Politics and Dharma

I wish I saw more polls (of this meme)
where the red and blue overlapped but
it is also partly the structure of the poll
questions I think. as far as I can see
they make it rather difficult to give
answers that count as ‘republican’ without
saying something very unnuanced. of course
someone may say that is the case but I think
it reflects the poll constructor’s idea
of the candidates too.
my first four (taking the poll)
are democrats by the way(clinton and obama
and edwards and someone else)
and it is not probable I will vote for
any of them … not impossible but not
probable.

There were several questions where I felt that both the framing of the questions and of the provided answers were entirely incorrect, and that any answer would be wrong. In those cases, I chose the ‘least wrong’ answer.

Part of the reason you wouldn’t expect to see more overlap in this sort of poll is that they selected issues that highlight the dichotomy between the two parties. Another reason is due to the way the current electoral system drives the competition down to a binary choice. If each voter were able to choose and rank their “top 3″ or even “top 5″ from the whole field, utilizing an ‘instant runoff’ system like they do in Europe, questions like the ones in this poll would be less important than each candidate’s actual qualifications and management style.

well as I say that may be
although frankly Im hard pressed
to think of any candidate of either
party who is cultured in any
serious way…I expect mayor
bloomberg reads the economist at
least so that is one reader although
undeclared. can you think of another?