My eldest daughter is old enough to participate and vote on her first Presidential Election (Elections 2016). This is a pretty exciting time, and my wife and I are very happy to share our own thoughts and decision making tips with her. We’ve heard the “Feel the Bern” and “Make America Great” slogans tossed around the house, and I wanted to ensure our daughter was choosing a candidate based on her own opinion and the candidate’s merits, and not just because that’s the ‘popular’ thing kids are choosing. Part of the decision making included researching the candidate’s stands and opinions on topics that are important to the voter.
I had a pretty good idea who I wanted to vote for, and who I did NOT support. The problem is, I didn’t know where each candidate stood on certain topics. I then started educating myself by reading about each candidate, their history, and conducting a side by side comparison on stances that were important to me.
I visited a website called www.iSideWith.com, completed a survey 
that discusses a host of topics, and at the end results are populated showing which candidates you most nearly match with. The results were rather surprising. Initially, the top two candidates I sided with included one I don’t trust, and another I didn’t expect to match with. I re-took the survey and expanded the number of questions and the details of each answer. The subsequent result was I scored a higher match with a candidate I didn’t expect. I read every question/result and ensured the matches/mismatches were significant to my values and opinions.
I’ve researched possible website bias, and taken into account that this survey is merely a tool I will use to make my overall decision. This experience has reinforced a few things I already knew. First, take your own advice (conduct research vs. going off JUST gut feeling and preconceived notions), and second, don’t judge a book by its cover! While my knowledge of a certain candidate was very limited, I was surprised to learn we share similar values. The third thing I’ve learned is that, even though I have a few presidential elections over my daughter, we share similar opinions and both have the same candidate in mind.
Funny how things work out.
