Island of Misfit Voters

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I have a problem. (quit snickering!) I’m interested in politics, but my views don’t really fit with any particular party. You’ve probably noticed that I generally vote Democrat and lean liberal, but on a few issues I align better with the Republicans and am quite conservative. I also line up with many parts of the Green Party platform. It’s frustrating. It means that whenever I vote for someone, I know that my candidate holds views that I don’t like and might vote in ways that I don’t like.

Let’s call this dim twilight the Island of Misfit Voters. Do you live here, too? Welcome! We misfits need to stick together. I think there are many of us, but it’s tempting and convenient to lump ourselves into a neat label like Republican or liberal that makes ourselves sound like we fit in with a particular group. So you might not realize how misfit you are. Not sure? Here are some interesting political quizzes to help you work through your views. Each focuses on different areas:

Per my results on the third quiz, “You want government out of people’s personal lives, but you appear to desire some continued government control over people’s economic activities. There is no political party that represents your view. You would need a mix of Democratic, Green, and Libertarian politicians in office to get the balance of freedom and social justice you desire.” I’m basically a libertarian liberal who happens to be pro-life just to screw things up.

Hmm.

I know – I could start my own political party! I actually started writing out a platform. That made me realize how little I understand certain complex issues such as the economy and our global military presence. So I gave up for now. Maybe later.

Until I can take over with my new party, I guess I’ll just do what I’ve always done and vote for whichever candidate gets the closest to my views overall, or whichever one agrees with me on my top priority issues. For the last two presidential elections, my top priority has been getting our troops out of Iraq. Thanks to Obama, that finally happened this month.

If you’re a misfit voter, how do you decide whom to support?