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Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton On the Issues
Jesse Gordon, author
How do the two front-runners compare on the issues? Forget about polls; forget about politicking; -- what would Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump each do as president? This book digs up Hillary's and Donald's issue stances on over 100 key issues, from voting records, debates, memoirs, biographies -- all of the sources that the mainstream media SHOULD investigate, but never do. An ideal book for actually answering serious questions about issue stances and policy plans -- keep it on your coffeetable to spark a conversation, or bring it to events to answer substantive questions.
Reviews
538.com's Nate Silver

A presidential election between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders — still a fairly unlikely prospect but, well, never say never — might seem like the perfect opportunity for an independent candidate to enter the race.

We can visualize this using data from OnTheIssues.org, which categorizes the ideological position of politicians based on their public statements and voting records. OnTheIssues helpfully distinguishes between social and economic issues, allowing for candidates to be “populist” (economically liberal and socially conservative) or “libertarian” (economically conservative and socially liberal) rather than simply conventionally liberal or conservative. And because OnTheIssues has been around for some time, we can track how a candidate’s positions have “evolved” with the political winds. The chart below shows the scores for Trump, Sanders and Bloomberg — both where they stand now and how they positioned themselves earlier in their careers.

 

Today’s Donald Trump is often described as a “populist.” But if you define “populism” as OnTheIssues does, meaning someone who’s socially conservative but economically liberal, that was more true of him back in 1999 and 2000. That’s when Trump was considering his own independent bid for president, calling for a wealth tax on multi-millionaires while already emphasizing the importance of America “[controlling] its own borders.” Recently, Trump’s positions have become more conservative, although they remain fairly idiosyncratic. Where he’d wind up as a general-election candidate is anyone’s guess, but it would probably be somewhere along the spectrum between populist and moderately conservative.

Sanders has also “evolved,” although less dramatically than Trump. He had a few traces of crusty, Vermont populism before, with relatively moderate positions on immigration and guns, but has gradually shed them to adopt more conventionally liberal positions. In fact, he’s become a sort of liberal lodestar: Sanders now rates as maximally liberal on both economic and social policy, according to OnTheIssues.

Bloomberg, who was registered as a Republican when he ran for mayor in 2001 and 2005 but became an independent in 2007,4 has also moved to his left and now holds positions that, while rightward of Sanders’s, aren’t appreciably different from Barack Obama’s or Hillary Clinton’s. In the event of a presidential bid, Bloomberg would presumably pivot back toward the center. He used to be a Democrat, but even in his days as a nominal Republican he was really a center-left moderate. And because of his paternalist streak on everything from guns to Big Gulps, Bloomberg can’t be really be described as a “libertarian.”

So while a Sanders-Trump-Bloomberg election would leave voters on the center-left with several plausible choices, other groups of voters would be neglected. Notably, there wouldn’t be a true, Ronald Reagan-style conservative in the race. The election would also be something of a nightmare for libertarian-inclined voters forced to consider Sanders’s big government, Trump’s “yuge” government and Bloomberg’s technocracy.

The Wall Street Journal: Watching the Web by Andrea Peterson

Through the din of convention speeches and campaign photo opportunities, it can be tough to figure out exactly where the politicians stand on the issues. This site, produced by a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, gives details on the voting patterns and beliefs of each presidential, vice-presidential and Senate candidate. [OnTheIssues.org] culls its information from a variety of sources, including candidates' voting records, transcripts of television interviews and newspaper clippings…. If you are passionate about one specific issue, you can also search by issue and see how the candidates stack up against one another.

US News & World Report

"A 20-question quiz, covering such topics as abortion and immigration, matches you with your soulmate among the nine leading presidential candidates. The answers also map your political personality, such as 'authoritarian' or 'liberal populist.'"

News
07/23/2016
How to be an informed voter, and why it matters

Ontheissues.org: This Web site offers a vast selection of information on all of the presidential candidates — yes, there are more than two — as well as information on every congressional election and the biggest issues facing voters and the nation. The site includes a “VoteMatch” quiz that matches visitors to candidates based on their response to questions on issues from abortion to the economy.

03/01/2016
To thine own self vote true

Let’s face it; it isn’t easy to find out where the candidates stand on the issues. Sound bites from politicians on newscasts can be measured in nanoseconds. And when the candidates get into shouting matches and mudslinging, it’s hard to figure out where the candidates stand on, let’s say, Social Security or student loans. And political talk shows are known for oversimplifying, even distorting candidate stands or records.

I decided to see if my students actually agreed with the candidates that they supported. So I gave them two tests. In one test, I had them tell me, in advance, which candidate they thought they supported — like Dr. Ben Carson. Then I had them take a quiz from OnTheIssues.org (http://www.ontheissues.org/Quiz/Quiz2016.asp?quiz=Pres2016), where the students themselves provided answers on questions about what their stands were on about 25 issues. Then the test would tell them which candidates they really supported — like John Kasich.

Of my 23 students who took the test, only three correctly matched the candidate they thought they supported with one that had similar issue positions. Some thought they were Donald Trump supporters, and really backed Jeb Bush, or anticipated liking Ted Cruz and really preferred Marco Rubio. We didn’t have any Bernie Sanders-Ben Carson mismatches.

And just so you don’t think I’m above it all, I took the tests myself. On the CNN test (http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2016/politics/election-candidate-matchmaker/) I correctly picked my candidate. But I was more closely matched with another candidate — who has since dropped out — for the “OnTheIssues.org” test than the one I hope to vote for in Georgia’s primary.

Formats
Paperback Book Details
  • 9781530299683 1530299683
  • pages
  • $
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