# Hot Blava

The national debate will always seep over into local politics and thus, events on the national stage will find their way into Hot Blava. We hope that Hot Blava will be an interesting mixture of national issues and issues that affect Utah, and particularly Utah County where we live. Mostly, it is great to write about issues you're thinking about as it solidifies your thinking... or exposes your own irrationality. You can decide which is which.

## 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 Comments:

At 9:47 AM, December 24, 2007, Reach Upward 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.

Post a Comment

#### Links to this post:

<$BlogBacklinkTitle$>
  <$BlogBacklinkSnippet$>
  posted by <$BlogBacklinkAuthor$> @ <$BlogBacklinkDateTime$>

Create a Link

<< Home