Don’t mistake me for some kind of rational human being. But the past week’s election coverage has led me to wonder why people are having any trouble deciding on a political candidate. If you accept that most people are rational (which is probably a faulty assumption up front) the process seems to be pretty straight forward.
1) You make a list of drop dead choices where you will never vote for a candidate who supports them. An example of this may be your feeling on pro-choice/pro-life. In truth, I’d bet that though most people think they have a lot of these, they probably have very few. Outside of pure religious reasons, it just does not seem like there would be that many things that if you agreed with a candidate on A but disagreed with them on B through M you’d still vote for them. This is the type of issue that I’m referring to here.
2) If you found one of those, you’re done. If you have not, you make a list of all the things you care about, and how much you care about them (1-10). This can result in a list like the following: Anti-terrorism 4
Sane fiscal policy 8
War in Iraq 3
And so on. 3) Independent of that, you make a separate list, with all the above issues and how much you think a given candidate will focus on them (1-10 scale, same as above). Bush:
Anti-terrorism 9
Sane fiscal policy 4
War in Iraq 8 Kerry:
Anti-terrorism 8
Sane fiscal policy 7
War in Iraq 4
I am aware that this could mean that you could rate a candidate highly just because they focus on a issue, but I’m going to assume for a moment that if either given candidate focuses on an issue they will work on it until it is right. You could mitigate this by adding an additional factor of likelihood of success which you would multiply times the amount they focus on it (percentage from 1-100% which would reduce that number). Even this is not perfect, as if you didn’t care at all about an issue, a candidate completely focused on it, but they were very likely to fail, they would align with your issue on that matter, but they would be taking resources away from a different issue you presumably cared more about. 4) Now take the absolute value of the difference between each of the issues and sum. Lowest number wins your vote: Bush:
Anti-terror = 5
Sane fiscal policy = 4
War in Iraq = 5
Total = 14
Kerry:
Anti Terror = 4
Sane Fiscal Policy = 1
War in Iraq = 1
Total = 6
Some day (hopefully soon) I’d like to write about how there’s a total lack of rationality in people’s actions today. It seems that everyone’s lost the ability to do even basic deductive calculations (all those who point out logic flaws in the above will be awarded brownie points). I know I said that I really did not want this blog to turn into a political discussion, as I’m just as big a moron as the next person when it comes to deciding elections and having opinions, but in this case, I ran the above for myself, and I just don’t see any way to support Bush in the next election. Do we really think that Kerry will allow the terrorists to invade willy-nilly? Please. Flip-flop? Why should I care? Minus that, is there really any reason to support a Bush administration? I always try and see the other side, when possible, but exactly how do Bush supporters justify Bush’s behavior? I really am more than open to listening to the other side. As always, let me caveat this by saying I voted for the elder Bush and that I’m generally pretty seriously uninformed. But this is my view so far… D
2) If you found one of those, you’re done. If you have not, you make a list of all the things you care about, and how much you care about them (1-10). This can result in a list like the following: Anti-terrorism 4
Sane fiscal policy 8
War in Iraq 3
And so on. 3) Independent of that, you make a separate list, with all the above issues and how much you think a given candidate will focus on them (1-10 scale, same as above). Bush:
Anti-terrorism 9
Sane fiscal policy 4
War in Iraq 8 Kerry:
Anti-terrorism 8
Sane fiscal policy 7
War in Iraq 4
I am aware that this could mean that you could rate a candidate highly just because they focus on a issue, but I’m going to assume for a moment that if either given candidate focuses on an issue they will work on it until it is right. You could mitigate this by adding an additional factor of likelihood of success which you would multiply times the amount they focus on it (percentage from 1-100% which would reduce that number). Even this is not perfect, as if you didn’t care at all about an issue, a candidate completely focused on it, but they were very likely to fail, they would align with your issue on that matter, but they would be taking resources away from a different issue you presumably cared more about. 4) Now take the absolute value of the difference between each of the issues and sum. Lowest number wins your vote: Bush:
Anti-terror = 5
Sane fiscal policy = 4
War in Iraq = 5
Total = 14
Kerry:
Anti Terror = 4
Sane Fiscal Policy = 1
War in Iraq = 1
Total = 6
Some day (hopefully soon) I’d like to write about how there’s a total lack of rationality in people’s actions today. It seems that everyone’s lost the ability to do even basic deductive calculations (all those who point out logic flaws in the above will be awarded brownie points). I know I said that I really did not want this blog to turn into a political discussion, as I’m just as big a moron as the next person when it comes to deciding elections and having opinions, but in this case, I ran the above for myself, and I just don’t see any way to support Bush in the next election. Do we really think that Kerry will allow the terrorists to invade willy-nilly? Please. Flip-flop? Why should I care? Minus that, is there really any reason to support a Bush administration? I always try and see the other side, when possible, but exactly how do Bush supporters justify Bush’s behavior? I really am more than open to listening to the other side. As always, let me caveat this by saying I voted for the elder Bush and that I’m generally pretty seriously uninformed. But this is my view so far… D