Vote Compass

[jammies]

Originally Posted by SebC

You can't call a Conservative voter the median, because the median is a well-defined term that applies to populations. The median Canadian voter is Liberal, whether you characterise them as centre, left or right.

Oh well, I guess if you assert it to be so, it must be true.

Do you know how "because" works? See, the phrase "You can't call a Conservative voter the median" followed by "because" implies that the next statement is a proof or fact supporting the preceding phrase. How does "the median is a well-defined term that applies to populations" qualify as any kind of support for that assertion?

This might seem far afield from the original topic, but actually the root of the problem with this survey is that the people who created it think like SebC. "The Liberal party is the centre, because the median or centrist voter will most closely match with the Liberals. How did we determine where the median voter will vote? We derived it from the Liberal position." This is pure tautology.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by jammies

Oh well, I guess if you assert it to be so, it must be true.

Do you know how "because" works? See, the phrase "You can't call a Conservative voter the median" followed by "because" implies that the next statement is a proof or fact supporting the preceding phrase. How does "the median is a well-defined term that applies to populations" qualify as any kind of support for that assertion?

This might seem far afield from the original topic, but actually the root of the problem with this survey is that the people who created it think like SebC. "The Liberal party is the centre, because the median or centrist voter will most closely match with the Liberals. How did we determine where the median voter will vote? We derived it from the Liberal position." This is pure tautology.

It's not tautology unless you disagree that the Libs are between the Cons and NDP/Greens/Bloc. It's based on any poll you care to look at and the last several elections.

If you have a valid point that I'm missing, try communicating it better rather than insulting me.

[FanIn80]

The Liberals have always campaigned on the notion that the Conservatives are just waiting to eat our babies. If you strip everything else away, all you're left with is a final "graph" showing you that the Conservatives are lurking in the bottom right corner, faaaaaaar away from everyone else, anxiously waiting to eat our babies. They know that any combination of answers will still put you closer to the center than the bottom right corner.

The problem is that's where they put the Conservatives. Any unbiased political-science major will tell you the Conservatives are just as close (if not closer) to the center as the Liberals are. Only the Liberals seem to think the Conservatives are this right-wing monster-in-waiting. Only a Liberal would put them where they are on that image.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

The Liberals have always campaigned on the notion that the Conservatives are just waiting to eat our babies. If you strip everything else away, all you're left with is a final "graph" showing you that the Conservatives are lurking in the bottom right corner, faaaaaaar away from everyone else, anxiously waiting to eat our babies. They know that any combination of answers will still put you closer to the center than the bottom right corner.

The problem is that's where they put the Conservatives. Any unbiased political-science major will tell you the Conservatives are just as close (if not closer) to the center as the Liberals are. Only the Liberals seem to think the Conservatives are this right-wing monster-in-waiting. Only a Liberal would put them where they are on that image.

The Liberals were put where they are on that image by unbiased political-science majors.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by zuluking

Putting the a$$ back in Vote Compass...

http://www.ottawasun.com/comment/col.../17832836.html

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

However my concern is with the demographic data that's being collected and where its going. I think that does need to be disclosed now that there's a lose connection between one of the involved people and Michael Ignatieff.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

What do you mean there's no connection, beyond one of the people that worked on developing this survey and is in charge of collecting the stats used to work for Ignatieff on his leadership campaign and advised him on equalization policy?

Originally Posted by transplant99

Also...here is the connection according to Ezra Levant.

Perhaps he's taking the word of Peter Loewen, the "director of analytics" for the Vote Compass. Loewen just happens to have been a policy adviser for Michael Ignatieff's 2006 Liberal leadership campaign

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/co.../17832526.html

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Again its great that there was a collaboration of students, but even you have to admit that there's something that's fairly smelly about this especially considering that the director of analytics, the guy thats probably receiving the information from the compass including ridings and vote preferences used to be directly attached to Ignatieff.

OBJECTION DENIED! Looks like the Sun intentionally omitted some vital information. Who's biased now?

It’s amazing what sort of character assassination you can get away through chicken#### use of question marks (in Levant’s case). Or in Lilley’s case, through the deliberate withholding of facts. As Peter Loewen himself told Lilley when Lilley interviewed him for his March 31 story, Loewen did the same sort of work for Harper in 2004 that he later did for Ignatieff. Loewen was also a staffer for a Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative leadership candidate in 2005. And he once donated money to Pierre Poilievre’s nomination campaign.

This information was available to Brian Lilley, his editor, and to Ezra Levant. It is thoroughly despicable that it was not included in the stories that were published. What is going on here? In yesterday’s Globe and Mail, Simon Houpt suggests that Loewen just got caught up in a broader anti-CBC campaign by Sun Media, as it prepares to launch its new television station.

If so, that’s disgraceful enough. But I actually think something more basic is at work here: Intellectual prostitutes like Brian Lilley and Ezra Levant are so used to selling their brains on the cheap in journalism’s back alleys, they find it literally incredible that everyone else’s intellect is not similarly for sale.

Oh snap!

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/04/06/sun-family-values/

The Sun' National Bureau Cheif (David Akin) even got an email from Tom Flanigan vouching for Loewen's objectivity. You can read it here.

[transplant99]

"Vote Compass" — the controversial CBC online tool for determining which political party shares your views — gives the appearance of stronger support for the Liberals even though most people who participated plan to vote Conservative.

That's the conclusion of a COMPAS Research poll that asked Canadians who took the online survey if the results matched their voting intentions.

According to COMPAS Research, 20% of Conservative-intending voters, 19% of New Democrats and 38% of Greens were told their political values are closest to those of the Liberal Party.

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/decis.../17973936.html

[Ozy_Flame]

Social conservative, but far on the economic left. Closest to Liberal, although I was hoping for Green.

This essentially means I love big government, but I don't want to drop a dollar for any of it lol . . .