Vanessa Van Petten speaks from experience when she says "many teens today, as well as adults are extremely unprepared and uninterested in the upcoming primaries and elections." In a recent post, she shares Connect2Elect with her community of teens and parents as a great tool to not only sort through the election process, but also to begin evaluating personal values.
Check out her post '5 Ways to get Teens Interested in Politics.'
Take away the press...take away the polished speeches...take away the fundraising, the endorsements and the rest of the campaign hoopla. And what are you left with?
With Neighborhood America's Connect2Elect, you're left with the issues - and more than 16,000 potential voters who have relied on our site to help sort through them. This week we'd like to reveal the candidate who is most closely aligned with the collective views of those 16,000 citizens. Here's how it works:
We compiled the collective results from all of our members and took the top ten priorities from each of the four categories: political issues, social issues, core beliefs and candidate attributes (by the way, if you want to see these priorities you can view the tag cloud here). We completed a profile for this would-be 'ideal candidate' - just like you did when you created your own profile and selected your top ten priorities. And then presto! Our pin view shows:
Barack Obama is most closely aligned with the priorities of our 16,000 members, followed (not-so-closely) by Hillary Clinton. Interestingly though, as you'll see from the list view image, John McCain is not the front-runner on the republican front. Rather, Mike Huckabee is the highest ranking republican candidate in the #3 spot, followed closely by McCain and a trailing Ron Paul.
As the pool of contenders narrows, your Connect2Elect results just might
have a few more surprises in store. And if a formidable independent candidate enters the race, could he/she shake things up even more? Stay tuned!
Super Tuesday. While it will reduce the number of candidates, will it increase our clarity around their positions? February 5th brings voting to two dozen state primaries or caucuses across the country. It will elect 52 percent of all pledged Democratic Party delegates and 41 percent of the total Republican Party delegates going to their respective 2008 conventions.
It will be diverse. Each region of the country will be represented. It will be large. Eighty million registered voters are affected. And if the record turnout in Florida was any indication, a majority of those voters will participate.
Primaries and caucuses to date have resulted in a two-person race per party: Democrat front-runners Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, and Republican front runners Senator John McCain and Governor Mitt Romney. Trailing Republican candidates are Governor Mike Huckabee and Congressman Ron Paul. Congressman Mike Gravel (D) is non-accountable for all intents and purposes. After Tuesday, it may be clear who the two November candidates will be.
While we may not have complete clarity on these candidates’ positions, one thing is clear (or clearing up). That is, the positioning of the remaining candidates to users of Connect2Elect. If you have not created a profile, or have not revisited C2E in a while to check your status, I encourage you to do so. The once crowded field that yielded the early pin cushion view is providing more precision on where you stand with the candidates, or where the candidates stand with you on your views, values and attributes.
Deciding on a candidate needn’t wait until you only have two choices. You can participate in Connect2Elect today and find out which one connects best with you.
Red or blue. How will you decide? Connect2Elect provides you with an updated look at the changing political landscape. We began with 18 candidates. Now we’re down to 9.
We’ve said goodbye to Brownback, Dodd, Biden, Tancredo, Hunter, Richardson, Cox, Thompson and most recently Kucinich. If you haven’t already participated in your local primary, it’s time to re-decide. Log back into your profile and see how the remaining nine candidates stack up against your priorities.
Katy Bishop of the Naples Daily News recently authored Red or Blue? The article gives a good recap of our activity to date, including the highest priorities selected from over 11,500 citizens.
So….red or blue? Have you decided yet?
The next stop on Rudy Giuliani's campaign trail is right in our back yard: Naples, Florida - today, actually. As widely reported, Giuliani has targeted Florida voters as 'critical.' Timothy Burger (Bloomberg.com) reported this morning that Giuliani continues to 'stake his claim for the Republican presidential nomination in large part on the Florida primary.'
The Naples Daily News echoed that sentiment, stating that the GOP candidate is 'hoping Florida will save his campaign.' Amid the buzz and speculation is another great reminder that Connect2Elect is a valuable tool that can help send educated voters to the polls:
'Connect2elect asks which issues and stands are most important to you as a voter and then, with the click of a mouse, shows you which presidential candidates are closest to seeing things your way. It cuts through the blah-blah, woof-woof — the “political party lines and media buzz” as Neighborhood America calls it — and deals with facts.'
We couldn't have said it better ourselves.
While John McCain has been dubbed the ‘comeback kid’ since his win in New Hampshire, over 10,000 Connect2Elect users have also pushed him out in front – ahead of Rudy Giuliani, the candidate perceived as being ‘most capable of keeping the US safe’ on Connect2Elect just two weeks ago.
These polls are based solely on perceptions, and what Neighborhood America's Connect2Elect results offer exclusively is the ability to move beyond perceptions and instead quantify the issues that are most important to the American public.
So when you ask a typical voter what's important to them, what do they say? And is anyone really listening?
We are. And we've been astounded by the results. While headlines proclaim Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney as the front-runners, not a single candidate aligns with all of the issues, values and beliefs that collectively comprise the ‘top ten’ responses for the 10,000 Connect2Elect community members.
From a cumulative list of 120 choices, the top five results from each category, presented in order of importance to voters, are listed below. While energy concerns and the need to become less dependent upon foreign oil takes the number one spot in each category, the remaining results are a mix of what are typically considered to be traditional democratic and republican viewpoints. If you find these results enlightening (click on the image to view full results), be sure to keep checking back...we'll be publishing more data as the race goes on!
With the beginning of the New Year, the primary season has officially arrived. The Iowa caucuses will be underway on January 3rd, followed by the New Hampshire Primary on the 8th. As the candidates refine their messages, are the voters refining their decisions?
On Sunday, December 30, the Sacramento Bee ran the article Race for '08: Is that your final answer? After providing a great recap of what the leading candidates are doing as they approach the homestretch, the reporter reminds readers that "If you're still looking for the perfect candidate, you might be looking forever. But Connect2Elect (connect2elect.com) will help you find a match in the field of 2008 candidates."
We appreciate the plug and look forward to continuing to provide this valuable service to help voters decide. And now...off to the races we go!
In this podcast, Brian Dvorak of EdTech101 describes Connect2Elect as a 'tremendous service for anyone out there looking for guidance in choosing a leader in politics.' Brian does a great job of walking users through the site, but he also highlights something that has never before been discussed in this blog - and that is, the opportunity to begin engaging up-and-coming voters in the political conversation.
Brian's podcast took me back to a time when I remember coming of age, and thinking...party affiliation? I guess I'm whatever mom is.... I recently watched a television interview with Chuck Norris who shared a very similar story. In discussing his partnership in campaigning with Mike Huckabee, Mr. Norris recalled his upbringing in a 'democrat' household. As he reached adulthood, Norris naturally assumed that he, too, was a democrat. But now a strong supporter of Huckabee, you have probably already surmised that once Norris began really diving into the issues, and considering how he personally felt about them, that he found himself sitting on the other side of the fence as an active republican.
The value in Connect2Elect really lies in its ability to wipe the slate clean of any preconceived notions or media buzz, and focus on your beliefs, your stance on the issues, and what you - not your mom - think about the issues at hand.
It's a good point that Dvorak raises. And it's also a great reminder that the rising generation of tech savvy teens is destined to become not only tomorrow's voters, but also tomorrow's consumers. While we host Connect2Elect, our core business, Neighborhood America, is all about enabling businesses and governments to engage consumers in meaningful, constructive dialogue. In a globally competitive environment, we believe that this is no longer a luxury - it's a necessity.
By user petition we have made a slight change to Ron Paul’s profile, adding the congressman's position regarding marihuana legalization to its “social issues” section. We were pointed to a variety of articles and videos of Rep. Paul supporting this view and since we’re here to ensure your matches are as accurate as possible, we decided to make the inclusion.
Don’t agree? Let us know. Also, make sure to check your profile again, as this change on Ron Paul’s profile (as minor as it is) might have changed your matches.
Get your mp3 players ready. Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte interview Jason Breed (who you might remember from our last post) for their show net@nite. In the episode “The Llama’s Giggle” you will hear an in depth conversation about the influence of Internet technologies such as Connect2Elect in 08 politics.
Do tools like these really have the ability of creating the most informed electorate in the history of America? Are users of these tools diverse enough already to be considered representative of the American public? What do our results say about the “branding” of candidates? All very interesting questions addressed here…
**Note: The actual interview starts about half an hour into the show.
