Today’s guest post is very different then those of the past. It’s all written by me. I wanted to share a podcast with you that I discovered on YouTube and thought today the most fitting day, because I may have written a lengthy explanation but the importance of the post is what you will watch/listen to in the podcast. I wrote a lot. Don’t feel obligated to read it. But I do encourage you to watch the podcast and take the I Side With quiz. I have found that the I Side With quiz is the only quiz that matches you to political parties and candidates based on your specific stances on the topics at hand.
Via: 4Kpodcast
So I was bored and roaming around You Tube when I stumbled across something unexpected. A video podcast outlining a fascinating political tool? resource? game? from a website called I Side With. Curious, I began to watch the barely viewed podcast entitled, “Take the Quiz to Pick Your President.”
I think I was curious at first because of all these fun quizzes that find their way around Facebook. You know the ones I’m talking about: Who were you in a past life? What Game of Throwns character are you? Which Hogwarts house do you belong to? Was this another one of those and, if so, how accurate would the outcome be from what I believe to be the truth? So, I began the podcast video.
This little-known Podcastor is clearly extremely intelligent, educated and knowledgeable about the issues impacting our country. He has a very nice, calm voice to listen to and did a great job staying on track with his course of thought. Some podcasts I have listened to by other people have been very stream of consciousness (not unlike my meanderings here on this blog) which makes listening and following the topic difficult, to say the least. But this guy, this guy did a great job.
He tells you all about the ins-and-outs of the quiz while giving you a mini walk-through tutorial. When I was done watching his 5-minute podcast I was even more curious about the quiz and how it would rate me.
However, before I delved into it I decided to find out a little more about it. So, I headed over to Reddit. I discovered that most of the Reddit users results were that they side with Bernie Sanders. I found that intriguing and so I kept reading. And in fact learned that there is an entire conspiracy theory about this quiz being a concoction by the Sanders camp to win the votes of uninformed voters who do not do their homework by misleading them into believing this test is their quick-fix answer of who to vote for.
Again I felt motivated to look a little deeper. So of course the next place I headed over to was Snopes; “The definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.” But there was nothing there. So I went to another great though fallible resource of information, Wikipedia.
Again, I came up empty. Although I did learn about a second political resource website called Project Vote Smart. They also have a quiz and so for purposes of this article, I ended up taking both quizzes. While I found the Vote Easy test to be a bit more fun (because the candidate campaign signs change positions each vote you make) I found much more value in the I Side With quiz. The Project Vote smart quiz had 14 yes/no questions with zero ability for flexibility or to clarify your stance. Do you believe in abortion yes or no? Um, what about depends on … ?
Whereas the I Side With quiz had 65 questions and afforded me the opportunity to define my stance on all of the questions. We are voting for our next president. If we were going to rely on an online test to tell us who to vote for (which I will not) then shouldn’t we at least rely on a test that consists of a multitude of current issues and acknowledges that where we align ourselves on the issues is not necessarily absolute? The I Side With test gives us options, an array of responses and if we don’t fit into those responses offered, they allow us to input our own response. Thank you! I feel I have a voice.
Anyway, if nothing else the I Side With quiz will let you in on what the current issues are and give you an idea of who has similar beliefs as you do. So in that sense, even if you are not a voter, you might want to take it. Because one of those candidates will be our next leader. Shouldn’t you know how close they align to your own beliefs and in which venues?
I found on Yahoo! Answers an excellent response to the question of the test’s bias. This was from the election of 2012. The answer came from a man named Anthony.
Individual results are very accurate from my experience and from seeing friends across the political spectrum take it and get different results. The site lists all the answers for each candidate and provides source links, so how it matches answers is very transparent. However, when looking at the state results, for example Texas, keep in mind that most users that have taken the quiz are young internet users which fall on the more liberal scale and are less likely to vote than older conservative people who are not socially active online. In short, the quiz will accurately match you with a candidate, but it will not predict the outcome of the election.
Take the quiz, let me know. Did you get Bernie or someone else? I got Bernie and spoiler alert, so did the podcaster.
Again, here’s the podcast: 4Kpodcast’s I Side With political quiz info-tour
And here’s the I side With quiz: I Side With political quiz
And the Vote easy quiz: Vote Easy political Quiz
By the way, I Side With currently has quizes for the following countries (just click your link to find the quiz relevant to you):
Memee's Musings 
I love I Side With. I found it to be spot on, too. I had no surprises though, just an affirmation of who I hope to vote for anyway.
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