Fight The Power!

So my brother pointed out Choose Your Candidate to me, on The Washington Post's website. Basically, it's a quiz that covers some of the more important issues in the upcoming election. The answers you have to choose from are based on the answers of the Democratic or Republican Presidential candidates, depending on which party's quiz you choose. At the end of the quiz, you can see how your answers align with the candidates (and your stats can be tracked during the quiz as well).

Being that I don't follow politics as closely as I probably should, this quiz was pretty interesting and eye-opening. I was able to see how the candidates compare to each other and what I have in common with them. It's a pretty good run down of what the candidates have to say and it's nice having all their answers in one place. I think it's good start for someone who needs to learn and wants to learn about the candidates but hasn't gotten around to doing so yet. It helped me get started, but I'm still left a little hesitant about which candidate to choose.

One of my problems with voting (and with politics in general to a certain extent) is that all the answers are still based on winning an election. That may sound obvious (and dumb) but I find it a little difficult to predict how much of a politician's agenda is what he or she actually stands for and how much of it is based on giving people what they want to hear. And on top of that, who knows which issues a politician will actually fight for and which ones will be forgotten once he or she is elected?

I could go on but I won't. Instead, I think I'll fill out my absentee ballot now so I don't forget to send it in like last time.