Veering Off Topic For A Moment

As you all know, next Tuesday is Election Day. With each passing day, we become assaulted with ad after ad, attacking one politician's character and another's patriotism, this one's emotional stability and that one's support for our troops. If you're like me, it all becomes an intolerable wave of negative energy with no added value when it comes to helping me choose my candidate. What has helped, though, is Minnesota Public Radio's Select-A-Candidate tool. Even if you don't live in Minnesota, there is a Presidential Candidate option. This is an amazing little creation. You answer a series of questions about your views on the various issues. You have no idea which candidate supports which position until you're all done. After you have answered all of the questions (and the answers are quite complex and really force you to think through the topics), the tool spits out your results based on which candidates's views your responses most aligned with. It gives additional information as well to help you get a better sense of what each candidate has said about each topic, and when and where they said it, so you can research it for yourself if you want to go straight to the source.

Please, if you are still on the fence, don't listen to the fear-mongering cries of socialism and terrorist ties, or the claims of imminent heart attacks and psychological frailty. No candidate is all good and no candidate is all evil. But one likely has views and policies that align more closely with yours, and when you think about it, that really is what matters most.

So educate yourself and vote November 4th! It's not just your right - it's your responsibility!