...so let's hear your heart-hitting integral analysis of the fact that 80 votes in, Kucinich is beating Hillary Clinton! Barack is in 1st place, Dennis the Menace in 2nd, and Hill-dawg 3rd. And in 4th place, Ron "Dr. No" Paul, the only Republican with any votes at all....

I know we're only 80 votes in, but i think it's an interesting start....

Plus, i was looking for an excuse to let y'all know that comments have been enabled. To quote the deliciously quotable George W. Bush: "Mission Accomplished".

This is a very useful poll. We have 135 vote so far, and only a single vote has been cast for a (non-Ron Paul) Republican.

83% - Democrat or Green
11% - Libertarian (Ron Paul's not really a Republican)
4% - Other
1% - Republican

It sounds like, despite all the talk about integrating multiple perspectives, when the rubber meets the road the Integral community -- or at least this sample of it -- is 83% dominated by (spiral and political) greens and socialist sympathizers.

Damned interesting.

Hi there:
great to have a poll on US politics, but remember that the Integral community is worldcentric! So you might want to include an option to vote for "none of the above: I'm not a US citizen!"
Cheers,
Durwin

I'm both surprised and relieved at the results of your poll. I've become too absorbed in the negativity of the things around me to see that hope contains supreme power. Being born and raised in Texas has n't totally sucked. Well, maybe it has, and I'm just being positive about it. The most dangerous thing about life here is that the reality of the common red-neck american is the reality for pretty much all people here. If you do decide to grow into your own way of thoughts and thinking expect resistance. Though with time the skin of the soul thickens sheilding any darts of darkness. With all that said, keep trusting the heart, breeding freedom, and excercise the power of the human soul for progress in light...

http://www.myspace.com/azrelazitgets

The poll emerges from a first tier perspective--permitting only a single generic choice (one limited perspective), which in this poll seems to greatly tilt toward green. Boomeritis!

While not as frustrating as a question like "Do you still beat your wife", the poll is incomplete and limited and appears to evoke non-integral bickering between green and everyone else.

What would a more integral poll look like?

Would it allow a participant to characterize each candidates' perspective on a variety of issues using the spiral dynamics color scheme?

Would it answer the question of who participants thought the best red, blue (amber), orange, green and yellow candidates were?

Draft Gore

Add Draft Gore as an option on your poll.

With Ron Paul's good showing, we're seeing the Libertarian option gaining wider acceptance. I've always thought Libertarianism was a preferable stance, but I've also had one reservation about it. There's no 'floor beneath which no citizen will fall.' There's no entitlement that makes sense -- of course, no one else has come up with a solution to that one anyway; all 'entitlement' issues boil down to government sponsored codepedency. Still, there ought to be a way to guarantee no citizen falls below some poverty line. Ron Paul seems the best vehicle to move us in that direction. Bill Mahr even likes him....

Sorry I just have to represent here. I am a little disappointed in the huge Hillary support here among us Integral thinkers. It seems we should all be a bit more informed. This country is being overwhelmed with corruption and cronyism. This has led to the Big Government mess we have gotten ourselves into. We need to break the cycle of Big Government...It is headed somewhere none of us want to go!!! I respected Obama until I heard him say, "We are all looking for the New World Order" on the Letterman Show. That's that!

Anyway, there is only one person who has the courage and intelligence to face Big Government and win real change...Dr. Ron Paul!! Google him guys and gals...When its time to go GREEN its time to go GREEN!! Stop the War!! Protect our borders!! End the Federal Reserve!!! Reverse the Patriot Act!!! End the IRS!! Rebuild our Republic!! Vote for RON PAUL 2008!!

A TRUE REPUBLICAN!!!!

Much love and respect!!
-Dennis

While I think Hillary would be more effective as Commander-In-Chief, I watched Huckabee's hour long episode on NBC's Meet the Press (available on their web site). He is clearly second tier, but not charismatic enough to get elected.

I already knew Integral Naked had a lot of greens, but it is sad to see so much support for green meme candidates like Obama, Gore (yellow cogniton, green self and values) and Kuchinich.

My favorite second tier political scientist, Thomas Barnett (a self-identified Democrat), is endorsing Guliani. Becuse I think Jihadist are our biggest problem right now (and that's not a US centric position), I'd take a healthy orange Republican over a green any day.

Who in god's name voted for that evil racist nazi ultra-right bastard, Fred Thompson? They must have gotten on the wrong mailing list. That, or they watch too much TV and have him confused with his character, like they did Reagan. That's all we need after Bush - someone just as rotten, but slicker.

Echoing some of the comments above: what's with the high level of support for Hillary. The plurality of opinion seems to favor Obama, and I think that's right -- he's the most explicitly integral candidate.

Here's a quote on education reform:

"there is a strong values-and-character component to educational achievement," Obama said. "To deny that is to deny reality, and I don't want to cede that reality to conservatives who use it as an excuse to underfund the schools. . . . Sometimes people think that when we talk about values, that somehow that's making a 'lift yourself up by your own bootstraps' argument and letting the larger society off the hook. That's why I always emphasize that we need both individual responsibility and mutual responsibility."

"If we truly believe in our public schools, then we have a moral responsibility to do better - to break the either-or mentality around school reform, and embrace a both-and mentality."

If you didn't know better, you'd think these quotes were pulled from Ken Wilber, and his integral perspective extends to other issues like terrorism as well. But this doesn't necessarily make him the integral candidate though. The argument that I'm hearing here is that we need an Orange candidate who can bring the national center of gravity to Amber so that we can combat Red terrorism. But this is the strategy of the Bush administration, which could be summarized as closing your eyes and pretending that the 50% of the country that is Green simply doesn't exist. It has left the country in a stalemate, and extremely vulnerable. Its easy to blame Green for this, but to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the national psychograph you have, not the psychograph you want. So on the issue of terrorism, we need a president who can unify the country instead of politicizing the issue in an attempt to marginalize Green.

GO RON PAUL! GO RON PAUL! GOD BLESS RON PAUL!
RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT 2008!

Best Ron Paul video - (Reply: WRONG!...Best Presidential Candidacy Video EVER!!!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFfdB5OzlyQ

Ron Paul "Dream On" Video!!!!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IWfIhFhelm8

Ron Paul "Don't Tread On Me" Video
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FG_HuFtP8w8

Hmmm whom is winning now? It aint one of the puppets..He he this Dr.Paul guy is on a roll and some are worried and some are flabbergasted like me.Ron Paul 2008 it's real folks stop denying it and except truth it always wins in the long run.

Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton...I smell a rat.
18%? She does not rep 18%.
There aren't that many idiots in America. Who let the illegals on here?

I think the reason no other republicans are voted on other than Ron Paul is because many republicans are old school - They get informed via the TV, not the internet (most rural Americans do not have access to broadband). They believe and fear whatever the TV tells them to believe and fear. Most are oblivious of the real issues because the major media does not talk about the real issues. So until people start proactively researching what the issues actually are and what each candidates true motives are, they will vote for who is shown the most on TV. And the ones shown the most on TV are the ones with the most money.

Ron Paul scores good in polls because those that KNOW the real issues (you can only find them online) and look into the integrity of the candidates find that Ron Paul has a consistent track record and seeks what's best for the country based on the constitution.

Fred Thompson is too hardline conservative to even win the ENTIRE ELECTION, but conservative enough to win the republican nomination. HE WILL NOT
I REPEAT WILL NOT WIN THE OVERALL ELECTION

Vote for Ron Paul for an ACTUAL change.

The problem with libertarianism is that its narrow, hyper-agentic political theory. Its a male perspective that is concerned exclusively with the upper quadrants, and although this is important, its not the only perspective that is relevant. Without integrating the other quadrants and the female perspective, it can be aptly described as "applied autism".

There is an honest and dishonest use of the word “democracy” in politics today. Those of us who use this word honestly use it to describe freedom in government, as it seems. Those who use this word dishonestly use it at the expense of the honest, as a certain “code word”, to describe their agenda to an uneducated polity, while knowing full well its true meaning. America’s continued proclamation to “spread democracy throughout the world” is more illegitimate than its dynasty presidents. “We the people” are that polity and democracy was never the aim of our well-educated elders, the Founding Fathers, who knew well the works of Aristotle. I quote:

“ 7 Having determined these points, we have next to consider how many forms of government there are, and what they are; and in the first place what are the true forms, for when they are determined the perversions of them will at once be apparent. The words constitution and government have the same meaning, and the government, which is the supreme authority in states, must be in the hands of one, or of a few, or of the many. The true forms of government, therefore, are those in which the one, or the few, or the many, govern with a view to the common interest; but governments which rule with a view to the private interest, whether of the one, or of the few, or the many, are perversions. For the members of a state, if they are truly citizens, ought to participate in its advantages. Of forms of government in which one rules, we call that which regards the common interests, kingship or royalty; that in which more than one, but not many, rule, aristocracy; and it is so called, either because the rulers are the best men, or because they have at heart the best interests of the state and of the citizens. But when the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is called by the generic name---a constitution. And there is a reason for this use of language. One man or a few may excel in virtue; but as the number increases it becomes more difficult for them to attain perfection in every kind of virtue, though they may in military virtue, for this is found in the masses. Hence in a constitutional government the fighting-men have the supreme power, and those who possess arms are the citizens.
Of the above-mentioned forms, the perversions are as follows: ---of royalty, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional government, democracy. For tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has in view the interest of the monarch only; oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy; democracy, of the needy: none of them the common good of all.”
“For democracy is said to be the government of the many. But what if the many are men of property and have the power in their hands?” -Aristotle, Politics, Bk.3: Ch. 7-8

"It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."
~ Samuel Adams

Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
~ George Washington

“Tricks and Treachery are the practice of fools who don’t have brains enough to be honest”
-Benjamin Franklin

“Every generation needs a new revolution.”
-Thomas Jefferson

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
-Abraham Lincoln

This is a good lesson for the few us, really aspiring to start thinking a little bit integral and honoring our so precious and hard paid roots. This poll tells us in short after some weeks already the story of our whole movement over the last two and half millenia or more. Maybe beeing our deepest root, Gautama Buddha's teaching lost the better part of its true core within a generation.

If I see this cynicism demonstrated here, I feel so incapable to understand the wiseness of our great ancestors (of all origins) to remain so peaceful and appreciative towards the same behaviours going on in their times towards their teaching.

As a german, I don't now anything valueable (some Wikipedia reading apart) about Ron Paul, but the disgusting degree of obviuosly deep red coruptiveness demonstrated here by his "followers" (in fact, theý are his true enemies), make me to not want to know anything about him for my next thousand bhodisattva lifes and actually ever after. The disrespect for everything above red kills me probably more than my transatlantic friends, being used to Mr. Paul already a little bit.

It's frigthening to me how fast people (of any direction) are loosing it completely here and are getting dirty, dirty political within the blink of an eye.

Please, Corey (W. deVos) and Robert (A. MacNaughton) end this farce, until we have poll technology in drupal, which can count one vote - one man.

Thank you,

Phil

Well,

I've spent a good deal of time digging through the site logs and analyzing IP addresses and I'm 90% certain that we weren't hacked (at least not in the usual sense). What appears to have happened (that being Ron Paul has received several hundred more votes in the past few days) is that our poll was found by some Ron Paul supporters and it was cleverly presented to some larger audiences. I did a simple Google search for: "ron paul holons" and quickly found digg articles referencing our poll; most notably this one. In the comments of this post, dugg over 1100 times, a user links to our poll calling for votes.
Ron Paul's campaign team and supporters are infamous for their comprehensive usage of web 2.0 sites.

I'm rather impressed that our humble poll has gotten such attention. I think we can safely say that this poll is no longer representing just integral community anymore; but that doesn't mean we should take it down (or edit Barak back into 1st place, as much as I want to).