votesmart.org is letting me down

[contrachamp.livejournal.com]

For 8 years, I have been using votesmart.org to make most of my voting decisions. Even my Political Science professors in college insisted on using it for research on candidates. It was great. It showed all sorts of useful data on candidates, like:


*Interest group ratings from dozens of PAC's, showing how often the incumbent voted in a group's favor.

*Standardized questionnaires to tell a hundred political stances at a glance. It was called the Political Courage Test, or the National Political Awareness test.

*Campaign financing info brought over from opensecrets.org. I love being able to tell at a glance who is paying for the candidate.

*Voting records, endorsements from groups, and a bio that includes job history.



It was great, because all this was in one convenient place. But today, I was really let down. They don't have the Political Courage tests for any of my candidates in Massachusetts. They have zip on the gubernatorial candidate running on the Republican ticket. Even for the incumbent governor, they only 2 interest group ratings for governor D. Patrick when there used to be hundreds last election. The site is missing a lot of info now. My state congressional primaries are next month, and they don't have any hard data on any of the candidates.

I'm really feeling let down. Does anybody else use this website? If you do, is the site having trouble? Do any of you know of a good place to go for this kind of election data?

Comments

[lucazzo.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough I also checked earlier this week on any data they may have had on Baker or Cahill. Not much at all. Had to go on their respective websites to get an idea.

Despite my general dislike of Patrick, Baker seems pretty damend vague. "We're going to create jobs by... creating jobs!". Cahill is somewhere in the middle ground between the two.

Sad to say, I'd vote for the first one who says "I'll sign that freakin' casino legislation".

[contrachamp.livejournal.com]

And candidate Jill Stein isn't even listed on the site this time. She was in 2002.

As far as I know, I don't think there are many opponents to the casinos.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

And if they are they better get some comfortable socks, because they're going to be wearing concrete shoes, see?

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I meant cement there. I fail as a mobster.

[lucazzo.livejournal.com]

Jill Stein opposes casinos. ;)

[contrachamp.livejournal.com]

I never knew that. The Boston Globe is pretty biased in favor of the gambling.

[lucazzo.livejournal.com]

Not saying I'd vote against Stein just because of that issue. She actually seem like a good candidate who has her feet on the ground (impression I didn't get from the last candidate from the Green Party).

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Maybe they know that with a split in the conservative vote so eagerly provided by Cahill, Patrick's a shoe-in anyway?

[rogerdr.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the bad economy has hit them. The site may not be long for this world. Unfortunately, it may take another year for its domain name to run out, during which you could be waiting for months for nothing to change.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

When I looked quick, I thought it said 'voldermort.org' I was like wow that's cynical.

[existentme.livejournal.com]

Lol.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Voldamort/Palin 2012?