Candidate Calculator

So I found this via the usual annoying spam sent to me by my aunt. It's for those of you who are too lazy to think for yourselves, too lazy to watch any of the debates, and definitely too lazy to pick up a newspaper and read anything about the 2008 Presidential candidates. It's the Candidate Calculator! The very sophisticated calculator asks you "yes" or "no" questions about whether you support certain issues, like the Iraq war, abortion rights, and immigration policy. It then allows you to label the issue as one of low, medium, or high importance creating an accurate and fine-tuned calculation. In the results it displays the Presidential candidate that is your number one match, as well as candidates that are close matches, and your least compatible choices.

While this is funny, and obviously not a real way to choose a candidate, I wonder if it is not a more short-winded version of picking a candidate than watching Presidential debates, or reading about their opinions on issues in newspapers. Particularly today, candidates don't go into depth about their stances regarding certain matters. The public doesn't really know much more than the neutral and glossed-over version that is fed to us after much instruction from their PR person. So perhaps we should give up and just use the trusty Candidate Calculator.

Also, my mother I were talking, and she told me she did her calcuation just for fun, and she, an avid Hillary supporter, found that her political views, in fact, lined up more with Denis Kucinich's politics. This to me is an expression of the limited realistic options faced by those who are very leftist. Obviously Kucinich is not going to get the nomination, and most likely I will end up voting for the more moderate nominee. Sometimes its very frustrating for me, because it sucks to have to settle!