HERE IS THE ONLY POLITICAL QUIZ YOU'LL NEED BEFORE THE ELECTION

Who Do You Side With?
By Gregory Jacobs-Roseman (Composer-Lyricist) 

Last night, the Democratic National Convention drew to a close when vice-president Joe Biden and president Barack Obama officially accepted their nominations for vice-president and president. Since I’m writing this post before those speeches, I can’t make any comments on them yet, but I can officially kick off the fall campaign for president with, what else, but an internet quiz!

iSideWith.com has been bouncing around Facebook for a few weeks now and I finally decided to jump in and take the test – something I usually avoid because I’m skeptical about how informed these things are. As a political junkie, I was pleasantly surprised by this one.

Most of us are one political party or another mainly because of how we were raised. But as we go through life, we develop our own opinions on important issues because of our experiences. Sometimes we vote a certain way because the candidate has an “R” or “D” next to their name, but do they really believe what you believe?

This quiz ignores political parties and simply asks your opinion on issues, then compares those answers to the views of the candidates running this year – both in major and 3rd political parties. The results can be surprising. Here are mine:

 

The fact that I side even 5% with Romney is upsetting enough. The fact is, I’m to the left of the president. And according to this quiz, I should be voting for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein (just to be clear: I am going to be voting for the president in November – more on that in coming weeks). Also, according to this quiz, I’m 97% in line with the Democratic Party, but only 87% in line with its candidate, a distinction I’m glad this quiz makes, because sometimes candidates differ from the base of their party.

Though I am curious what it was that made me side 1% more with Romney than the Republican Party.

Take a few minutes to fill out the quiz. If you want, go ahead and post your results as a comment here and we can discuss. You may be surprised by what you get.

GREGORY JACOBS-ROSEMAN is a composer/lyricist and theatrical sound designer currently developing Save The Date: A New Musical Comedy. www.gregjr.com
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Comments

[Kevin Ireland - theBestArts]

I'd ignored the quiz for some of the reasons you stated, but took it after your encouragement. I answered all of the extra questions, and often chose an answer with qualifications rather than a simple "yes" or "no".

One of the interesting things about the survey is that it allows you to view how your answers compare with each candidate, and with other people from your state (and from America) who took the survey.

Unsurprising to me, my answers were aligned with Obama 88% of the time, and with Republicans just 5%. I WAS surprised, however, to learn that I had a 19% match with Mitt Romney (although not on any major issues.) When I drilled in to see why, I found that we were actually more different than that - the survey considers many different answers as "similar" that I don't. For example, Mitt Romney supports the death penalty, while I support it "only in certain certain circumstances in which a heinous crime has been committed." To me, that's a difference; the survey marks that as a match.

Interesting to take; try it out.

[Gregory Jacobs-Roseman (Composer-Lyricist)]

Interesting Kevin!

We'll have to debate the death penalty sometime, which I happen to be against in all cases.

I was also curious what Mitt Romney and I had in common so I went and checked. Turns out we both think the government should increase the budget for space exploration. Shocking.

[Kmcgrath1]

Great quiz. I too was most compatible with Ms. Stein, who I'm ashamed to admit I was not familiar with. Of course, I'm voting for Obama too, but I don't think he's perfect. I'm proud to say that I only got 2% agreement with Mitt -- and I actually don't think he's a terrible person, I just don't agree with him 98% of the time.