who you would vote for in the case of Canadians), but it can certainly help you contextualize your vote, think differently about certain candidates or even narrow down on the few issues that seem to separate the politicians with whom you have the most agreement.

So now the question I’m sure you’re all dying to know the answer to. Which candidate should I vote for according to this poll?

Actually, it’s the same candidate that over 57% of the over 128,862 respondents should vote for. For those who know my politics, even roughly, it’s probably no surprise that the candidate I matched up the best with was Dennis Kucinich.

“Wait a minute. I thought you said that over 57% of the respondents matched up the best with you winner,” is what you’re probably thinking right now. And yes, that’s true.

As the poll’s results page says:

You would probably be interested to know that Kucinich has been the first choice of 74840 people (out of 129444). That wasn't my intention or expectation when making this site, but it is certainly interesting.

At the last time a graph was generated - when Kucinich had 69,700 first-place finishes - the second place finisher, Mike Gravel, had 8,771 first-place results. In fact, Kucinich has more than twice as many first-place finishes as the next 6 candidates do (Gravel, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Clinton, Hunter, Giuliani).

Even if you use a top 3 results system (3 points for 1st place, 2 for 2nd place and 1 for 3rd place) Kucinich still wins comfortably with 256,214 points, compared to Gravel’s 154,467. Barak Obama comes in 3rd with 59,024, which isn’t even a quarter of Kucinich’s total. Clinton trails Obama and then after her come the first two Republicans: Paul and Romney.

I can come out with reasons why an internet poll would be disproportionately liberal and favour Democratic candidates, but I can’t think of any reason it would swing so heavily in Kucinich’s favour. Perhaps it was linked on several pro-Kucinich message boards, but that’s not where I found it. Perhaps he pays staff to do nothing but fill out the survey, change their IP addresses and then fill it out again, but as a “fringe” candidate I imagine he’s short-staffed and can’t afford to do that.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the media’s characterization of Kucinich as a “fringe” candidate is a self-fulfilling prophecy. He’s not got the name-recognition of Clinton or the sudden rise to fame of Obama, but there’s no reason why he should be less of a public figure than Dodd, Richardson or Biden. The media defines him as a “fringe” candidate from the beginning because he’s not a “name” and because they define his views as “non-mainstream,” and this is all exacerbated by his physical appearance. As I’ve said before and this survey has hinted, perhaps his views are much closer to the mainstream than people either realize or care to admit. I’m not denying his viewpoint on NAFTA or the Department of Peace isn’t unique among Democratic candidates and I’m aware this poll excludes economic matters, but on many of the other issues which Americans define as being most important, such as what to do about Iraq, healthcare, abortion rights, same-sex marriage and immigration, his views seem to coincide with the majority of Democratic voters. Kucinich’s electability and how he’d fare vs. various Republicans are separate matters, but there seems to be little reason that he shouldn’t be right alongside Clinton, Obama and Edwards, at least based on his policy positions.