U.S. Voting Primer

[Kadath]

My gf was talking with a friend of hers. He is 28, has never voted, and was going to vote Bush in this election in accordance with his father's vote. She asked him if he was pro-choice, and when he said he was, asked how he could then vote for Bush.

I don't think a vote should be decided on a single issue, so I wondered what people considered to be the pertinent issues in the upcoming Presidental election, and in U.S. politics in general.

I am doing my best to express these in a non-partisan way, and any semantic advice is welcomed. Just looking at the questions I have formed so far, I tend to put the traditionally Republican view first in the question.

Economy
Which is more important to you, allowing taxpayers to keep more of their money or funding government projects in areas such as defense, education and welfare?

Defense(thanks ART)
Should the US take an active stance in defending itself against terrorism, or should we refrain from invading other nations?

Abortion
(This is an easy one) Are you more pro-life or pro-choice?

Environment(thanks iccky)
To what degree do you favor protecting the enviroment from human damage, even if it means the loss of jobs and economic growth?

Immigration Reform
How do you feel about guest worker programs, amnesty for illegals, driver's licenses and voting rights for illegals and securing the borders?

Gay Marriage/Rights
Do you feel homosexual couples should be afforded the exact same status are hetereosexual couples, or do you feel marriage needs to be be protected from further and possibly debilitating changes?

Foreign Policy
To what degree should the US be involved in the affairs of other nations? Should we be the world's police or pursue a more isolationist policy?


Does anyone have any others? Note I don't want answers to these questions.

[hannukah harry]

i think you should add foreign policy to that, although i guess that could fall under "war" in a very narrow sense.

[Kadath]

Note I don't want answers to these questions.

Thanks ART...

harry, how would you phrase a question about foreign policy? Something like:
To what degree should the US be involved in the affairs of other nations? Should we be the world's police or pursue a more isolationist policy?

[ARTelevision]

OK then _ I'd suggest you change war to defense, how's that?

edit: I suppose I misread your point. I deleted my response so the thread may proceed as you desire.

thanks...

[kutulu]

Originally posted by Kadath
Economy
Which is more important to you, allowing taxpayers to keep more of their money or funding government projects in areas such as defense, education and welfare?

War
Should the US take an active stance in defending itself against terrorism, or should we refrain from invading other nations?

Abortion
(This is an easy one) Are you more pro-life or pro-choice? DO you think stem cell research should be pursued?

Environment
Would you rather protect the environment or allow companies to grow and prosper?

You are grossly oversimplifying those issues to the point that it offers nothing.

[cthulu23]

A few thoughts:

Most of the categories are too simplistic. I don't think that you can really sum up the differences in the parties with one sentence per issue or with stright binary comparisons. For example, not everyone believes that we must choose between economic prosperity and funding schools.

Economy is almost a non-issue between the candidates as both parties tend to support the "free" market, supply-side economy that we are now in. Bush's tax cuts are one source of dischord, and trade issues might also be relevant given that Edward's is running as veep.

As for war, I don't think that anyone can argue with defending our nation from terrorists. What is at question is the doctrine of preemption and whether or not one feels that invading Iraq has anything to do with the war on terrorism.

Unlike the other issues, abortion can more easily be summed up with dualistic thinking but I don't think that stem cell research is part of the abortion debate (although it is tangentially related on the opposition side).

With environment, we are once again at a false dichotomy. The economy and environmental protection are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

If I were you, I would save my effort and point my friend at any number of voting guides put out by a mainstream, objective newspaper. They will go into detail and take care not to editorialize (unless you are on the editorial page).

[kutulu]

Not only are the points oversimplified but they are also presented in a way that suggests the republican viewpoint it the correct way.

Which is more important to you, allowing taxpayers to keep more of their money or funding government projects in areas such as defense, education and welfare?

Well gee whiz I don't want to fund those pork programs like education...

Should the US take an active stance in defending itself against terrorism, or should we refrain from invading other nations?

Well I don't want to praise Allah and the dems just want to sit around with their thumbs up their asses...

Would you rather protect the environment or allow companies to grow and prosper?

Well the economy is important and if multibillion dollar companies tell me they can't spend a couple million on pollution controls they must be right...

That's it, I'm going to re-register as a Republican!

[seretogis]

Economy
Which is more important to you, allowing taxpayers to keep more of their money or funding government projects in areas such as defense, education and welfare?

I would suggest stabilizing and auditing current defense spending, and moving to reduce / privatize / eliminate unnecessary federal spending.

War
Should the US take an active stance in defending itself against terrorism, or should we refrain from invading other nations?

We should actively defend ourself against terrorism, but refrain from wholey invading other nations unless it is necessary. Iraq was a 12 year old mess of ours that needed to be cleaned up, and I wouldn't advocate a similar scenario for anywhere else.

Abortion
(This is an easy one) Are you more pro-life or pro-choice? DO you think stem cell research should be pursued?

Anti-abortion after 12 weeks after conception, fine with it prior to 12 weeks as long as parents are notified if the mother is under-age. Aborted fetuses are not the only source of stem cells.

Environment
Would you rather protect the environment or allow companies to grow and prosper?

Protect the environment to a reasonable degree, but not drive businesses away like California.

[Gay] Marriage
Get marriage OUT of our legislation. Replace "marriage" with a gender-neutral "civil union" and allow people to acquire civil union licenses after they are married.

[wonderwench]

Originally posted by seretogis
I would suggest stabilizing and auditing current defense spending, and moving to reduce / privatize / eliminate unnecessary federal spending.

We should actively defend ourself against terrorism, but refrain from wholey invading other nations unless it is necessary. Iraq was a 12 year old mess of ours that needed to be cleaned up, and I wouldn't advocate a similar scenario for anywhere else.

Anti-abortion after 12 weeks after conception, fine with it prior to 12 weeks as long as parents are notified if the mother is under-age. Aborted fetuses are not the only source of stem cells.

Protect the environment to a reasonable degree, but not drive businesses away like California.

[Gay] Marriage
Get marriage OUT of our legislation. Replace "marriage" with a gender-neutral "civil union" and allow people to acquire civil union licenses after they are married.

I concur on all points.

[cthulu23]

I think that we're supposed to help him flesh out the position list, not answer the questions.

[wonderwench]

Another way to look at this situation is to develop a hierarchy of issues. No candidate is going to meet all of the criteria - nor should each issue be given equal weight.

[cthulu23]

The problem with that is that every voter has a unique hierarchy of concerns. To attempt to "balance" it would only introduce the biases of the writer.

[wonderwench]

Of course such a hierarchy is personal to each voter. I am not suggesting we provide such a ranked and weighted list for everyone - just that one use such a method to make a personal evaluation of its relevancy.

[Kadath]

Okay. The two forms of the Elder God Cthulhu:
Thanks for bashing my questions as oversimplifications. They were intended to inspire people to think about the issues, rather than point out which candidate they should vote for. Some people never think about any of these issues. This man is not my friend. He is my gf's friend, and I'm a little touchy about that, thanks. And finally, it makes me happy that I accidentally presented a Republican view, which probably had to do with overcompensating for my tremendously Democratic bias.


seretogis: you know I love you sweetie, but to make the SAME MISTAKE made by ART, after I had pointed it out...I feel like we don't communicate any more. Thanks for the gay marriage position.

Thanks for everyone who's helping so far

[wonderwench]

I would add:

- Protection of the Bill of Rights, especially the 2nd Amendment which is under frequent assault.

- Judicial philosophy: what is the candidate's views on judical activism / legislating from the bench?

[hannukah harry]

Originally posted by Kadath
Thanks ART...

harry, how would you phrase a question about foreign policy? Something like:
To what degree should the US be involved in the affairs of other nations? Should we be the world's police or pursue a more isolationist policy?

i think that's a pretty good way to phrase that question.

[cthulu23]

Originally posted by Kadath
Okay. The two forms of the Elder God Cthulhu:
Thanks for bashing my questions as oversimplifications. They were intended to inspire people to think about the issues, rather than point out which candidate they should vote for.
Thanks for everyone who's helping so far

I'm sorry if I insulted you, but I was legitimately trying to be helpful. There wasn't a lick of sarcasm or anger in any of my response. IMO, some of your points are a bit too condensed. You asked for advice so I offered some. BTW, I didn't accuse you of having any party bias...that was the elder god that starts with a "K."

[wonderwench]

I have another issue for the list:

Immigration Reform: where does the candidate stand on guest worker programs, amnesty for illegals, driver's licenses and voting rights for illegals and securing the borders?

[Kadath]

cthulu23 -- sorry. I just lumped the two of you together because neither of you spelled the name right and your posts were right after each other and I should not have done that. Your help is appreciated, and I will check out a voter guide for more questions. I agree that the questions (not points) are condensed(that's out of necessity) and I want specific help with my question.
As to the help you offered:
I disagree that both sides basically feel the same way about economic policy.
Defense was decent advice, but I don't want to get into the war specifically. I want a more general questions.
Environment: how would you ask the question then? How about the changes I made to question as above?

[cthulu23]

There's more than one way to spell cthulu, and this happens to be one of them.

Anyhoo...yes, both sides do differentiate between their economic platforms, but they (IMHO) are pushing variations on the same theme. As I said, you will here about Bush's tax cuts and trade issues, and perhaps some social security talk, but they might have burned out the public with that in the last election.

The war will be mentioned incessantly by both sides until the election. There is just no way to get around mentioning it. If you are looking for more traditional defense issues, they both probably want to increase defense spending, but Bush will push missle defense.

It's hard to write true/false, yes/no questions like this without sounding biased in some way. This kind of questionare almost demands a scantron. For example,

"Do you think that protecting the environment is:

1. always more important than protecting business
2. sometimes more important than protecting business
3. sometimes less important than protecting business
4. always less important than protecting business"

etc, etc. That kind of sucks the fun right out of it, though, and it requires some skill to actually make your results meaningful. You can always try one of those online ideology surveys to tell the doofus what he believes in.

[assilem]

www.presidentmatch.com/

You should give this link a try Kadath or your gf's friend at least. Hell, everyone here should give it a shot. I think it is pretty accurate if you are a Republican or Democrat that is on the fence. It's fun anyway.

[Kadath]

Fair enough(not about the spelling of cthulhu: I refuse to yield on that issue! ). I'm not trying to start up a polling institute, just get people to think about their core philosophies. I do support calling that clown a doofus though! Trying to move in on my gf...grr!

[ForgottenKnight]

The only issue I really care about isn't even on your list. I care about one issue and one issue only: What are your plans for America's Space Program? Do you want to go back to the moon and on to Mars? Or do you want to focus NASA on something else? Do you want to give more money to NASA or cut it dispite it being less than 1% of the federal budget?
My entire life I have been wanting to become an anstronaut and go to the moon, Mars, and beyond. Thus I vote for whoever will increase NASA's funding, focus them on going to Mars, and overall improve my chances of achieving my lifelong dream.

[ubertuber]

Kadath - I just wanted to tell you that I think this is an excellent post. Your summary sentences are wonderful for encouraging someone to think about both sides of the issues. I am particularly impressed by the fact that you have managed to serve up views that you don't agree with in positive terms. I may print this out...

[Supple Cow]

This is a good list and I certainly appreciate that you took the time to type it out.

Originally posted by Kadath
Abortion
(This is an easy one) Are you more pro-life or pro-choice? DO you think stem cell research should be pursued?

Besides the fact that stem cell research is only tangentially related on the opposition side of the issue, I would point out that stem cell research itself is not what's controversial. The controversial part is the procedure used to obtain the stem cells [CNN LINK]. The most common way to do it involves "the embryo [being] destroyed when the cells are extracted" (CNN). However, scientists currently have the ability to do this kind of research on cord blood, which doesn't pose any apparent problem to pro-lifers [cord blood info LINK]. I only point this out because I think it's unproductive to forget details like these; when legislation gets passed, it's not uncommon for useful, non-harmful techniques like using cord blood to get swept into the wide reach of a ban.

[iccky]

I think your enviromental sentance is a bit narrow. Setting aside areas is just part of overall environmental regulation. And while I agree that growing the economy and helping the enivronment are not mutually exclusive, I think that the area where the parties differ the most is whether enviromental regulation should take a back seat to economic growth. For instance, no one is really against hydrogen cars, but Democrats are in favor of more emisions controls on factorys, cars, etc. despite the fact that these may harm economic development.

Perhaps "Do you favor protecting the environment even when it may harm economic development and cost jobs."

[Kadath]

I think oil companies are pretty much against hydrogen cars. I think the environmental question is one of the hardest to phrase because it's so much a one way or the other position -- either you think the environment is super important and must be protected or you think environmentalists are nutjobs. Your question is pointing in the right direction -- how about "To what degree do you favor..."

[mml]

Kadath, I think this is an excellent idea and obviously very difficult. If your goal is to stimulate thought in someone who has little background in politics, I enourage you to keep it simple. If the guy gets interested, he can then delve deeper into issues. Most people get turned off by politics if it gets too "deep" or "confusing". Just my opinion.

By the way, I plan to give the questions to my brothers-in-law who never vote outside their party, but when asked usually have no idea what their party stands for.

[wonderwench]

Originally posted by Kadath
I think oil companies are pretty much against hydrogen cars. I think the environmental question is one of the hardest to phrase because it's so much a one way or the other position -- either you think the environment is super important and must be protected or you think environmentalists are nutjobs. Your question is pointing in the right direction -- how about "To what degree do you favor..."

You're wrong about that. Many of the big oil companies have H2 research projects underway, often in collaboration with the major auto companies.

[iccky]

Originally posted by wonderwench
You're wrong about that. Many of the big oil companies have H2 research projects underway, often in collaboration with the major auto companies.

Mostly because, at least in the begining, hydrogen will be produced by energy by oil products (there is very little hydrogen in the natural world, it has to be "made" from water). Also oil companies want to have a business in a few decades when we run out of oil, so getting a leg up on the next energy market is a good strategic move.

But I digress...

It is, obviously, a matter of degrees, as are most issues, though that breaks from the binary yes or no nature of most of the other questions. But maybe "to what degree do you favor protecting the enviroment from human damage, even if it means the loss of jobs and economic growth." I think that's fairly balanced.

[Sparhawk]

Originally posted by wonderwench
You're wrong about that. Many of the big oil companies have H2 research projects underway, often in collaboration with the major auto companies.

This is true (has ANYONE missed those bloody BP commercials they've been running lately?) - How about:

Environment: Would you rather the federal government heavily subsidize your purchase of an SUV, and slightly subsidize your purchase of a hybrid vehicle, or vice versa (because they'll subsidize both one way or the other)?