Friday, April 27, 2007

2008 Presidential Candidate Stack Ranking Version 2.4 - Post Democratic Debate

I missed the debate (but was not the only one), choosing instead to play an afternoon round of golf at Presidio. I intended to watch the late rerun on MSNBC but fell asleep on the couch during the first question, possibly due to the beer consumed during and after the round, possibly due to the candidates replies. However, I will not let this unimportant detail inhibit me from expressing strongly held opinions on the debate that I did not see. After all, this was a "Yossarian" event. [Paraphrasing the Yossarian Principle from Joseph Heller's Catch 22 - "What if everyone was blogging about the First Debate of the 2008 presidential election?" I can only respond as did Yossarian: "Then I'd be a damn fool not to."].

Net net: Clinton was presidential. Obama and Edwards were not. Biden was funny and sharp. Gravel was entertaining. Kucinich was articulate and insane, but he has a hot wife. Richardson hurt himself, but it was just a flesh wound. I forgot the other guy's name.

Armed with these new insights, it is time to update the DWSUWF 2008 Presidential Stack Ranking. As a reminder, the DWSUWF stack ranking is a preference not a prediction. This list represents the top ten candidates DWSUWF would like to see as President, stack ranked in order of preference. Imposed on this list are two constraints: alternating political party affiliation, and a divided government outcome in 2008.

This week we only made changes to the Democrats on the list, next week (post GOP debate), we will review and update the Republicans.

Since I missed the debate, I had to find a different criteria for re-ranking the top tier Democratic hopefuls. Unity08 to the rescue. The Unity08 Dream Ticket "Would you wear this button?" test fits the bill. Now, I have expressed my skepticism about Unity08 before (here, here and here). I also thoroughly enjoy reading Ahab Jim at the Irregular Times regular harpooning of this endangered white whale. Still I signed up as a delegate on the off chance that Unity08 actually becomes something politically meaningful. I am on their list and received an e-mail invitation to create a "Dream Ticket" on their site. I must admit to having some fun with this, it is an inspired promotion.

There is a significant philosophical difference between Unity08 and DWSUWF. Unity08 believes the political cure to what ails us, is a "unity" administration, with a President and Vice President representing different parties. DWSUWF believes that our Federal government is more fiscally responsible, creates sounder legislation, governs better, and is more effective as a corruption watchdog if the Executive office and Legislative majorities are held by different parties and are at each others throats.

That said, I used the Unity08 dream ticket tool to take my favorite candidate (Chuck Hagel - R) and pair him up with all of the top Democrats as VP. Then I stared at the buttons and selected the one I would actually wear. The winner is:
Which is now reflected in the new and improved, updated and revised ...

=====
DWSUWF 2008 Presidential Candidate
Stack Ranking v. 2.4

1) Chuck Hagel (R)
2 ) Bill Richardson (D)
3) Ron Paul (R)
4) Joe Biden (D)
5) Rudolf Giuliani (R)
6) Hillary Clinton (D)
7) John McCain (R)
8) Barack Obama (D)
9) Mitt Romney (R)
10) Al Gore (D)
=====

Changes since the last update: Based on the Unity08 button test, Richardson is now my top Democratic contender, which drops Joe Biden one notch, although I still like Joe. I just cannot have both of my top two candidates reviled and disparaged by the rank and file of their own party. Since Hagel is my favorite, Biden has to drop down. Barack drops behind Hillary having failed the "Looks and sounds like a President" test in the debate. In the last Democratic party slot, Al Gore replaces Wes Clark. I don't think either is running, but Al is getting more publicity. And he won an oscar.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

4 comments:

gary said...

Sleeping through the debates wasn't so bad...I'm sure there will be more to come.

Here's another resource you might find of use...
www.ExpertVoter.org

It takes the candidate YouTube videos and organizes them by issue.

gary

James Cook said...

Oh, Gravel was mighty entertaining. Thanks for the note on my Melvillian enterprises regarding Unity08. Here's the latest silly tidbit on the tacky enterprise:

http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2007/04/27/unity08-were-83-dirty-not-86-dirty/

Unity08 says on its front page that it is fighting the good fight because 86% of the campaign contributions of [some unnamed set of presidential candidates from the two parties] come from contributors of more than $200.

Unity08's own performance in 2006? 83% of its campaign contributions came from contributors of more than $200.

Yep, that's Unity08's raison d'etre: Support Unity08, because 83% is less than 86%!

The sillies. I think more and more that this is some kind of post-modern dare in which the organizers of Unity08 try weirder and weirder crap, to see just how far they can push it and still get David Broder to lick their backsides.

mw said...

"Yep, that's Unity08's raison d'etre: Support Unity08, because 83% is less than 86%!" - Ahab

Indeed. The 3% solution.

Thanks for stopping by, thanks for the comment, and mostly - thanks for all the great work on Unity08.

Unknown said...

You mean the chick that's always behind Kucinich is his wife? I always thought that she was his daughter. Maybe becoming a politician is not such a bad idea. Anyway, I think it will be interesting to see if this debate has any impact on the recent election 2008 polls. After all, this debate was supposed to help the voters decide on who to vote for at the election.