Another Candidate Quiz

It's only 20 questions, and it allows you to weight the questions towards what is most important to you. When complete, it then shows you the closest matches, and provides the detail on how closely you match each candidate. It's not comprehensive, but does have the major alternative parties represented.

Glassbooth

Covering Just the Issues

Thanks to my friend, Erin, I have another site to add:

Campaign Issues 2008

It attempts to deliver succinct summaries of where the candidates stand on the issues by using their own words (from speeches, debates and press releases) and actions (through voting, bills, proposals, etc.).

After this last debate (Which most of the press I've seen calls a slight win for Obama, but where instead I saw two children get involved in a battle of, "Nuh-uh, that's not what I said, that's not what I meant! But you said..." ... rinse, repeat...) it may be a breath of fresh air.

A debate where I heard very little new, but heard both candidates take opportunities to show how contumelious they can be to each other, and still have a thin veneer of civility. I keep finding myself wishing there was a debate where the person asking the question was able to say, "Stop. You're going back to your script. Stay focused, and answer MY QUESTION." And I thought that Brokaw did a better job of this than previous moderators, but both men tended to blow right by their 1 minute time limit as well as any re-focusing attempt.

Is it possible to have a viable third party? I don't know. Is it possible to have politicians that you respect? I don't know. Is it possible to have a politician take a stance based on principle or belief, without weighing the balance of which answer will mean a net increase in votes? I don't know.

Who am I voting for? I still don't know. Grr.

Non-Partisan Sites

I wanted to summarize the sites I've found or had suggested to me (and I'll continue to update if I find more) - and have included them all in the right column of the blog. ------------->

FactCheck.org
This site appears to focus on addressing truth in advertising and published statements. They provide a Summary of the issue, an Analysis section, document their Sources and links to Related Articles. It's an attractive site, with a special video blog called, The Wire, that tries to be "Faster Than the Speed of Spin" and is short and informative.

PolitiFact.com
This site focuses on how true or false statements or attacks are. They have handy gauges that signify True, Partly True/False all the way to "Pants on Fire." ;) They also maintain an analysis called the Flip-O-Meter which analyzes whether a candidate has changed stances, and to what extent. There's also a summary page for each candidate which lists how many items they have under each Truth level so you can see if they tend towards honesty - or not.

OnTheIssues.org
This site provides history based information on where the candidates stand on the issues. Much of their information is obtained from their voting history, which provides them a grade, or rating, on the issues. It also includes public statements on issues, and when they made them. It provides many different ways of viewing this information, and comparing the candidates to each other, and to your views. Be sure to check out the Grid, and VoteMatch. I especially like that they have posed different ways and corollary questions to help you consider your stance on the issues.

GovTrack.us
You can track both current Congresspeople and bills on this site, so it's more for staying current on what your elected representatives are doing, than for comparison to a potential opponent (unless they too have a congressional record). The neat thing is you can set up RSS feeds or email so you get updates as they happen, and I've also set up a widget that shows my current issues and Congressmen's actions on my blog. Useful for me, but you can do the same for your own on your site.

Track and Research Congress

A couple of days ago, I made an entry with links to two Presidential candidates' "Issues" pages. I've since been looking for a place that independently reviews those plans, and the history of how the candidates have acted in the past. While I haven't found that review, I have found something that helps with the latter...

GovTrack.us is a site that allows you to do two main things -- keep abreast of pending legislation and research past legislation. So not only did I find a way to see how every Representative and Senator voted on every bill, but if there is a person or issue you want to keep track of in the future, you can set up Feeds to get that info pushed to you!

Want to look up how McCain/Obama voted on the appalling FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (S. 2248)? Go to the View Votes page and you can see (I'm happy with neither). Though I find that my Representative (Shadegg) voted as I like (this time).

I've also set up Tracked Events to monitor things related to my two Senators and my Rep. I now track changes with an RSS (or Atom) feed (ask me if you want to know more about feeds), and I've put a widget to the right, "Tracked Events in Congress" so you can see my example. I'll find out if it's information overload, or if it's the right amount to make me a more informed citizen. Given time, I think it will help me make more informed decisions - especially when deciding whether to vote for an incumbent!