Last night, as I was working on the next version of Stuffr, which will include support for Twitter, I saw this candidate matchmaker thing on someone’s site. I can’t remember whose site it was, but I know it was someone I follow on Twitter. ha! Anyway, here’s how the poll matched me up with the candidates.

So, how do you match up?

With the astounding revelation that Barack Obama has “always supported decriminalizing marijuana” even though he has said otherwise at various times, I have updated the 2008 Presidential Candidates spreadsheet.

I am no longer updating the original (which shows Giuliani and Edwards before they dropped out), but feel free to download this update, which shows 31 important positions of each of the remaining 6 candidates.

And then there were 6. In light of the fact that Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards are dropping out of the race, I thought I would eliminate them from the 2008 Presidential Candidate ‘At A Glance’ Chart.

You can still download the original, or you can download this update.

I added some fields for ‘civil liberties’ to the ‘2008 Presidential Candidates At A Glance‘ spreadsheet.

There are now 32 fields in the table, and you can see where your candidate stands and compare them to the other candidates on one simple page.

The fields in the table are:

Life: Abortion, Death Penalty,Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Immigration: Amnesty, Border Fence, Citizenship for those here
Jobs/Economy: Increase Jobs In America, Fair Tax, Free Trade, Increase In Minimum Wage
Iraq: Cut Funding, Troop Levels, War, Immediate Withdrawal
Civil Liberties: Closing Guantanamo, Original Patriot Act, Renewing Patriot Act, Renewing Wiretap Provision
Energy: Drilling In ANWR, Reduce foreign oil dependency, Renewable energy sources
Health Care: Universal Heath Care, Prescription Drugs
Social Security: Privatization
Global Warming: Cap or reduce emissions
Education: School Vouchers
Gun Control: Assault weapons ban, Background Checks At Gun Shows
Drugs: Legalized Marijuana, Medical Marijuana
Gay/Lesbian Issues: Civil Unions, Same-Sex Marriage

[Download the chart.]

I have also corrected a couple of entries based on information provided by readers.

Last week, when Fred Thompson dropped out of the race for the presidency, I was left with a very difficult decision.

You see, no matter how many times Fred’s team tried to disillusion me with their excessive amounts of email, I still had a real conservative to vote for in the upcoming primaries. Hundreds of emails later, it didn’t matter how I felt about his campaign team, their endless attempts to push the ‘grassroots’ effort down my throat, or their misaligned attempts to get a specific amount of money by a specific time of the day. I knew their efforts were all in the name of helping Fred get into that chair in the Oval Office and I knew I was going to walk into that voting booth on February 5th, regardless of their actions, and cast my vote for Fred because he was the last real conservative in the race.

Now, with just eleven days until ‘Super Tuesday’, I am facing a quandry I have never faced before in my life.

Who the hell do I vote for?

I have been voting in presidential elections since 1984, which means I have voted in six previous presidential elections. Each election cycle I would take a look at the candidates and choose the best one for the job. That’s the way it should be, isn’t it? Shouldn’t we always vote for the person who best represents our own views, and who we trust to lead our nation? This process has always worked well for me, and it worked again this time, right up until the time that Fred dropped out of the race.

So now what? While I can name several reasons why I would not vote for any of the remaining candidates, I found that I could not name one single reason to support any of them. Fred was my only choice. Off the top of my head I had no idea which candidate I would support because I had no idea which candidate best represented my views. I began searching each of their platforms and reading the hyperbole on their official campaign websites. What a headache that was. That idea just wasn’t going to work.

Then I decided to take some time out of my day and list a few of the issues that I thought might be important to most Americans, you know, like the war in Iraq, immigration, abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage, and a few others. I listed them all on a sheet of paper and started researching each candidates position on those topics. While researching their positions I stayed away from their official websites as I did not want their campaign rhetoric to get in the way of how they truly stand on an issue. I spent hours on Google, Yahoo, congressional record & political action sites, as well as blogs searching for quotes and voting records from each of the candidates to compile my list.

I sat at the computer for over 6 hours working on the list and what I came up with was a concise, easy to read, spreadsheet that told me at a glance how each candidate compared to the others. When I finished the spreadsheet I printed a copy for my wife, because she too is having difficulty deciding who should get her vote. Then she suggested that I post the spreadsheet on my website, in order to help any other people that might be having the same problem. And here it is.

(click image to download pdf file)

After all that work creating the spreadsheet I wondered how it would help me decide where to place my vote. It seemed pretty obvious, at first glance, that it would only solidify my reasons for not voting for specific candidates, but then I figured out how to make it work for me. I sat down with the list and rated each issue from 1 to 5, based on importance to me. I then wrote in my own positions on each topic. If a candidate agreed with me on the issue, they received the score I had given for that item, if they have been known to flip flop on the issue, I subtracted that score from their total. When I was done, I had a nice breakdown of which candidate best represents the positions I hold, and I can confidently say I know who I am going to vote for on election day.

Call me crazy, but it worked. It may or may not work for you, but you are welcome to try it yourself and see if it helps. I double checked the list earlier today to make sure it was accurate, but I make no claims that it is 100% correct, as some candidates have a way of double-speaking the issues and some are very good at hiding the art of flip-flopping. I also gave a few candidates a little leeway on their position, all in the name of partisanship.

I am pretty shocked that I had to devote so much time into researching each candidate just so I could choose the “best of the worst”. You would think, with millions of dollars spent, that it would be quite easy to find their position on any given topic, but it wasn’t. I miss the good old days when you knew whether a candidate was liberal or conservative based on their consistent voting record and the words coming out of their mouths. So much for track records. Then again, I guess it’s difficult to keep a track record when you keep running around in circles.

UPDATE [01/26 @ 12:15] : I have updated the chart to reflect that Mike Huckabee signed the NumbersUSA ‘No Amnesty’ pledge on January 16th.

UPDATE [01/31 @ 20:15] : I have modified the original spreadsheet to reflect those who have dropped out and those who have “restated” their postions. Download it here.

Note:

Here is a list of some of the sites I used to help gather information, that I feel are valuable to anyone trying to make a decision this election cycle:

SelectSmart
Americans For Better Immigration
HR 810 (embryonic stem cell research)
On The Issues

Authorities say they haven’t given up hope, but do they seriously think they will find him alive? If they do, it will be nothing short of a miracle.

Search teams on foot, horseback and all-terrain vehicles resumed their quest on Sunday in western Nevada for millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, missing since taking off alone in a small plane on September 3.

The ground search, now in its second day, focused on a patch of rugged terrain identified by U.S. Air Force radar analysis as an area where Fossett’s aircraft was likely to have gone down, said Gary Derks, a state Department of Public Safety official overseeing the operation.

[Source: Reuters via Yahoo! News]

With the fed cutting interest rates to buffer the economy because of the housing slump and the increased number of properties being foreclosed, now might be the right time to invest in the real estate market.

One way to get a handle on whats going on in the market is to attend a Trump University seminar on foreclosure investing. I’ve always been interested in real estate investing, I just never had the time to learn anything about it. The “Profit from Foreclosure Investing” seminar shows you how to change your investment strategy by teaching you about the five windows of opportunity in foreclosure investing. Many foreclosure properties are sold below market value, require a lower down payment, and much smaller payments. Equity builds up fast, and then when the market rebounds you are set to make a bundle when reselling the property.

When it comes to real estate investing, there is no one better than Donald Trump. As most of us know, his investments in real estate have made him a millionaire, and you would be hard pressed to find anyone else with the track record he has in the real estate industry. Who better to learn from than his own trained experts?

Over the course of the next month, the “Profit from Foreclosure Investing” real estate seminar will be held in the Minneapolis, Phoenix, and San Diego areas, if you are interested in investing in foreclosure properties, now’s your chance to get the upper hand, and set yourself on the road to financial independence.

So, OJ Simpson is behind bars again. He was arrested, held without bail, and today, he had 11 charges filed against him.

Prosecutors on Tuesday filed numerous criminal charges against former NFL star O.J. Simpson and three other men in connection with an alleged armed robbery at a Las Vegas hotel last week.

The 11 charges include two counts of first-degree kidnapping with use of a deadly weapon; two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon; and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

I have mixed feelings about this news. No, not because I am sympathetic to O.J. Simpson, but because I don’t know if I could stomach yet another Simpson trial on the airwaves for the next 6 months.

Think back to the days before Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman were found dead and look how the press reacted. Now think about the media just a week ago. Talk about going nuclear. Talking heads will be exploding daily for months to come.

One of the victims has suffered a severe heart attack. It just goes to prove that O.J. is bad for the heart.

First Alan Greenspan says the war is largely about oil, now he wants to clarify his remarks.

“I was not saying that that’s the administration’s motive,” Greenspan said in an interview Saturday, “I’m just saying that if somebody asked me, ‘Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?’ I would say it was essential.”

He said that in his discussions with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, “I have never heard them basically say, ‘We’ve got to protect the oil supplies of the world,’ but that would have been my motive.” Greenspan said that he made his economic argument to White House officials and that one lower-level official, whom he declined to identify, told him, “Well, unfortunately, we can’t talk about oil.” Asked if he had made his point to Cheney specifically, Greenspan said yes, then added, “I talked to everybody about that.”

Greenspan said he had backed Hussein’s ouster, either through war or covert action. “I wasn’t arguing for war per se,” he said. But “to take [Hussein] out, in my judgment, it was something important for the West to do and essential, but I never saw Plan B” — an alternative to war.

Wow. So…

He never heard President Bush or Vice President Cheney say the war was about oil, or that we had to protect the oil supplies.

He thought it was economically imperative to remove Saddam Hussein from power to protect those supplies.

He backed the removal of Saddam Hussein because of the economic implications.

Face it, Alan Greenspan knows the economy, he knows what makes the markets tick. But he doesn’t know war. He is not an expert on military affairs.

So he never saw Plan B. Neither did the other 426 million of us who are not part of the President’s cabinet or working at the Pentagon. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a plan B.

Thanks for clarifying your “position” Mr. Greenspan.

A Pennsylvania congressman wants to help preserve your sanity with a bill that would make permanent the government’s do-not-call list for telemarketers.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2003 set up a registry of phone numbers that did not wish to receive telemarketing calls. Consumers entered their home, mobile or work phones numbers on the FTC Web site or called the agency to sign up for the list. Exceptions are made for certain charity or political calls or for companies that have a prior relationship with the customer.

Submitted numbers, however, expire after five years, so numbers currently in the registry are set to be deleted beginning next year.

Legislation introduced Monday by Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., would ensure that entries are never deleted. “It makes no sense to force people to sign up again every couple of years,” he said in a statement.

I agree. Once I sign up for the do not call list, my number should be there until it’s no longer my number. Lately, however, we have had an extraordinary amount of calls lately, and I have had to visit the do not call website to submit complaints. Even if the list is made permanent, are they going to do anything about those who keep calling?