First I apologize for not indicating that this post concerned the
U.S. 2008 presidential election. This was not because I felt the whole world revolves around America, but because I figured most Europeans and non-Americans were well enough informed on world issues to make the connection. So, no insult intended, rather a compliment if anything.
Also, I'm glad to see that Europeans are also taking the survey, just so they perhaps can get a little exposure to who's who on what, and also so those in the U.S. can see their positions and hear their thoughts. Thanks for that, all who've contributed so far.
That said, I agree that some of these issues are astonishingly petty to be used as part of an election platform for the highest office in this or any land. A lot of them got a check in the "this is unimportant" box from me.
My end results showed that the people I thought I agreed with scored the lowest(Ron Paul got a 6 and McCain a 13) and I also ended up with Guiliani (the mayor of New York during the 9-11 attack) on the top--a man with whom I thought I shared absolutely nothing politically. And like some of the rest here, the Iraq positions were quite a surprise to me, with NONE of the candidates appearing to favor an instant withdrawal from Iraq--which may be a good thing, but having heard Hillary proclaiming this from the podium I was somewhat surprised to find it isn't her actual policy.
While this is obviously no substitute for real research, it's a quick and dirty way to get a very general feeling for who stands where. I took the thing about a dozen times with different slants out of curiosity, and each time Obama, Clinton and Edwards, the 3 top Democrats or as Jaz so eloquently phrased it, donkeys
--were identical in score and policies plus or minus one item they each had a slightly different take on. Whereas the Republicans(elephants) are split in a dozen different directions.
What this means is anybody's guess, but it's interesting to play around with.