Vancouver Calling talks about using an online "candidate calculator" to see which candidate she should vote for based on her views. She makes the interesting comment that the list of top candidates selected by the site doesn't correspond to the list of top candidates that we see in news polls. Why is this? Is the candidate calculator algorhythm so messed up that it's spitting out screwy results? I doubt it. My guess is that the discrepancy can be contributed to two factors:
(1) Most people over-rely on the major media outlets to give them info on candidates and these outlets only cover the front runners who start out with extensive corporate funding, and
(2) many of us our worried about supporting a candidate that lacks the corporate/media imprimatur since we don't want to "just throw away our vote".
Dennis Kucinich tends to lead most of the Democratic pack, a fact that says volumes about people's actual views when divorced from the practicality of "picking someone who can actually win." The popularity of Kucinich turns much of conventional wisdom on its head--especially this bizarre idea that there's some tiny determined faction of far-left weirdos determined to drag the Democratic Party to the left. Kucinich is about as left as they come yet his views are immensely popular. Mike Gavel, who is ardently opposed to Shrub's War and is calling for an immediate withdrawal, is number one among all candidates.
1 comment:
Karlo, my thoughts exactly! Though you relayed them much better than I. If the whole country could vote for any of the candidates, and not simply the ones the major parties pre-select for us, and if we trusted ourselves and the process enough to vote for who we actually wanted as President and not the safe choice of the person who could actually win, we would see a different kind of President and possibly some real change in this country, especially if we were also able to vote that way for our representatives in both houses of Congress. Great post!
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