Sunday, December 23, 2007
The Flip-Flop Index
Recently I read an email referring to an article by David Brooks that said that Barack Obama has a constant position and does not flip-flop too often. This says that Barack Obama's position is ever constant and that he has a solid inner core of beliefs. This seems desirable, but it seems like this guy has found The Truth. A truth is probably a truth, but The Truth is always a lie. Still, Obama is far different from a fundamentalist Christian like Falwell (either one) and I find him appealing.
To me the opposite of Obama's consistency is flip-floppiness. A while ago I ran into the "Idiot index". The index of candidate X is simply the number of hits "'X' is an idiot" gets when Googled. Right now, the Idiot Indices of the prominent Democratic candidates are Clinton, 20200; Obama, 13200; Edeards, 13200; Richardson, 4. The prominent Republicans all have high Idiot Indices. We don't want an idiot for President, nor do we want someone that a substantial number of people conceive of as an idiot. So this would say the best candidate is Bill Richardson.
So today I tried the same thing with flipflops. The Flip-Flop Index. For candidate X, this is the number of hits the phrase "'X' flip-flops" gets. Here are the results:
Clinton 11200
Obama 436
Edwards 8
Richardson 1
Biden 3
Giuliani 1260
Romney 6150
McCain 4370
Huckabee 2320
Ron Paul 10
Tancredo 8 (no longer a candidate)
F. Thompson 292
The other candidates gave me "no documents" when the phrase was Googled. This says that none of the prominent Republicans are constant - they are a bunch of flip-floppers. Among the Democrats, sure, Obama has a lower index than Clinton, the utmost top flipflopper of them all. But Edwards and Richardson have far less than that even. So to me the Flip-Flop index selects either Edwards or Richardson.
If you use both the Idiot and Flip-Flop indices to pick a candidate, Bill Richardson is your candidate.
And it makes me wonder about this article. If indeed Obama has the attributes that the article gives to him, then how come 436 web sites say or quote that he flip-flops?
To me the opposite of Obama's consistency is flip-floppiness. A while ago I ran into the "Idiot index". The index of candidate X is simply the number of hits "'X' is an idiot" gets when Googled. Right now, the Idiot Indices of the prominent Democratic candidates are Clinton, 20200; Obama, 13200; Edeards, 13200; Richardson, 4. The prominent Republicans all have high Idiot Indices. We don't want an idiot for President, nor do we want someone that a substantial number of people conceive of as an idiot. So this would say the best candidate is Bill Richardson.
So today I tried the same thing with flipflops. The Flip-Flop Index. For candidate X, this is the number of hits the phrase "'X' flip-flops" gets. Here are the results:
Clinton 11200
Obama 436
Edwards 8
Richardson 1
Biden 3
Giuliani 1260
Romney 6150
McCain 4370
Huckabee 2320
Ron Paul 10
Tancredo 8 (no longer a candidate)
F. Thompson 292
The other candidates gave me "no documents" when the phrase was Googled. This says that none of the prominent Republicans are constant - they are a bunch of flip-floppers. Among the Democrats, sure, Obama has a lower index than Clinton, the utmost top flipflopper of them all. But Edwards and Richardson have far less than that even. So to me the Flip-Flop index selects either Edwards or Richardson.
If you use both the Idiot and Flip-Flop indices to pick a candidate, Bill Richardson is your candidate.
And it makes me wonder about this article. If indeed Obama has the attributes that the article gives to him, then how come 436 web sites say or quote that he flip-flops?
