Diamond Political Grid: Analysis of Each Candidate (not bashing) and You

[RandomUser]

Saying someone is left or right, or liberal or conservative isn't very accurate or informative because that's a single axis scale.

Here's an interesting 2-D grid graph with two axes. Economic and Social policy.


(Less gov't)0<------PERSONAL FREEDOMS------>100(more gov't)
Libertarians/Liberals........vs..........Conservatives/Populists


(less gov't)0<------ECONOMIC FREEDOMS------>100(more gov't)
Libertarians/Conservatives......vs......Liberals/Populists

Diagongal X-shaped axes creates a Diamond-shaped grid, with Left Liberal on the left vertex, Right Conservative on the right vertex, Libertarian on the top vertex, Authoritarian on the bottom vertex, and a moderate square shaped box in the middle rotated 90 degrees.


Description of terms (lifted from theadvocates.org website)
----
Libertarians are self-governors in both personal and economic matters. They believe government's only purpose is to protect people from coercion and violence. They value individual responsibility, and tolerate economic and social diversity.

Left-Liberals prefer self-government in personal matters and central decision-making on economics. They want government to serve the disadvantaged in the name of fairness. Leftists tolerate social diversity, but work for economic equality.
Conservative

Centrists(Moderates) favor selective government intervention and emphasize practical solutions to current problems. They tend to keep an open mind on new issues. Many centrists feel that government serves as a check on excessive liberty.

Right-conservatives prefer self-government on economic issues, but want official standards in personal matters. They want the government to defend the community from threats to its moral fiber.

Authoritarians want government to advance society and individuals through expert central planning. They often doubt whether self-government is practical. Left-authoritarians(Populists) are also called socialists, while fascists are right-authoritarians.
-----


Here's how each Candidate fared, based on the issues. Click on your candidate and scroll to the bottom to see the diamond graph. Click on the other explanation link to see what issues were used and how your candidate stands on those issues, and an explanation of the scoring.


Clark: Populist-leaning Liberal, 65% Personal, 28% Economic
link
Explanation

Dean: Moderate Liberal, 68% Personal, 30% Economic
Link
Explanation

Edwards: Populist-leaning Liberal, 63% Personal, 25% Economic
Link
Explanation

Kerry: Libertarian-leaning Liberal, 70% Personal, 33% Economic
Link
Explanation

Gephardt: Liberal Populist, 48% Personal, 15% Economic
Link
Explanation

Graham: Moderate Liberal, 58% Personal, 35% Economic
Link
Explanation

Kucinich: Liberal Populist, 53% Personal, 23% Economic
Link
Explanation

Sharpton: Moderate Liberal, 65% Personal , 30% Economic
Link
Explanation

Lieberman: Moderate Liberal Populist, 45% Personal, 35% Economic
Link
Explanation

CMB: Moderate Liberal, 68% Personal, 30% Economic
Link
Explanation

And if you want to take an abbreviated scaled-down version of the quiz to find where you are on the diamond, click here. I hope you guys appreciate how much time it took to put this post together...the links were a pain, hope they work.

But at least now you can see how each candidate fairs on a grid with two axis instead of the vague left vs. vague right. Those labels obscure more that they tell, a two-axes grid is a better indicator of where a candidate stands. When you take the scaled down quiz, make sure you think about your answers, because a tiny change can have a major effect considering the online quiz is a drastically downscaled version of the in-depth analysis used on the candidate profiles to arrive at their rankings. Enjoy!

edited to add: "no candidate bashing" to title. I don't want to see this degrade into a flamefest. Give it a kick if you like the Grid idea.

[JohnKleeb]

1. This is interesting

Well liberal populist what a concidence thats what I am. Wait a second Gephardt opposes the death penalty too, I swear I had no idea. He gets a :thumbsup: for that.

[RandomUser]

2. It would be interesting

to see where all the DU'ers fall on this grid. If you guys like it, give it a kick :) Certainly a change of pace for the negativity on the bashing threads. I think all politicians should be forced to place themselves on this grid instead of claiming to be conservative/liberal/left/right/etc...vague terms that obscure more that illuminates.

[JohnKleeb]

3. I dunno

I am still proud of Gephardt for opposing the death penalty. , I dont agree with Gephardt on IWR or some other stuff but I see why my granddaddy likes Gephardt although Dennis Kucinich would be better,

[RandomUser]

4. Yeah

I think there are more issues to consider, but the grid would be a first step, since it indicates general tendencies of a person with respect to their spectrum on social and economic policy. Knowing their outlook, especially the percentage degree on the axis, is a good indication of what type of policy they would set or favor. War isn't on either of those two axis, though. Perhaps we need a third axis (unilateral vs. multilateral) to create a 3-D graph, but that becomes harder to visually present.

[JohnKleeb]

5. I dunno

I think all of em wanted the invasion if they support an invasion to be multilateral. Gephardt and Kucinich are my types on economics, Kerry, Dean, and Kucinich on the social issues, and Kucinich and Dean on the war. Hence KUCINICH! also I hardly doubt Al Sharpton is a moderate liberal.

[RandomUser]

6. The terms

are not as commonly understood on by pundits when they start flinging labels around, but rather particular to the scoring on the chart. His dot looks to be on the left-liberal side, but half-way between populist and libertarian and close to moderate box in the center. The fact that he's between the libertarians and populists drags him closer to the moderate box.

[JohnKleeb]

7. shrug

Hes like DK on the issues. I really like him, it was good seeing him speak, he is a funny man too. Kucinich can be too but lol I prefer Sharpton.

[RandomUser]

8. Also a matter of degree

on the analysis used by the profiling, on any given issue examined for the axes, they used a five increment scale, which offers more detailed differentiation than the three increment scale used in the online-quiz.

[RandomUser]

9. I doubt anyone

is a pure extreme in any one of the categorizations. We're all probably a mix of Left-Liberal, Populist, Libertarian, Conservative, Moderate. On some issues, we'll be lower on the scale, closer to zero government intervention, on others issues higher. But the amalgam of issues and the degrees that we lean for less or more government on any issue on the two axes creates the profile.

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. Well, Sharpton is/was a preacher.

And, if you want my opinon, black preachers seem to be among the most talented and moving orators...look at MLK, for instance. Years spent honing one's speaking style to get a congregation physically and emotionally reacting, the use of rhythm and inflection, etc...

[RandomUser]

29. I don't know that it's a trait specific to black preachers

sounds a bit racist. But I will agree that anyone who regularly gives persuasive speeches to a large audience would have time to hone those skills, whether they're a black preacher or a white corporate motivational speaker.

[noiretextatique]

11. very impressive...i certainly appreciate all your efforts

to put this together. it is very informative and useful. i have bookmarked this and plan to revisit it later.
thank you so much for all your hard work, RandomUser.

[RandomUser]

19. Thx

Took an hour to compose. Some of those links were long! I was afraid I'd mess something up.

[fabius]

12. Left-liberal here

I'm 80% for personal freedom, 30% economic.

Wonder why our candidates aren't higher on the personal scale? Probably they like the drug laws or something.

Anyway I'm a good match to support almost everybody but Gephardt and Lieberman, but right in tune with Dean, Braun and Sharpton, coincidently my favorite candidates. Also pretty close to Kerry,Clark.

[fabius]

13. Total poll results interesting also

Of about 2 million who have taken it, the libertarians and centrists are the majority with left-liberals following, and authoritarians, conservatives in small minorities.

Of course the authoritarian minority controls our government right now.

[RandomUser]

15. Actually

the Authoritarian group divides in two. The left leaning authoritarians are Populists(socialists). While the right leaning authoritarians are Fascists. All Authoritarian means is that you want more gov't intervention rather than less on social and economic issues. For example, trusting to gov't regulated industries and protectionist tarriffs instead of laisez-faire capitalism and free trade. Trusting to gov't imposed moral standards instead of personal freedom (such as the decency and anti-profanity stuff stuff the religious right is demanding, or the hate-speech censorship the left is demanding).

The Authoritarian group(both left and right factions of it -- socialists/populists and fascists) sides with the Right Conservatives on the personal freedom scale in wanting government regulation of personal freedoms, although they want the gov't to regulate in opposite ways. And the Authoritarians (both groups -- socialists/populists and fascists) side with the Left Liberals in wanting more gov't intervention and control in economic with respect to regulation business and trade laws.

[RandomUser]

17. With respect to the high/low personal freedoms score

Higher scores meaning more gov't intervention and control. And lower Personal scores meaning you favor less gov't intervention in personal freedoms. So favoring repealing drug laws would mean less gov't control, and a lower score. But wanting gov't censorship (the left liberals wanting to ban racist hate-speech, or the right conservatives wanting to ban hollywood sexual promiscouity) would be wanting more gov't control and less personal freedom and higher score. Chances are on some issues, we'll score higher, and lower on some others, the amalgam shows our general inclinations with regard to government influence on Social and Economic freedoms.

A guy favoring gun control would score high.
A guy favoring censorship of hollywood would score high.
(both are favoring increase gov't instead of leaving it to the individual)

A guy favoring allowing women to have the choice of abortion would score low.
A guy favoring banning affirmative action would score low.
(both are favoring less gov't intervention and leaving it to the individual)

Thus you see, we're an amalgam of different choices. The final score is an average indicating your general stance on government intervention/control or not. A high Personal score means you favor more gov't control of personal freedoms, but it doesn't indicate what direction you want the gov't control to steer things in (ban guns or ban abortion), just that you favor heavy gov't limits on personal freedoms generally (not all issues, since it's an averaging of your positions). Remember it's only one of the two axes, to see the full political picture, you need to take both axes into account to map yourself.

[diamondsoul]

14. Funny, I took a similar test to this-

several months ago, and wound up very close to the Dalai Lama on the scale of results. I'll try to scrounge up that link over morning coffee. I'm curious to try to overlap these two and see if Kucinich is in the same neighborhood as me and the Dalai Lama!

[pop goes the weasel]

16. Political Compass

Sounds like you probably took the test at Political Compass. I'm proud to have nearly fallen off the map on the left-libertarian side.

[RandomUser]

18. Good link

That's a more detailed online quiz then the one I found.

[Lexingtonian]

20. it resembles the Libertarian propaganda 'test'

The World's Shortest Political Quiz, etc. It went around for a while. Basically, all questions were phrased in a loaded way so you'd prefer answers of pride to answers of reason, and then they give you a score which goads you with how much of a 'self-governor' or somesuch you really are. You basically get to choose between being a Libertarian (oooh, good!) and an America-hating Stalinist pinko commie stooge, and then they tell you that you were a Libertarian but hadn't realized it yet.

[RandomUser]

21. Actually, the short quiz in the initial post isn't slanted

I glanced over the compass one but didn't finish it, so can't tell. But the short quiz in my initial post allows for a range of values. For instance, don't put anything in, and keep it all on "maybe", you'll find it says you're a centrist. Also, if you examine the website where the candidates are examined, they also profile republicans and politicians of all stripes.

This diamond grid system seems sound, and quite informative as to the stance of any single person.

[REP]

23. How Odd!

I took the quiz, and I scored in Mandela, Ghandi and Dali Lama terroritory. Actually, I was square in the middle of Libertarian Left. Who would have thought it?! Not me, that's for sure.

[Sephirstein]

22. Jack Layton...

100% Personal
30% Economic (Approximate...Kucinich would be a redneck in the NDP.)

[RandomUser]

24. Kick

[KittyWampus]

25. Liberterian Left

That is where I end up on the Political Compass... as do MANY here on DU. Perhaps that is a phrase we should use more often...
LIBERTARIAN LEFT>

TRUE Libertarians don't like Junior and Ashcroft much.

[RandomUser]

26. Many but not all

If you'll look up thread, there are posters that aren't Libertarian Left. There's a liberal populist or two, also Left-Liberals, and probably lots of other types on DU.

[RandomUser]

27. Kick

[Renew Deal]

28. Centrist-Left Liberal n/t