Positions of the Candidates on Salient Human Rights Issues

This is a table that documents the candidates’ positions on assorted domestic and international human rights issues, was made for internal purposes at UCSB’s wing of Amnesty International, with which I’m affiliated. Murphy saw me working on it the other day and urged me to throw it on here since I hadn’t posted in a bit, so here goes.

Now, the caveats.

-Barack Obama has said a lot of stuff about a lot of things. McCain, not as much. Having to dig through reams of information and find his positions on issues was thus a little difficult. My worry is that some of his positions might be misrepresented. McCain has, for instance, voted against a number of bills that are generally regarded as pro-women’s rights, but because I didn’t examine the entirety of his legislative record, and because the sources I was forced to use for 2 or 3 of the issues were lightly agenda’d, it’s possible that he may appear more extreme then he actually is. (The chart still captures their fundamental policy orientations rather accurately in my view, though)

-The space I had to work with (1 page, double sided) did not afford much room for nuance. So don’t expect any examination of the merits of soft power vs. hard power in foreign relations or anything.

Anyway, regardless of the flaws, it might make for some interesting reading and definitely tends to crystallize further the nature of their division.