Just a quick post to let you know about Slobokan’s Presidential chart which shows each candidate and their positions on one page. Great resource for those having a tough time choosing who to support.
See author page
Presidential Candidates At A Glance
Meh, it’s a nice idea, but Slobokan brings some biases to the table and ends up not doing an entirely objective job. He’s willing to put ‘flip-flops’ in the cells for some candidates, but somehow Mitt and Huck don’t end up with any flip-flops in their column. And like most people, he draws fine-grained distinctions on issues important to him (abortion, Iraq war) while others less important to him just get an up-or-down attribute despite a lot of variation between candidates (alternative energy for example). Civil liberties stuff (FISA, Guantanamo and so on) gets no mention at all.
Still, good on him for putting it together. It does represent a lot of research and should help people who have a fairly similar outlook make a decision. It would probably be less useful the more different your outlook was from his (for example I doubt it would help a Democrat make their choice).
I also think there are some errors, for example last I checked Hillary did not favor immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and Ron Paul doesn’t believe in global warming let alone emissions reduction targets as a way of dealing with it. But considering the number of cells to fill I think it’s pretty accurate.
The information on Hillary supporting withrdrawal of troops comes from Select Smart which says,
“War authorization: Voted for war authorization, but believes that vote was a mistake based on faulty information provided by the White House. Now calls for withdrawal of US troops.”
The Ron Paul emissions reduction comes from his own words on Real Time With Bill Maher, where he said,
“I don’t think everybody knows everything about global warming, because you have reputable scientists on both sides of that argument. … [If the government were to play a role] then you have to deal with the volcanoes and you have to deal with the pollution of China. So, do you want to invade China to make sure they don’t pollute? And what are you going to do about the volcanoes? They are all contributing factors to global warming. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do what we can to slow up the emissions and stop subsidizing big oil companies.”
Of course, supporting capping or reducing emissions does not necessarily mean “government controlled”.
In light of the oversight of leaving out Guantanamo, wiretaps, and the Patriot Act, I have updated the chart to reflect the candidates views on those topics as well.
I have to admit, I never liked Gore when he was in mainstream politics, but I have some admiration for him now that he’s taken such a huge position on global warming. I have a hard time with the ’70’s mentality that we don’t know IF we’re causing Global warming. I would like to see a candidate really step forward with an efficient alternative energy plan. Its not about “IF”. We ARE causing problems that could become catastrophic (and probably already are if you look at temperatures, weather patterns and species that are dying). How long is it going to take before the government leaders truly step forward and make a mandatory plan?
Charity,
Sorry, everything you just stated about “We ARE causing problems that could become catastrophic” is being disproven and shown as political “science”. Salon talking points do not work here. These doom and gloom predictions are based on corrupted data and politically motivated “studies”. This was the exact same doom and gloom mantra from the 1970s “New Ice Age” myth.
How much more can the socalist/environmentalist religion/movement spin this? And what “mandatory plan” would you suggest? What “holistic” form of governance will “fix” this “problem” considering the Earth has been MUCH warmer in the recent geological past and we are coming out of what is known as the Mini-Ice Age?