Bernie Sanders 637 (46%)The Republican candidates ranked as follows:
Hillary Clinton 276 (20%)
Republican candidates 255 (19%)
"None of the above" 164 (12%)
Other Democrats 33 ( 2%)
Rand Paul 52I'll preface my comments with the disclaimer that this poll was in no way scientific or predictive. I did this as a way to get a broad view of the readership of this blog, and in part to help guide me in my blogging for the next 16 months.
Scott Walker 37
Donald Trump 30
Jeb Bush 24
Ben Carson 21
Ted Cruz 19
Marco Rubio 13
Carly Fiorina 12
Chris Christie 11
John Kasich 10
Bobby Jindal 9
Mike Huckabee 8
Rick Perry 5
George Pataki 2
Lindsey Graham 2
Rick Santorum 2
The ranking of the Republican candidates seems to be reflective of their favorability and popularity in the country as a whole. The group at the top and the group at the bottom match up pretty well with what I see in national media and hear from my Republican friends. Donald Trump's position at #3 might be real, but I suspect there may have been some trolling by readers who otherwise would have selected "none of the above."
The biggest surprise of the entire venture was of course the extremely strong showing by Bernie Sanders. His strength was evident even within a few hours of the start of the poll, and remained unchanged for the following two weeks. That might mean that there are a lot of liberal/progressive readers of this blog - or that liberal/progressive readers tend to participate more actively in online polls. My own view is that the voting reflects the international distribution of TYWKIWDBI visitors, with Canadian, U.K., and European readers taking advantage of an opportunity to chime in on the topic of U.S. politics.
So how does this inform future posts on this blog? I obviously don't write to please an audience; this is a noncommercial blog written for my own enjoyment, and I view readers as welcome visitors peeking over my shoulder. Numerous comments appended to the poll reinforce my own view that I want to keep politics to a minimum here for the coming year. I will take advantage of opportunities to post humorous or frankly WTF events from the campaigns, but for the most part there's no advantage in spending time writing up events until at least after the initial primaries winnow down the field and highlight the platforms of the parties.
The exception to this plan is that I obviously need to pay some attention to Bernie Sanders and this "revolution," which reminds me of the populist appeal Ron Paul exerted some years ago and which I featured at that time. I need to read and post about socialism, social democracies, and populist movements. But I'll try to keep all this to a minimum that can be zoomed past with a flick of the mouse.
Thank you for hosting this poll. As a resident in a rural area outside a small town in Tennessee, surrounded by dyed-in-the-wool Republican Southerners I wasn't sure that there were very many Bernie Sanders supporters in the country besides me and the comparatively few of my liberal friends and relatives. Your poll, while admittedly restricted to those who are attracted to your blog for whatever reason, has shown me that I am not alone in finding that the views and actions of Senator Sanders appeal to many more voters than I had imagined.
ReplyDeleteWhile many liberals have been supporters of Hillary Clinton for many years, it seems that a lot of us are switching our support to Senator Sanders as a candidate who is more attuned to the issues that we are worried about, namely Citizens United, lack of good jobs with benefits, economic issues, and the threat of an oligarchy in this country.
While I am vitally interested in this political campaign, I applaud your decision to limit the political stuff on your site -- I know that my email and FB page are already inundated with political stuff and I enjoy getting a break from all of that by visiting sites like your own.
Again, thank you for holding the poll and thank you for deciding against offering more than a smattering of political humor now and then. And thank you very much for attending the rally for Senator Sanders!
We're all doomed...
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't think I'd characterize this distribution as "reflective of their favorability and popularity in the country as a whole" http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/pols-and-polls-say-the-same-thing-jeb-bush-is-a-weak-front-runner/
You can start right in WI by looking at the history here. I was floored when I learned of the amazing work done for the citizenry as a whole by Socialists in Milwaukee and how that history played out into modern political parties..
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewer_Socialism
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-043/?action=more_essay
Since I didn't grow up or go to school in Wisconsin, this was all new to me. Thanks for the links.
DeleteThe US needs a third political party that isn't owned, run and sponsored by the rich. The democrats while talking the talk obviosly can't do jack, but donate 500 Billion Bailout money to banks and abandon countries like Somalia and Irak to religious war and anarchy. Meanwhile the Republican freak show is progressively getting scarier.
ReplyDeleteHas the solution to the purposefully incurred crippling debt of seemingly "wealthy" countries and the resulting social injustice even been conceived?
First time I saw a Rand Paul political sign I thought it said Rue Paul. "Sometimes the best man for the job is a woman."
ReplyDeleteit is time to NOT vote for hillary or for jeb b. because... it is time to break the presidential succession through family that has been happening. in case you missed it, one reason the colonies became the usa was to get rid of the monarchy and all its trappings, including familial succession.
ReplyDeleteI-)
Cant beat Santa Claus .
ReplyDeleteNo one will EVER beat Santa Claus .
Socialism is not a weird unknown concept. The word just does not get used in American politics, even when plenty of socialist policies exist. Some of America's best friends are socialists. Tony Blair. Canada. Francois Hollande.
ReplyDelete