Dan Wood: The Eponymous Weblog

Over a decade ago, I saw a poster that fascinated me; it was a diamond-shape graphic that organized political leanings in two dimensions, not one (the usual left vs. right). I never saw it again until today; it's called a Nolan Chart. The other dimension is essentially authoritarian vs. libertarian. The chart makes the most visual sense (to me, at least) when it's a diamond, but the Wikipedia article shows it as a square.

There's an interesting couple of charts where somebody has rated current members of Congress on that chart. Wow, the right wing is unsurprisingly authoritarian, and as expected, there are a lot of Democrats in congress who are centrist — but quite a few who are in the Authoritarian Camp, an even one over in the right. (Zell Miller? Lieberman?)

There's a quiz where you can rate yourself on that chart. (It's sponsored by a libertarian group, so there might be a bit of bias; several of the questions were framed in such as way that might skew the results. Still, it's interesting.) FWIW, my point was in the left, but close to the top.

Finally, the article that I stumbled upon — again, a libertarian bent — has an interesting chart comparing the congressional concentration vs. Kerry/Bush voters.