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10/10/2004 Archived Entry: ""

Movement gossip...Darin Lowder of Politopia writes to me about a project of the Institute for Humane Studies...

The Politopia Presidential poll is different from any other poll you've seen. Our current overall results (with over 9,000 polled) show Bush slightly ahead of Kerry, by 37%-32%, with Other/Not Voting" in third place at 11%. These overall results, however, mask the stark differences between the different 'regions' of Politopia. Our poll asks visitors to vote for one of the presidential candidates after answering a series of questions about their personal policy preferences. Based on their responses, visitors are placed in different regions on the imaginary island of Politopia. Residents of the Southeast (the home of "left/liberals"), for example, advocate a high degree of personal freedom and a good deal of government control over their economic decisions. Here, Kerry has 59% of the vote, compared to only 5% for Bush and 14% for Nader. In the Northwest (the home of "libertarians"), Bush has a 38% to 34% Lead over the LP candidate, Badnarik. Centerville, the region where people advocate only marginal changes to the status quo, is the home of both Bush and Kerry, as well as fully half of the visitors to Politopia (residents of Centerville prefer Bush to Kerry, 42% to 37%). BUT THERE'S MORE! You can also see profiles of the "inhabitants" of each region of Politopia, so you can find out how the respondents describe themselves politically (conservative, liberal, libertarian, authoritarian), their age, gender, and their policy preferences, in addition to their presidential preferences. In the Southwest, for instance, 50% describe themselves as "left" or "liberal," 17% as "socialists," 11% as "other/green," and 9% as "anarchists."

As a footnote to the above, and compliments of Steve C., I offer an intriguing site -- "DIRECTORY OF U.S. POLITICAL PARTIES. Wow! Who knew there was a Christian Falangist Party of America or a Freedom Socialist Party / Radical Women, The latter is described as "The FSP -- formed in 1966 by a splinter group of dissident Trotskyites who broke away from the Socialist Workers Party. They describe themselves as 'revolutionary feminist internationalists ... in the living tradition of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky'." I bet they exist only on college campuses.

Cheers,
mac