Election 2008: Is McCain the man?

Earlier today I made a comment on a great post by Aaron regarding the upcoming election.  He pointed us to a poll which by answering a series of questions, you can determine the candidate with which you most agree.  Since I haven't done much in the way of election commentary (mainly out of indifference), I thought I might expound upon my thoughts.  Because I'm lazy and I think I stated my point rather well the first time, I'll just stick it here:

I noticed that the poll itself is originally from Minnesota Public Radio.  Not that I dislike the programming on public radio (ie. NPR) but if it was high enough quality (as most advocates claim) it should stand on it's own merits in the market.  Quality is created through fair competition and Public Radio is avoiding that issue by being funded (though not entirely) by our tax money.  Advocates also claim that NPR is good hedge against the rest of talk radio, which is largely conservative.  I think that this is one tiny step away from admitting to the opposite bias.  If I concede that the programing plays it straight, the management certainly doesn't.

I only mention this because it is possible to "fix" a poll.  Any opinion poll's results can be skewed by which, how and even the order in which questions are asked.  In this case it can be double fixed because both the candidate and the perspective voter are answering potentially skewed questions.

I am not saying that this is the case here or that John McCain isn't the closest candidate to my position but we disagree on quite a few important issues.  What I do know is that I am pretty darn conservative and I don't see McCain that way at all.  I would rank Romney's current positions as more conservative, but it depends on which source you use to determine where a candidate stands.

I may do a full post on this issue later today....

So here's the rest of my thoughts:

As an interesting exercise, I retook the poll as a Ghingis Khan (or Jinjis Khan if you prefer John Kerry's pronunciation) conservative just to see what would show up.  The poll also allows you to rate how strongly you feel about each answer that you give.  I actually didn't change many of my answers but I did rate everything as VERY important to me.  Strangely enough I still got John McCain.  I am not prepared to claim that there is a link between this result and the fact the "Big Mac" has been endorsed at the acceptable Republican by several liberal mainstream media outlets, but it is an interesting coincidence.

What I found odd - much as Aaron's other commenters did - was who else I was paired with on given issues.  As I suspected, I still disagree with McCain on immigration and I am closer to loony Ron Paul than before.  However, I am apparently more in line with every remaining Democratic candidates on the issue of "marriage" than I am to Romney and Huckabee, the 2 most openly religious people in the race.  The question was regarding whether I agree or disagree with a federal constitutional amendment limiting marriage to 1 man/1 woman.  I think that this is a fairly small component of being pro-traditional marriage and I seriously doubt it accurately places me with a candidate on the issue.  I guarantee that Huckabee and Romney will represent my apprehension about the militant gay movement and its attack on marriage far better than any Democratic candidate.

I also find it suspicious that McCain's real albatrosses when it comes to garnering conservative support are left untouched.  McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform of 2002 is the greatest single limitation to free political speech in my voting lifetime and decidedly NOT conservative and this is not a small issue to most Republicans.  Additionally, the core of our difference on his handling of the immigration debate are not limited to that issue - it was his disregard for the views and wishes of his constituents, the Republican majority and the country at-large.  He did the same thing on the nomination process for qualified federal judges.  I admire his dedication to principles (and obviously his heroic military service to our nation), but it is it those principles with which I fear I disagree.

MPR's possible shenanigans with the poll may be directly or indirectly linked to the fact that McCain is unlikely to develop significant support among rank and file GOP voters (thereby aiding any Dem candidate) and was even linked with a perspective move across the isle early last year.  I am going to try to arrange a YouTube embed (admittedly put out by the ultra-rich Romney campaign) that shows a cavalcade of media regarding McCain's problems among conservatives and his flirtation with the Democrats.

In conclusion, MPR is not necessarily playing with their poll, but it seems that no matter what you believe as a Republican, John McCain's your guy.  If you have some free time, try to play with this poll a little and see if you can find any other weird results.

I have yet to endorse anyone - and really have no right to do so since I was lazy and don't think I can vote in the Colorado primaries from Ukraine - but I will vote for any of the major Repubs over all the Dems in November.