{"id":1356,"date":"2011-03-28T14:02:42","date_gmt":"2011-03-28T19:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/?p=1356"},"modified":"2011-03-29T08:50:47","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T13:50:47","slug":"whats-on-your-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/?p=1356","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s on your mind?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>JEFF SALLOT<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/canadavotes2011\/votecompass\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/canadavotes2011\/votecompass\/\">Vote Compass<\/a> is a nifty online survey put together by CBC and a group of political scientists to try to help you determine what political party best represents your views.<\/p>\n<p>The survey covers a wide range of issues, from the economy and the environment, through gun control and mercy killing \u2013 30 questions in all.<br \/>\nLog in, answer the questions, and see where you fall on the graph in relationship to where the major parties are.<\/p>\n<p>A national panel of political scientists wrote the questions  and plotted party positions on the basis of what the parties themselves say they would do if elected.<\/p>\n<p>The survey launched Saturday. Within two days more than 300,000  people had participated. (I hope this is a sign voter turnout will be high May 2.)<!--more--><br \/>\nThe survey\u2019s most important questions come at the end . Which party leader is most trustworthy? Which leader is most competent?<\/p>\n<p>These are the kind of gut-check questions many of us ask ourselves just before we mark their ballot.<\/p>\n<p>On the issues, you can find yourself on the graph to the right of Atilla the Hun, but you might end up voting for an old leftie like Karl Marx instead because you think Atilla is untrustworthy and incompetent.<\/p>\n<p>Or you might vote for your second choice because your first choice doesn\u2019t stand a chance of winning and you simply can\u2019t abide the idea that the front runner might form a government.<\/p>\n<p>People vote the way they do for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes they even make informed choices on the basis of issues and principles.<\/p>\n<p>So, the Vote Compass survey is not a perfect indicator of how you will actually vote. But it can be an interesting tool to help you clarify which party\u2019s platform is closest to  your personal interests.<em><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Jeff Sallot, a former Globe and Mail Ottawa bureau chief, teaches journalism at Carleton University. Follow @sallot on Twitter<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JEFF SALLOT Vote Compass is a nifty online survey put together by CBC and a group of political scientists to try to help you determine what political party best represents your views. The survey covers a wide range of issues, from the economy and the environment, through gun control and mercy killing \u2013 30 questions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,19,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election-2011","category-election-2011-faculty-links","category-media-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1356"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1368,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions\/1368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}