Select A Candidate returns

Posted at 6:25 PM on July 9, 2007 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

The first module in MPR's popular Select A Candidate application has just been released. The contest for president is the subject of this one and 18 candidates -- the most ever -- are included. I haven't added Fred Thompson yet, however. And there's a few more issues I need to toss in there -- education, for one.

There are some positions I haven't been able to find for some candidates. Ethanol, in particular, is hard to pin candidates down on, which is surprising since Iowa is a make-it-or-break-it state for some candidates. And line-item-veto is another.

In putting these together, I can tell you there's no other place -- at least on the Internet -- for getting a comparison of candidate positions in one spot. There's a few that have tried but -- and this is a reflection on the candidates -- answers -- specific answers -- are hard to come by, which is why there's so much gibberish involved. A look at ontheissues.org is a good example.

There are some sites that have tried. CNN, the New York Times are the two best I've found so far for side-by-side comparisons. But, there's little out there in the way of allowing some interactive component with the voter and, I guess, that's why Select A Candidate has been so popular.

One change from previous years. In the past, the final page has provided links to specific candidate pages with abundant amounts of information on those pages. We haven't put those together this year and I'm not entirely sure we're going to. For one thing, in the age of Google, is it really that hard learning more about a candidate once you know his/her name?

Comments (1)

Again, I feel that your question regarding abortion is worded with bias to illicit a specific response. Additionally, the limits of the question do not reflect the candidates differences on this topic.

Here are a few examples on candidate statements/positions:

http://www.naral.org/elections/statements/
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/washington/ABORTIONPOSITIONS.html
http://www.ontheissues.org/Abortion.htm#Headlines

Many candidate statements reflect the topic of women's health issues not simply the topic of abortion. See the example below:
http://www.ppaction.org/ppvotes/08_candidate_quotes.html

SelectSmart uses similar bias but in a different way:

12. What would be your ideal candidate's position on ABORTION?
Would support the pro-choice positions of organizations like NARAL.
Would support the pro-life positions of organizations like National Right to Life Committee.
Neither
What priority do you place on your selection above? High Low

source: http://www.selectsmart.com/president/2008.html

Posted by eb | July 10, 2007 5:38 PM

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