Issues 2000

Los Angeles Times:
Candidate e-Quizzes
by Massie Ritsch
Oct. 26, 2000

EZ-Print version

Online Candidate Selectors: review of Issues2000:
• Niche: "Every presidential candidate on every issue"
• The good: You come away with a candidate and a pithy label.
• The bad: If your pet issue is not on the questionnaire, you're out of luck.
• Bottom line: The quiz is good, but the background information on issues and candidates is even better.

Quiz-takers indicate their support or opposition to the statements on a five-point scale, then indicate how important the overall issue group is to them.

Weighting the issues satisfies voters who have a litmus test for their candidate, Gordon said, and would drop him if he disagreed with them on that single issue.

For every statement on which the quiz-taker and the candidate match up exactly--or come close--the candidate's score increases.

Researchers for VoteMatch and other similar programs determined the candidates' positions by combing campaign Web sites, speeches and news stories. With the quiz's results, there are links to candidates' position papers and biographies.

Along with churning out a compatible candidate, VoteMatch assigns its participants one of about 20 political labels: "moderate libertarian liberal," for example, or "hard-core conservative."

For voters who have already settled on a candidate, the selector can be a way of confirming their choice. The affiliation label--with explanation--is "an interesting talking point," Gordon said.

Yahoo listings (click on left for full list):
• Al Gore
• George W. Bush
• Ralph Nader
• Pat Buchanan
• Harry Browne

Political activist Web site SpeakOut.com said it is acquiring political news site Issues2000.org of Cambridge, Mass., for an undetermined amount of cash and stock. The two sites should be fully integrated in a month, District-based SpeakOut.com said.

"The excellent research provided by Issues2000, will be rapidly integrated into SpeakOut's features to provide users with a comprehensive and quick way to research the candidates," SpeakOut.com Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ron Howard said in a statement issued late Wednesday.

"Speakout.com gives us relevance beyond the November elections," said Naomi Lichtenberg, president and CEO of Issues2000.org.

Issues2000 cited under "ELECTIONS AND ELECTED OFFICIALS"

But brace yourself for the bad news because, if this happened to me, it could happen to you. I'm 48 percent Steve Forbes.

I can't bear to think what might have happened if I'd taken the quiz with my glasses on....

After you answer, the computer aligns you with one of the seven presidential candidates who feels the way you do on that particular subject. Thing is, you can agree with more than one candidate on any one question, which is why I have the great fortune of being (get this) 48 percent Forbes, 47 percent John McCain and 40 percent George W. Bush....

So go ahead. Try it: www.govote.com. Click on the thing at the top with the red star that says VoteMatch. It's kind of fun. Certainly better than vacuuming or plucking your eyebrows or taking the kids to Chuck E. Cheese.

But be careful. You might find out things you wish you'd never known. Like you dress like Steve Forbes, dance like Al Gore and call your mother every two seconds just like that guy from Texas.

Presidential Candidates on the Issues (http://www.issues2000.org/) lists "every candidates’ view on every issue." Read background documents on the issues, and speech excerpts, quotes and other materials from presidential candidates.

This Massachusetts-based not-for-profit site is supported by donations, and will give its net income after November 2000 to the League of Women Voters "to support future issues-based candidate debates." A list of the site’s supporters can be viewed on the "help out" page. A thorough, organized and well-sourced site.

For example, the site shows that Gore said he favored a "digital cabinet" of high-tech advisers on Sept. 30, while Bush said he wanted to safeguard genetic information a few days later.

It also offers direct links to the news stories and speeches that contain the information.

Or, for those who need even more help in choosing a candidate, SpeakOut.com's VoteMatch service walks readers through a five-page Web questionnaire on topics ranging from abortion to China's human rights record.

It then presents test-takers with a list of candidates who most closely match their needs -- sort of like a dating service for voters."

Just Can’t Figure It Out?

If you need some help, visit SpeakOut.com and take their VoteMatch Presidential Selector Quiz or Select Smart to see which of the candidates falls closest to your way of thinking. VoteMatch is pretty cool because you can click on the issue and read a simplified version of what it means you believe if you vote a particular way.

Modelled after the "perception analyzers" that have become a staple tool of political pollsters, speakout.com will invite thousands of Web users to rate the candidates' speeches beginning Monday at the Republican convention in Philadelphia. The technology allows analysts to pinpoint specific moments when a speaker either scores points or alienates listeners.

Apart from the standard news updates and policy overviews, the site offers two unique tools – the VoteMatch Presidential Selector and the Tax Policy Calculator. The Votematch Selector helps users clear up confusion by running them through a survey designed to reveal their true political bent. The Tax Policy Calculator allows users to assess the tax they will pay under the policies proposed by Al Gore, the Democratic candidate for president, and George W. Bush, his Republican opponent.

"If you would rather not reveal your political views on the Internet, then these Web sites will help you clarify and compare candidates' positions. At the exhaustive Issues 2000 site (www.issues2000.org), click on a candidate's name, then click on one of 23 issues. You will see up to 25 full quotes from the candidate, as well as a definition of the issue, background information, policy papers and a candidate profile."

"See which presidential candidate votes most like you and save your results for future reference. Rate where you stand on political issues such as individual rights (i.e. abortion, gay rights, etc.) and domestic issues (i.e. social security, education, etc.) and how important those issues are for you in general. Your results are displayed in a list ranking how closely each candidate matches your views. You can then compare candidates directly, get more info on where they stand, and see how you compare to other users."

Tax Policy Calculator:

"Figure out how different presidential candidates' tax proposals will affect your bottom line and the nation's treasury. This calculator lets you answer a few questions about your income and tax status to calculate which candidates' tax plan will benefit you the most."

"Not sure which presidential candidate reflects your views on the issues? This unique quiz asks you your opinion on everything from investing social security to the Star Wars defense system, in order to determine who most closely matches your views among the presidential candidates. (Note that Ralph Nadar of the Green Party is not listed here.) As a special bonus, after completing Votematch and seeing your chosen candidate, the system will also peg your political leaning to liberal, conservative, or libertarian."

VoteMatch asks a few questions about your views on the issues and tells you which candidates agree with you, and what political philosophy your views match.

“Vous nous confiez vos opinions, nous les comparons à celles des candidats à l’élection présidentielle et vous montrons ce qui correspond le mieux à vos vues”, assurait “VoteMatch”, le logiciel de sélection de candidats du site web SpeakOut.com.

“C’est conçu pour vous aider à vous former de façon juste et indépendante votre opinion sur les candidats sans avoir à lire trop de documentation ou être forcé de se forger une opinion à partir de ces sacrées publicités télévisées”, ajoutait le mode d’emploi de VoteMatch. Pour chaque sujet abordé (l’internaute en sélectionne le nombre et leur affecte un coefficient d’importance), des liens hyper-texte renvoient à des rappels, des explications, des mises en perspective. Au final, en plus du nom du candidat correspondant le mieux à vos idées, VoteMatch vous localise dans le paysage américain, de gauchiste à conservateur et de libertaire à autoritaire.

Freedom Network:
"This program asks you to answer a series of questions on political positions, it's fairly well done and quite informative. When I did it, my results first pointed out that I am a "hard-core libertarian" (which I already knew of course) and then matched what they consider the "major" candidates (which includes candidates that are out of the race, but not Browne, Nader, Hagelin, or the Socialist whose name I've forgotten) to my votes, in order from best match to worse. (They have a shorter quiz that also matches against third party candidates, but it is nearly useless, the VoteMatch is detailed enough to be meaningful. They also promise to add the third party candidates to the VoteMatch results, but haven't yet.) The scoring system seems to be derived from the Nolan chart. "

"Find the Presidential Candidate That Best Matches Your Views!

On this site you tell your political views, and VoteMatch will compare them to the presidential candidates and then show you the best match."

The survey has come back. Go to http://www.speakout.com/. Scroll to the middle fo the page and take the survey entitled "VoteMatch Presidential Selector." (DO NOT take the survey entitled "Select Smart.") Then write a one-page paper (typed, double-spaced) summarizing the results and explaining why or why not you agree with them. Your assignment is due on October 11 or 12, depending on your section.

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), August 18, 2000

That was interesting -- I turned out to be a hard-core conservative, which isn't too surprising! They had me matched most closely with the Constitution party candidate, but Bush and Cheney aren't too far off. Amazes me how little real life experience some of these people have, though -- some of them have really not done anything but politics since they got out of school.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), August 18, 2000.

What's a "moderate populist conservative"?

-- Joe Cole (jcole@apha.com), August 18, 2000.

Im not sure where they received some of their information but a number of these candidates positions are misrepresented at that site so you may not actually wind up with the best match. They left out some other critical issues and worded various questions in ways that began with a false premise therefor a valid answer cant be given causing some variance in best match possibility.

-- William in WI (thetoebes@webtv.net), August 18, 2000.

William, I suggest if you have a problem with the site, that you email them and let them know! Mine seemed okay although it was more conservative than other "tests" I have taken. What do you other folks think? Sometimes, I think we have our "definitions" a little skewed...for example, those folks who think "liberal" is the same as "communist". We may know what we are, but we may think we are called something else? Just an idea....

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), August 18, 2000.

Hey William, based on your observation, I went back and took the quiz again just to see the analysis part.

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), August 18, 2000.

Sheepish, even if it isn't perfect it was fun! I am a moderate libertarian conservative....Alan Keyes was supposedly my best match followed by Harry Browne then Howard Phillips. Alan Keyes isn't in the race anymore though, is he?

-- Doreen (liberty546@hotmail.com), August 20, 2000.

Sheepish, that was fun! Mine in order - Howard Phillips, Alan Keys, Pat Buchanan, Dick Cheney then Bush. No suprises here. Thanks for the heads up! God Bless! Wendy

-- Wendy@GraceAcres (wjl7@hotmail.com), August 20, 2000.

By Bill Pietrucha

Non-partisan activism meets partisan political news and information, as SpeakOut.com and GoVote.com agree to combine their operations. Financial terms of the merger were not disclosed.

Issues2000 has devoted a section of its site to headlines and quotes from all the candidates on technology issues and electronic government: http://www.issues2000.org/

From healthcare issues to gun control and finance reform, your opinions on the subject will help determine which candidate can best represent your views.

The presidential quiz is informative and helpful. The site also has a candidate comparison chart.

"I went there with George W. Bush as my default candidate. VoteMatch said he didn't best represent my thinking on the issues, although he was closer than Al Gore Jr. A pro-Gore friend did the same, also finding another candidate closer to his views.

"So what am I going to do about it?

"That would be telling. Despite the VoteMatch results, I was still planning on voting for Bush coming into the final weekend of the campaign. But the negative ads run by the Bush campaign offend me almost as much as the negative ads run by the Gore campaign. If both men are right about each other, neither deserves to be President."

GoVote.com provides an easy way for voters to access non-partisan, accurate, timely political news and information online. They offer "VoteMatch Presidential Selector," a 20-question quiz that returns a ranking of the presidential candidates based on a voter's views.

GoVote.com provides:
• Voter registration
• Snapshots of daily political news coverage drawn from the top 30 U.S. sources
• Discussion forums on issues such as gun control and abortion
• A spotlight on the presidential candidates' background and policy positions

For those of us who don't really have the time or care enough, SpeakOut.com's VoteMatch is perfect because it tells us which candidates shares most of our political stands and views.

What's really surprising, however, is the results you can get from this online gizmo. Before trying it out, I was not really thinking which candidate it would find as the perfect match for me. As I started to "fill-in" the radio button answers, however, I got to thinking: Which candidate would it pick? Do I agree more with Al Gore on important issues or George W.? As I continued through the survey pages, I got to wondering if maybe it would find some oddball "Third-Party" candidate as the person agreeing the most with me. I thought, "Hey, some of my political views are pretty far out, it will probably find some Communist or something."

Boy was I wrong.

When the script got done loading the results, I was shocked. Technology had once again proved to me that its worth all the trouble. Without this funky little candidate comparison script on some political website, I would have never have know that I don't agree on anything with even one human being on this planet.

That's right, when all the questions were run through the script, SpeakOut.com decided that in fact no candidate agrees with me on anything much at all. The candidate who was at the top of the list, in fact, only fit me just barely with a 43% views match. The Javascript pop-up window suggested I not even support this candidate unless I "really like his background or character" because even though he's the closest in views to mine, I really don't support anything he supports.

People have always said I disagree with everyone... now science and a simple web script have proved beyond a shade of a doubt that in fact this is true. When it comes to electing our next president, I'm glad I won't be voting... because if I was I wouldn't have anyone to vote for.

The creators of these candidate selector systems don't hope visitors run out and vote based on exactly what their Web sites say. Instead, the lists are packaged with the candidates' resumes, position statements and antics on the campaign trail. It's a deceptively educational way to learn their views in an interactive way.

"We get a lot of teachers who call us and say, 'I am going to use this in my class,' " said Heming Nelson, director of content development for SpeakOut.com. "People find it informative, and it does a pretty good job."

My views on personal rights issues are identical to Vice President Al Gore's position, according to the VoteMatch selector. Those figures, combined with an 84% compatibility rating with Gore's views on economics, put him at the top of my computer-generated list. VoteMatch also classifies users' political philosophies depending on their scores. I was designated a "moderate liberal populist," which means I believe in having a pretty high tolerance for different people and lifestyles, combined with economic views slightly leaning toward believing that a good society is best achieved by the government redistributing wealth. I'm sure that being an impoverished journalist has nothing to do with that . .

More press links coming soon:

With so many candidates, you need a scorecard to know where they line up on the issues. This site offers excerpts from speeches, news stories, press releases and other sources spotlighting each candidate's views on such issues as abortion, civil rights, crime, education and foreign policy.

The merger will mix the political and issues content, activism tools and technology of SpeakOut with voter information presented at Issues2000.

Issues2000.org is a non-partisan Web site at http://www.issues2000.org/ with information compiled by researchers from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Columbia University and other institutions.

Its goal is to serve as a comprehensive guide to presidential candidates' views on the issues.

SpeakOut.com acquired GoVote.com, a Web site for political news and information, in February 2000.

Information on the top five candidates in Tuesday's primary can be found on their Web sites:
• Bill Bradley -- www.billbradley.com
• Sen. John McCain -- www.mccain2000.com
• Vice President Al Gore -- www.algore2000.com
• Gov. George W. Bush -- www.georgewbush.com
• Alan Keyes -- www.keyes2000.org.
• Positions of some of the 13 other candidates on the ballot can be found at: www.issues2000.org.

WEB SITES referenced:
• Elizabeth Dole Official Site
• Elizabeth Dole on the Issues (Issues2000)
• Elizabeth Dole: Skeleton Closet
• Elizabeth Dole's Pecan Roll Cookies
• Republican National Committee
• Vice Presidents Trivia Quiz

Top-Five Political Sites...
• Rainbow Coalition
• E-vote.com
• Voter.com
• Issues 2000
• NY Times

Great Sources
• WHITEHOUSE 2000
• Project Vote Smart
• Skeleton Closet
• Issues2000 Presidential Candidates on the Issues
• Common Cause - Reporter's Guide to Money in Politics Campaign 2000

Curious about vice-presidential candidate Dick Cheney's views on education? This site pulls up eight different citations, such as quotes from former Defense Secretary Cheney's speech accepting the Republican vice-presidential nomination. There are also details about his votes while a Congressman in the 1980s against funding for the Head Start program for preschoolers and in favor of grants for low-income schools. If you are passionate about one specific issue, you can also search by issue and see how the candidates stack up against one another.

Though very thorough, this site isn't updated often enough to reflect daily changes. In a search for "school choice," for example, Issues2000 still says Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman supports giving vouchers to help parents pay for private school. The site even gives the views of fringe candidates such as John Hagelin, who is running for president from the Natural Law Party.

"I've never found another site like this! You answer a series of questions, and then the computer matches you with the 2000 presidential candidate who most closely matches your views on issues of personal freedom, domestic, and foreign policy issues. You then can click on the candidates to find a detailed profile about them. A good way to examine your own stance on issues and find out how other candidates feel about those issues."

Web sites thatprovide a variety of political information:
• DemocracyNetwork.org: information on electeions and candidates from all states
• Politics.com: news, campaign fund-raising information, poll results, issue forums.
• FreedomChannel.com: provides 90-second, campaign-supplied video footage of the presidential candidates discussing various issues.
• USAdemocracy.com: focused on Congress.
• Voter.com
• Issues2000.org: reviews presidential candidates' positions on issues.
• CSPAN.org.

For further information:
• George W. Bush Presidential Exploratory Committee, Inc. Official Site
• Bush Watch
• gwbush.com anti-bush site
• George W. Bush on the Issues Issues2000
• George W. Bush: Project VoteSmart
• George W. Bush: FreedomChannel (video-on-demand)

Education-related Hyperlinks: Special Interest Section
• NYS Energy Research & Development Authority
• Citizen's Budget Commission
• Business Council of New York State
• Issues2000

Featured link under ELECTION INFO
• Election Search 2000
• Issues2000

The 2000 U.S. Election
• Project Votesmart
• Politics1.com
• Democracy Network
• Issues2000

Election 2000
• Democratic Party Online
• Department of State: U.S. Election 2000
• The Grass Poll (Election Humor)
• Issues2000: Presidential Candidates on the Issues
• Northern Light: Presidential Campaign 2000
• OnPolitics: Races by State
• Republican National Committee
• The Vanishing Voter

Supporter List

Their issues page

Bradley on the issues
Buchanan on the issues
Bush on the issues
Gore on the issues
Keyes on the issues
McCain on the issues

Bradley on the issues
Buchanan on the issues
Bush on the issues
Forbes on the issues
Gore on the issues
Keyes on the issues
McCain on the issues
VoteMatch political quiz

Bauer on the issues
Bradley on the issues
Browne on the issues
Buchanan on the issues
Bush on the issues
Forbes on the issues
Gore on the issues
Hatch on the issues
Keyes on the issues
McCain on the issues
Phillips on the issues

Issues
Abortion
Civil Rights
Health Care

Bauer on the issues
Bush on the issues
Forbes on the issues
Keyes on the issues
McCain on the issues
Hatch on the issues

"Issues 2000 features presidential candidates and their stands on a variety of issues. The site can be searched by candidate (including those who have dropped out of the race) and by issue. The site also includes dates for the first presidential primaries."