It’s surely not a surprise to most of us that the vast majority of presidential candidates are no more in touch with the American populous than the current sitting President. Recently, the candidates so far were placed on the Political Compass. The interesting results are that most of the candidates are far east and north of center:

[inline:usprimaries_2007.png]
from Pace News, Ltd.

From that graph, one could draw the conclusions that the American people sit right of center, and towards bigger, more authoritarian government. However, when public attitudes themselves are graphed, without regard to the candidates themselves, and then those attitudes correlated with the ideals of the candidates, a far different pattern emerges:

[inline:candi_graph.png] from dehp.net

Which shows most Americans, when they consider just the issues, have quite a bit more in common with Dennis Kucinich than any of the others. Among the front runners, Obama and Clinton come out third and fourth, respectively, with Edwards behind the Republican Romney, and Giuliani somewhere towards the back. But it’s the difference between Kucinich, Gravel, and the rest of the field that is most surprising.

Comparing the two graphs, the two leaders in the attitudes survey are the only choices ‘south-west’ of center, while all the “mainstream” candidates are bunched up in the north-east quadrant. The conclusion one could draw here (disclaimer: I am not a statistician) is that the majority of Americans, when asked solely about their attitudes, bend towards leaner, more libertarian (ahem, yes, small “L”) government, and towards more progressive, left-of-center social issues.

I myself am quite south and west of all the candidates, at (-6.12, -7.28):

[inline:eaf-compass.png]
My political compass location

And, when I took the issues test, My top three choices were right in line with the majority: Kucinich (56), Gravel (48), Obama (28). Again, notice the huge gap between candidates two and three. The candidate I agreed with fourth-most was Paul (27). The bottom four were Giuliani (-42), Tancrendo (who?!?) (-46), Hunter (-53), and Romney (-56).

Nevertheless, if the majority of Americans fall far away from where the candidates rank, and the two candidates closest to the American hive-mind are doing so poorly in polling, it’s no wonder that, election after election we are unhappy with our choices, and, year after year, our Government seems to be so out-of-touch with the way most Americans feel and think.

In November, 2008, we’ll be electing our new President, and he or she will be north-east on the political compass, while all of us sit south-west, and, once again, we’ll be dissatisfied with the administration and unhappy with the direction the country moves. And we’ll look forward to the next election, when we can ‘do it right this time,’ only to elect another north-east candidate.

For more on this topic:

• The article in the Blast Off! blog
• The write-up on Dennis Kucinich’s website (Hey, look! It’s Drupal!)
• Pick your candidate based on issues alone with the quiz at dehp.net
• Take the Political Compass test yourself