I'm all-in for Hillary! And jumping for Jeb!

FOR SOME PEOPLE, politics is easy as baseball. Participants have "positions" and wear a team uniform - Democratic Party blue, Republican Party red, Green Party beige. (Just kidding - green.)

For other people, politics is as indecipherable as algebra, except that in algebra, values are constant. They don't shift with the political winds.

This year's alarming bumper crop of presidential candidates has made it exciting for political junkies, but the explosion of Republicans seeking the presidency has confused people who don't have the time (or the interest) to research every candidate's positions. (This applies outside Philadelphia, where some people actually vote for Republicans. Like in Utah.)

Democrats are down to only three candidates, and we are going to pretend the two white guys have a shot - which they don't, unless Hillary Clinton gets indicted, and probably not even then.

Permit me to observe that the media too often portray the mildest criticism by one candidate of another as a world-ending "attack."

With that understood, when Donald Trump calls Ted Cruz "nasty," that's like being called "abrasive" by sandpaper.

On the Democratic side, it will be a real "attack" when Bernie Sanders looks at Clinton and says, "The millionaire class I am always attacking - that's you," and she responds, "I saw you shoot a defenseless cow with an AR-15."

There's lots of goo to sort through for the politically bewildered, so someone has done the research for you.

"Ignore the self-serving nonsense of this year's Presidential candidates with our awesome new interactive tool allowing citizens to find their perfect Presidential match," modestly promises Vote Smart (formerly Project Vote Smart) in announcing Presidential VoteEasy.

I don't know why they made VoteEasy one word, but I do know that (they say) it's powered by more than 8,000 students and volunteers from both major parties, third parties, and independents.

You go to www.votesmart.org/voteeasy and check your position on each of 13 issues to find which candidates agree with you.

The questions are very broad, without shading or qualification. The question of "abortion," for instance, makes you choose between pro-choice and pro-life legislation. Although I don't "like" abortion, I wouldn't prohibit it, so that makes me "pro-choice," which is only partly right. I would ban partial-birth abortion, for instance.

A more-nuanced menu is offered by www.isidewith.com, which I'll get to in a moment.

The assessment of candidates' positions is tricky. VoteEasy says many candidates have "inferred" a position, rather than announced it.

In one case, the position presented was wrong, or at least out of date. It said Clinton was OK with the Keystone XL Pipeline (a nonissue after President Obama killed it). After a long period of equivocation, Clinton finally opposed the pipeline.

After answering the 13 questions, you will see - percentages of agreement are given - which candidate's positions most closely align with your own.

When forced to choose, I usually lean more liberal than I (or you) think I am.

On the issues, Clinton most closely matches me. (I'm still voting for Bernie Sanders in the primary. Personal reasons.)

But on www.isidewith.com, a candidate-rating service that claims use by more than 23 million Americans, I am a Bush voter. In this one, my positions agree with Jeb's (and Carly Fiorina's) 67 percent of the time - but wait! I agree with Clinton's 66 percent of the time.

How could I be so close to Carly and Hilary and Jeb? That sounds impossible, but it's not. Because I am a centrist, I agree with them on different specific issues.

Politics is more than issues. It's also emotional "feel," momentum, and the ability of a candidate to connect with voters.

This year, many Americans are finding it more satisfying to oppose traditional candidates than to support them. They're having fun kicking the system in the keister.

That explains a lot of Trump's appeal - in addition to the paranoia, sexism, xenophobia, and racism, I mean.

Email: stubyko@phillynews.com

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On Twitter: @StuBykofsky

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