And the presidential candidates I agree with most are...

Today I quickly tried out the Washington Post's new interactive candidate quiz to see who my views match up with most — apparantly.

For the Democratic version I got a score of 12 for Edwards, 15 for Clinton, 21 for Obama, 1 for Dodd, and, finally, 4 for Richardson, making my ideal candidate Obama. However many of the options are the same, only phrased with different rhetoric (Iraq was the worst). On some issues, such as affermative action and Iraq, none of the options suited my views. Overall, Democratic standpoints were populist, geared towards middle and working class as they warn of rich elite; there wasn't much moderation, or at least as much as I hoped for.

For the Republican (gasp!) version of the quiz, Giuliani (Mr. 9/11) was my candidate, if only because of social issues. On controversial social issues (e.g. abortion), Giuliani is often the only half-decent choice — but then even he takes much of the weight off his back by doing what many other candidates do: say 'leave it to the states'. My specific results were 6 points for McCain, 8 for Ron Paul, 9 for Huckabee, 5 for Romney, 7 for Thompson, and 20 for Giuliani. There were no options I felt comfortable choosing on such issues as overall priorities, immigration, or wealth/taxes. Like the reality of the GOP presidential front, my results were more evenly spread (almost neck-and-neck) than for the Dems. Some candidates have OK views on climate change, but all focus too much on national security and on cutting 'big government' without recognizing any consequences of such cuts.