Have you checked your political compass lately?

Fed up with the old categories of Right vs Left in terms of describing your political leanings? Then take the political compass test. Your responses to the test will land you in one of four quadrants. Right to Left is indicative of economic policy. Up and Down tells you where you land in terms of Authoritarian vs Libertarian values.

But how do your favorite candidates for the 2008 presidential campaign stack up in terms of this political compass? The folks at politicalcompass.org took the test on behalf of the candidates by matching their expressed opinions and stands on issues with the test questions. Our of Republicans and Democrats, only two candidates land in the same quadrant as I do, although they are not nearly as far from the center as I am. Those two candidates happen to be the ones you see underneath the Village Green banner above: Gravel and Kucinich.

The rest of them all land in the upper right quadrant, home of right wing economic theory and authoritarian rule. Go here to see the graph for yourself. Those who think Edwards is so left wing are in for deep disappointment. Obama is more authoritarian than Clinton, who is further to the right than the rest of the candidates, but also closer to libertarian than anybody but Edwards and Ron Paul.

Basically, the graph shows the Dems all clustered near the center, while the Repubs are way far out on the Rightwing/Authoritarian continuum. (My position is about the same as Tom Toncredo's but in the lower left hand quadrant.)

Let us know where YOU appear on the political compass and how closely do you match up to your favorite candidate.