Ryan's Journal

In ninth grade, they were supposedly teaching us civics for the geopolitical portion of our public education. Late in the year, my teacher issued a pop quiz on which party held which view on certain pertinent issues. Having never bothered to teach us any of this - personally, I wish she'd stuck with owning hair styling franchises - we were left to our own devices. Politics had never crossed my mind and wasn't about to as a fifteen year old. I ended up guessing at random.

If only I'd bothered to take two minutes to find out how simplistic such questions actually are. Well, via BoingBoing, here comes a handy cheat sheet for where each of the official presidential candidates for 2008 stands on arbitrary but popular issues.

Being a data freak, I turned it into an exhibit of the issues. With twenty-six facets, you'd think you might find some variation... but no. Watch that political party facet in the bottom right. It tends to reduce to one party once you make any particular opinion selection.

Now, pop quiz: find the candidate who opposes torture, supports net neutrality and universal health care, and prefers to leave gay marriage to each state's discretion.

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