"What are your political beliefs..."


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acemd is offline acemd Post #1  June 11,2008, 5:24am
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Hi All,

I am at the questions phase with one of my matches and one of her open-ended questions was "What are you're political beliefs?" I know this must be important to her because "shares my political beliefs" was also one of her must haves. To be honest, I feel like you have to really know a person to understand their political belief system. What a person believes, they believe...end of story. More important to me is the "why" of that belief. If I understand the "why", I am closer to understanding the person and we can discuss things while keeping in mind where we are coming from. Is this some "crazy" type of weed out question? Input, as always, is definitely appreciated.
 
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2ndsojourn is offline 2ndsojourn Post #2  June 11,2008, 5:47am

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Better to play it safe and say your beliefs are moderate or you are independent until you find out where she stands. Answer her question with a question. If someone's political beliefs are a dealbreaker for you, then go ahead and answer fully and be prepared to close her out if you don't like what you hear.


Personally, different political beliefs don't matter to me, in fact it often leads to some interesting discussion. Just don't let it get too intense too soon.


2ndsojourn
 
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bluelinebetty is offline bluelinebetty Post #3  June 11,2008, 6:02am
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2ndsojourn,137783 wrote :

Better to play it safe and say your beliefs are moderate or you are independent until you find out where she stands. Answer her question with a question. If someone's political beliefs are a dealbreaker for you, then go ahead and answer fully and be prepared to close her out if you don't like what you hear.


Personally, different political beliefs don't matter to me, in fact it often leads to some interesting discussion. Just don't let it get too intense too soon.


2ndsojourn
I disagree—don’t wait for her answer as you may be tempted to tweak your perspectives to coincide with hers. That may become a problem in the long run, especially if it is important enough to her to be in her MHCS. Just be honest. If you aren’t that big into politics, just say so.Answering a question (especially those all important essay questions) with a question I think might get you a closed flag...

I agree with the point of saying you are moderate, but don’t be something you are not just to see where things go. Good luck with this one!
 
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Mr_Right is offline Mr_Right Post #4  June 11,2008, 6:37am
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I'd tell her where I stand. Better then getting married, talking about the next presidential candidates, and having her go "You voted for THEM?!? HOW DARE YOU!"


Though if someone is willing to let their political beliefs be the complete deciding factor on if you're compatible or not, I probably wouldn't go out with that person.
 
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SactoDoug is offline SactoDoug Post #5  June 11,2008, 7:11am
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I would tell her my political beliefs since it is important to her. I can usually tell how a person leans from their profile. If it looks like she is from a different side, then I expect to get closed out.


Personally, I have dated women from various political beliefs and had fun with all of them except for one but I assume she was an outlier. To me, it is fine to date someone with a different view point as long as we feel free to voice our opinionswithout worrying about offending each other or other reprecussions. I have won quite a few political bets too for fun stakes. You can have fun with politics if you want to.
 
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LizziePooh is offline LizziePooh Post #6  June 11,2008, 7:27am

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acemd, wrote :

Hi All, I am at the questions phase with one of my matches and one of her open-ended questions was "What are you're political beliefs?" I know this must be important to her because "shares my political beliefs" was also one of her must haves. To be honest, I feel like you have to really know a person to understand their political belief system. What a person believes, they believe...end of story. More important to me is the "why" of that belief. If I understand the "why", I am closer to understanding the person and we can discuss things while keeping in mind where we are coming from. Is this some "crazy" type of weed out question? Input, as always, is definitely appreciated.
Hi Acemd,


I had a guy place must share same political beliefs as one of his must haves so I askedhim what they were. He replied and I am the opposite end of the spectrum so I closed him out. It was one of his must haves so I figured it was important to him. Just be yourself and let her decide how important it is to her.


Good luck!
 
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Red Sox Girl is offline Red Sox Girl Post #7  June 11,2008, 8:32am

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I agree on the "being yourself" and telling her your true stance here, otherwise no matter how much you feel you might like her otherwise, this may just come between you both at some stage. You seem like a lovely guy ace, I hope she is "happy" with your answer!
 
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MW77009 is offline MW77009 Post #8  June 11,2008, 9:23am
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I make it a rule to avoid topics of religion and politics early on. I have never been asked that question but I think I would respond with humour.
 
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javajava5 is offline javajava5 Post #9  June 11,2008, 9:29am
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Dear Dr. AceMD,


Of course, always be honest but that doesn't mean you have to share everything you know - just as long as you're not deceiving in that fashion.


Now, I know husbands and wives in households that vote in opposite parties so their votes cancel each other! There're even folks in the Statehouses of some states where the governor and 1st lady support different candidates - though usually of the same party, but not always.


Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and his wife, Maria, daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and a Democrat! That's a bit unusual!


Perhaps in your response you may even wish to incorporate families like the above to show that does exist in families.


You don't say if your match is politically active and perhaps even volunteers! Obviously, she's interested in current issues and feels strongly about certain positions.


This comes into play across the board from issues ranging from abortion, to same-sex marriages, to social programs, tax issues, foreign policy, the economy, school vouchers, home-schooling, environmental issues, and all sorts of things. Obviously, liberals and conservatives differ quite substantially on their thinking regarding issues.


Say, for example, you married, and one day you had children and you believed strongly in home-schooling but she believed strongly in public education.Perhaps a compromise might be private schooling but if youcan't affordthat because of the politics in your state and national government where the political figures were against school vouchers and keeping those measures from passing, and so you were not able to get a voucher for something that might work well for you as a family.


And then, there's those like James Carville, the Ragin' Cajun, a liberal democrat and lead strategist for Bill Clinton in 1992 in his Presidential campaign for the White House, and his wife, Mary Matalin, a Republican political consultant to Number 41, George H. W. Bush, in his 1992 re-election campaign for President.


Furthermore, there's the case where the former actress, Jane Wyman, President Ronald Reagan's first wife divorced him for talking politics all the time.


In my own response to that question, I write how I went with my mother to vote as a young girl, what that was like and go from there. You might want to incorporate some fun stories of your own if you have any or whatever.


Perhaps you hold conservative beliefs on some issues, moderate on others, and more liberal on even others. As you may know, President Reagan used to be a democrat and one of his statements was something to the effect, "The Democratic party has left me!"


There's conservative democrats that sometimes vote along with Republicans in Congress and state and local governments and vice-versa.


It seems perfectly fine to write what you think as you indicated above in your post:


"More important to me is the "why" of that belief. If I understand the "why", I am closer to understanding the person and we can discuss things while keeping in mind where we are coming from." AceMD


Why not incorporate that with some other things or even some of the stories I've mentioned above? You could even mention the first time you ever voted and what that was like for you without mentioning the political party in particular. You could also add that you'd like to get more into this discussion on a date while you're each getting to know each other better!


Let us know how it goes!


JavaJava5


P. S. Really, isn't politics about issues and where candidates stand on specific issues? Of course there's other factors like how the candidate comes across, their background, their "likeability" factor, their voting records, etc. It seems like she's wanting to get a ball-idea of where you stand on issues, if you care, if you're an activist, if you like to be involved in the political process, if you vote, etc.
 
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Glider_Pilot is offline Glider_Pilot Post #10  June 11,2008, 10:18am
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acemd, wrote :

Hi All, I am at the questions phase with one of my matches and one of her open-ended questions was "What are you're political beliefs?" I know this must be important to her because "shares my political beliefs" was also one of her must haves. To be honest, I feel like you have to really know a person to understand their political belief system. What a person believes, they believe...end of story. More important to me is the "why" of that belief. If I understand the "why", I am closer to understanding the person and we can discuss things while keeping in mind where we are coming from. Is this some "crazy" type of weed out question? Input, as always, is definitely appreciated.
Well, I can guess that, whatever her beliefs, she's probably not a moderate. I've yet to see this question from someone in the middle, although I suppose it's possible. My experience has been that when I get this question (especially with the 'Must Have' thrown in) the person is solidly at one pole or other of the political spectrum.


That being the case, I'll side with those who advocate full disclosure. I agree with you that it takes time to fully understand the reasons your date developed her position (or her to understand yours), but in this case she's effectively saying "My way or the highway" as far as politics goes, and she wants to know NOW where you stand. Might as well get that decision done and over with right away, since there isn't likely to be any compromise about it later on.
 
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