Doing my homework

November 14, 2007 2:20 PM

I could offer excuses, but I won't. I'm unacceptably uninformed about the presidential hopefuls. Are there any good sites/articles offering summaries, breakdowns and/or analyses of the candidates' views/opinions on key issues? I'm primarily, but not exclusively, interested in the Democratic candidates.
posted by anonymous78 to Law & Government (14 answers total)

Best answer: On The Issues
posted by jtron at 2:21 PM on November 14, 2007

MSNBC's Candidates and Issues Matrix.
posted by ericb at 2:25 PM on November 14, 2007

Also -- check out ABCNews/USAToday's Candidate Match Game, Glassbooth's Presidential Candidate Quiz and Gannett News Service's Candidates’ Stands on Issues.
posted by ericb at 2:32 PM on November 14, 2007

And also CNN's Election Center 2008 Issues.
posted by ericb at 2:35 PM on November 14, 2007

Please keep an open mind about Republicans as well, specifically Ron Paul. Do your own research (which you asked) but I throw that out there because despite the party, he is most definitely not what you are thinking about when you think of a Republican. Not an endorsement, just a suggestion.
posted by evilelvis at 3:31 PM on November 14, 2007

DailyKos.com
posted by Freedomboy at 3:35 PM on November 14, 2007

This comparison chart helped me decide that Obama is the man for me. Or he would be if I had any voting ability at all in this election. Covers all candidates.
posted by saturnine at 3:43 PM on November 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

I couldn't find anything that resembled a debate scorecard for a past republican debate, so I made one myself, and did some quote-mining and word frequency analysis.

I should do this again for the more recent debates.

and fix the darn layout...
posted by Mr. Gunn at 4:28 PM on November 14, 2007

Best answer: www.glassbooth.org for the attention-span challenged.
posted by gnash at 4:45 PM on November 14, 2007

You might like Glassbooth. They have a quiz you can take that will determine the best candidate to vote for based on the issues you find important.

Unfortunately for me, my ideal candidate is Dennis Kucinich.
posted by reenum at 4:45 PM on November 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

I was driving home thinking about this question some more and I wanted to say, while these grids are helpful, please please do more than just glance at a flash based grid that shows a bunch of red xs and green checkmarks. Take some time to really investigate the candidates.
posted by evilelvis at 5:51 PM on November 14, 2007

The Democrats are debating Thursday night at 8 Eastern on CNN. You might want to tune in just to get a sense of how they come across on TV.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:14 PM on November 14, 2007

Bah. I tried On The Issues (above) and was told I "might consider voting for Hillary Clinton if [I] particularly like his character and background."
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:49 PM on November 14, 2007

Wikipedia can be helpful.

Positions for:

Ron Paul
Barack Obama
Mitt Romney
Rudy Giuliani
Hillary Clinton
John Edwards

etc. etc.
posted by hjo3 at 6:01 AM on November 15, 2007