Select An Image
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
For an application that, I think, is pretty long in the tooth, MPR's Select A Candidate has been getting a lot of attention from folks who've just discovered it for the first time. From what I understand, some TV station in Iowa lifted it off the site and plunked it on theirs, and the boss of the station is a friend of Howard Stern, who mentioned it on the air and the station's servers crashed thanks to his mentioning it. Howard Stern. Seriously.
Since most news stories are ripped off from other media and repackaged to be treated as "new news," the quiz's existence has now reached Los Angeles where L.A. Times columnist Robert Greene discovers that people vote for candidates on other things besides the issues. Yeah, no kidding.
Political consultants are way past questions about trust and respect. What they really want to know is: Whose story do you like the best? Do you respond better to a Joe Biden, who seems to know everything and has been around forever? Or do you prefer a guy like Fred Thompson because he has stature in another field but is a fresh face in politics? Maybe you like Hillary Clinton, not merely because you like her strength and where she is on the issues but also because you'd see in her election simultaneous vindication against the vast right-wing conspiracy and cheating husbands. Or perhaps you like that a Mormon Republican such as Romney could emerge from Massachusetts, homeland of the Catholic Kennedy clan.
Many people have sent me notes to tell me there's no education question on the quiz. I've been working on adding it for weeks now, researching candidate positions. Here's the problem: most of the candidates do not have well-formed positions on education. They have generalities and stump speeches. "We need to educate our kids," or "we need more accountability." Inspiring stuff, really. But the "how" of it all -- with a few exceptions -- is hard to find.
For a reason.
Turn Up Your Support
MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.
