The Political Profile Project launches for election 2004

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 13:54:01 -0500
From: Matthew Hunter <matthew () infodancer org>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

Something to consider for the Politech list:
http://www.triggerfinger.org/weblog/entry/3725.jsp

One of the problems I have always faced, going into an election,
is figuring out who to vote for. Sometimes it's easy; if there's
a Libertarian running, he or she gets my vote. But if not, I have
to try and synthesize what I have read and researched on each
candidate, where they stand on the issues, judge whether they
will keep their word if elected, and so on. And in many cases,
there's just not much information available -- who publishes
information about the local race for dogcatcher?

What about what the major candidates have said in the past --
have they changed their positions after being elected? Or maybe
said things that they would rather disown when actually facing an
election? To some degree, honest journalists seek to provide that
sort of analysis. But their political views rarely match mine,
most people don't exactly build a scrapbook of analysis to review
when deciding who to vote for, and frankly, most "journalists"
these days seem more interested in rewriting an AP article with
some local quotes for color than actually doing thoughtful
research.

But what if I could actually go back over all the articles
written about a candidate in the past -- perhaps along with some
thoughtful analysis and commentary? That would help immensely in
deciding who to vote for, simply by providing all the information
in one place for each candidate in each race. And thus was born
what I call The Political Profile Project.

Beginning with the 2004 Presidential Election, I have decided to
collect all of the articles I can about each of the candidates.
Each will get their own category within the triggerfinger weblog.
I will post the articles I find to those categories in order to
aid others in reviewing the candidates and making their
decisions.

And here's where you can help. There are far too many candidates
and races for me to cover myself, even if the Presidential race
is the only one really active at the moment. The others will
continue to grow in prominence and coverage as we move closer and
closer to the 2004 election. And I will need your help to keep up
with as much of the coverage as I can.

--
Matthew Hunter (matthew () infodancer org)
Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt
Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp
Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp
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