Select your Candidate

Someone sent me a link to a web site that takes your opinions and matches them to those of the Republican and Democratic candidates for President of the United States. The web site, which seems to be from some TV station, is based on a tool from Minnesota Public Radio.

It's interesting, but it has several flaws.

1) There aren't any candidates from other parties. Some of them, I suppose, have just as much chance as some of the many current Democratic and Republican candidates, all of whom (I think!) are included.

2) Some issues aren't included. I missed these:
Funding Social Security and Medicare
Fixing the nation's infrastructure
Bringing down the deficit, and the national debt
Doing something serious about global warming (there was an item about ethanol, but I understand that it takes more fossil fuel to produce ethanol than it replaces)
Public transportation
The boundaries (if any) of Presidential power
Toning down the level of partisanship in US politics
A military draft

3) It assumes (I guess) that people vote solely based on issues. Some people are likely to vote for or against Obama and Clinton because of their race or sex, with little regard for their stands on the issues, I think. And some of us will (I hope) vote based on our perception of the person's character. We (for example) suspect candidate X of changing opinions so as to court votes, or like McCain's integrity (or stubbornness), or don't trust a candidate who has been divorced.

Nonetheless, it was interesting, and only took a couple of minutes.

Thanks for reading.