Presidential Candidate Quiz

I decided to take a quiz about the Presidential candidates and here is the result:

1. Theoretical Ideal Candidate (100%)
2. Barack Obama (71%)
3. Al Gore (not announced) (70%)
4. Wesley Clark (not announced) (68%)
5. Dennis Kucinich (67%)
6. Christopher Dodd (65%)
7. Hillary Clinton (63%)
8. John Edwards (63%)
9. Joseph Biden (61%)
10. Bill Richardson (61%)
11. Michael Bloomberg (not announced) (57%)
12. Alan Augustson (campaign suspended) (54%)
13. Ron Paul (48%)
14. Mike Gravel (45%)
15. Kent McManigal (campaign suspended) (35%)
16. Elaine Brown (31%)
17. John McCain (30%)
18. Mike Huckabee (29%)
19. Mitt Romney (29%)
20. Chuck Hagel (not announced) (28%)
21. Rudolph Giuliani (28%)
22. Tommy Thompson (withdrawn) (26%)
23. Newt Gingrich (not announced) (21%)
24. Sam Brownback (18%)
25. Tom Tancredo (18%)
26. Fred Thompson (not announced) (16%)
27. Jim Gilmore (withdrawn) (10%)
28. Duncan Hunter (10%)

Not completely accurate, though I am a mild supporter of Senator Obama.

And here are my thoughts about some of these candidates.

Barack Obama says he is an agent of change, but he hasn’t come up with any policy that could be described as a major departure from the mainstream. He is a very good orator and seems to have decent positions on most issues but where are the winds of change?

Hillary Clinton is a deeply divisive figure so I am not sure how she would do in the general election, though she’s expected to do very well in the primaries. I think there are two major faults with her. One, she hasn’t really changed her opinion on the Iraq war. And two, she is probably the one Democrat with the most expansive ideas about executive authority. Hence she cannot be relied on to roll back the excesses of the Bush administration.

John Edwards is a generally likable politician who has offered a mea culpa on Iraq and is one of the few candidates to focus on poverty.

Can Joseph Biden please stop shouting during the debates? Thank you!

Bill Richardson has a lot of experience as a cabinet member, ambassador and governor. He is also one of the few candidates to commit to complete withdrawal from Iraq without leaving any residual forces. However, he is prone to gaffes every now and then and hasn’t really broken through to the first tier.

Let’s talk about the Republicans now, even though no Republican should be voted in even as a dogcatcher next year.

Ron Paul’s opposition to the Iraq war and some of his libertarian ideas interest me but then he does sound like the crazy uncle at times, sort of like Mike Gravel does in the Democratic debates.

John McCain has only one place to go: Down! What happened to McCain? A darling of the independents in 2000, he’s now stuck with not one but two unpopular policies: Immigration reform and the Iraq war. How did the Iraq war become his?

Mitt Romney sounds like such a fake. Was he always like that or is it a new thing? Did the Massachusetts voters elect him despite his fakery? Does his disowning of Massachusetts even convince anyone?

Tom Tancredo is after the bigot vote and thus won’t get anywhere because who wants to be identified as hater.

Fred Thompson sounds like the farcical version of Reagan or something. His acting doesn’t impress me and neither does his political persona or his positions.

Mike Huckabee is the religious politician and you know how that combo irritates me. So it speaks to the qualities of the Republican field that Huckabee is the one Republican who has impressed me a little. He seems to be a down to earth fellow who believes in Biblical literalism but does care about the poor and the ordinary.

And finally we come to Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York. If you think we are screwed now due to Bush, wait till Giuliani becomes President. The guy is absolutely nuts. Every single New Yorker I know, even those who voted for him as mayor, thinks Giuliani should not be within a million miles of the White House. Listen, for example, to Rudy Giuliani going crazy over ferret ownership.