Change.org Presidential Matchmaker Feature

One of my favorite sites in the whole world (and as it turns out, it's locally run)is Change.org. Tonight, I met the founder, Ben Rattray, who is - no surprise - both knowledgeable and passionate about enabling people to take action for important causes and candidates. While poking around Change.org further, I found a cool Presidential Matchmaker widget that matches you up with presidential candidates.

Surprise - my selection on issues matched me up with Hillary Clinton at 81%. The only reason it wasn't closer is because the issues are listed as one-liners so it's difficult to know exactly what they're supporting and in some cases I'd support something Hillary "strongly supports" and vice versa, so in reality we're probably more in the 95th percentile on the issues. I think the feature could actually be more specific, but it does a fairly good job laying out a variety of issues and it's fun to use.

At the bottom of my comparison list was Duncan Hunter at 22% in common with my views. The only place we remotely agreed was that I answered that I was ok with churches assisting people on welfare (although I might change my mind on this if I knew more about the issue) and he's strongly in favor. Why? I don't see why letting churches give food to some people in their communities is bad unless that means it's in lieu of the government giving funds. I don't think it should be an either-or proposition and I don't think the government should reduce welfare support just because churches might pitch in. I know the issue goes deeper than this, but that's not the purpose of this post. No way am I voting for Duncan Hunter in any universe, but Change.org always gets my vote.

You have to join Change.org and select the Politicians tab in order to see the Matchmaker feature. Enjoy.