A while back Cookiemaker found this site, which offers, among other things, this quiz.

I took the quiz, and was quite surprised by the result.

Before I reveal the result, allow me to backtrack a bit. I have considered myself to be a Republican for quite some time. My memories of the Reagan administration are mostly good ones (with the exception of the Iran-Contra scandal, of course). I voted for George H. W. Bush in ‘88 and his son in 2000 and ‘04 (I voted for Clinton in ‘92 and abstained in ‘96). Recently, however, I have come to doubt whether my definitions of what makes someone a Republican or a Democrat are accurate ones. I posted about this several months ago, listing where I stood on some issues, hoping for clarification from you out there. I got some responses, but not any that necessarily helped me, especially not in terms of who to rally behind for the upcoming presidential election. I’ve seen other quizzes out there on the internet that will supposedly identify your political party affiliation, but I found them all to be unsatisfactory. For the most part, they asked so few questions that I didn’t feel them to be thorough enough (they usually identified me as a Libertarian, if you’re interested).

The quiz referenced above has twenty questions, covering topics like abortion, gun control, education, Social Security, national defense, the death penalty, U. S. troops in Iraq, affirmative action, and gay marriage, just to name a few. Each question can be clicked to reveal more information about the topic and to further define what you’re saying you stand for if you choose “support,” strongly support,” etc… When you score the quiz, it tells you which presidential candidates your answers most closely identify with, what percentage your answers identify with those canidates, and what political party you most closely identify with.

So who did I most closely identify with? New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (58%) – a Democrat! There was a three-way tie for second place at 53% between Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney (at least, I think Romney was the third candidate in that tie).

And what political party did I most identify with? Aparently, according to this quiz, I’m a moderate Populist!

Well, THAT’S at surprise!