Squaring the candidates

[Watser?]

Remember that political test (http://www.politicalcompass.org/) on the internets that we had a link to here, where you could find out where on the right-left and on the libertarian-authoritarian scale you were?
Now they have applied it (http://www.politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2007) to the US presidential candidates.

http://static.crooksandliars.com/2007/08/candidate-grid.png

Well, whaddyaknow, there is the extreme left that O'Really keeps screaming about, just slightly to the left of the center he claims to be in...

sorry about the non-transparent pic liv :D

[Uthgar the Brazen]

I'd put Ron Paul south of the equator, but otherwise, it appears I'll be voting for Kodos.

[Watser?]

It is prolly his anti-abortion stance that pushed him north.

[Dingfod]

I've tried telling people Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and most of the rest of the Democrats running aren't left-wing liberals, they're far too pro-business to be that progressive. I see on that chart why Kucinich and Gravel came out on top of my choices in that one test, my own position on that chart is in the left-liberal libertarian like they are.

[ChuckF]

O'Reilly's bloviating is perhaps more valid than I'd like to admit because 99.9% of "serious" political discourse in America occurs in the upper right quadrant of that chart.

I'm somewhere around the middle of the bottom left.

[Watser?]

Well, me too. But considering O'Reilly seems to think Clinton, Edwards and Obama (and their supporters) are far left while in reality they are right of center, I would say he is way off (plus an extreme rightist).

[Adam]

I wish they had published the responses they picked for the candidates to generate those scores, as well as the exact scores themselves. I just did some quick math based on eyeballing the positions on the graph, and it looks like the "center" in American politics (or American presidential candidates, anyway) is about 4.5, 4.5, or right around where McCain is sitting. Polling pretty consistently shows a majority actual voters to the "left" of both mainstream political parties, although I'm not sure how that would translate onto this graph.

[Nullifidian]

Interesting, and of a piece with what I've said repeatedly. A friend of mine calls the political climate today "political redshifting".

Unfortunately for me in this election cycle, I'm practically right on the left-bottom corner.

[Ensign Steve]

So, wait. Is the x-axis more economical and the y-axis more social?

[Watser?]

Eh..

Yeah, left to right is economic, up to down is social.

So if you think abortion should be legal you move down the vertical axis and if you think the rich should pay more taxes that would move you to the left.

[Ensign Steve]

What if I just want the rich to buy me lots of abortions?

[Watser?]

Hmmm, that would move you to the left AND down I guess :chin:

[ChuckF]

Unless you're Mexican...that would put you in Tancredoland.

[Ensign Steve]

:lol: I have no idea what's going on right now.

[Ari]

Someone should do a graph like this comparing a politicians claimed views that he/she gives in speeches and the way they actually vote.

[viscousmemories]

That's a graph I'd like to see.

[Stormlight]

But considering O'Reilly seems to think Clinton, Edwards and Obama (and their supporters) are far left

Well, they are. Far left of O'Reilly.