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Pick the issues you feel passionate about. Answer a few questions. Here's your candidate.

I heard from some John Kerry, Howard Dean and John Edwards supporters who took the test on presidentmatch.com. They discovered — to their horror — that Dennis Kucinich was the candidate most in line with their politics.

It was traumatic. Bob Sanderson, a retiree from West Des Moines who'd even made himself a Howard Dean "Take Back America" sign, turned out to be 100 percent in line with Kucinich.

Kucinich? The guy who spent most of his time in Iowa trailing "undecided"?

Kucinich can't win. He's "unelectable," to borrow a word from the political pros and pundits.

Kucinich might have been unelectable. We'll never know for sure.

But we do know this: Kerry lost. It's in the books. He really was unelectable — same as Al Gore before him and Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale before Gore.

The same sort of mind-set seeped early into Ed Fallon's campaign for governor. Not that he's nonexistent in the polls like Kucinich. Fallon is well past "undecided" — but still trailing Chet Culver and Michael Blouin.

And yet, if Iowa Democrats were able to take a governormatch.com test before the primary, I'm thinking most would line up with Fallon, the state representative from Des Moines.

They'd line up with him on corporate handouts, tax increment financing, hog confinements, nonviolent offenders, renewable fuels, farmland preservation, pollution, health care.

They'd be with him on almost everything dear to an old-school Democrat's heart. If there is such a thing as an old-school Democrat's Democrat in this race, it is Fallon.

Blouin is wishy-washy on abortion and stem-cell research and is a loyal friend of big business.

Culver seems to be for a limited death penalty. He's against civil unions. Given all the cash he's raised, campaign reform can't be that high on the priority list.

Don't ask me if Fallon would make the strongest governor. Culver seems to be onto something big with this biofuel talk. And he'd like to direct some of that Iowa Values money to small businesses and entrepreneurs. As for Blouin, some party leaders say he can't match Tom Vilsack as a politician, but he'd be a more effective governor.

Then again, maybe the party pros aren't the last word on who's electable.

These are the masterminds who thought Kerry was the one in 2004, who thought Lowell Junkins, Don Avenson and Bonnie Campbell had what it took to send Terry Branstad away.

Party pros tell me there's no longer such a thing as a true Democrat anyway. Democrats nowadays can be for free trade, corporate welfare and the death penalty. It worked for Bill Clinton.

They don't have to march in the gay pride parade or walk around waving an ACLU card. In fact, it would be better if they didn't.

When the party pros talk about Fallon, they haul out names and phrases such as "holier than thou" and "Lone Ranger." They say he isn't a team player at crunch time, that he supported Ralph Nader in 2000. Too far out there. Lacks seriousness or heavy-osity or something.

At the same time, you keep running into more and more people who like what they see. Crusty conservatives and old-school liberals alike.

One of my favorite crusty conservatives, Kent Carlson in Earlham, isn't throwing bouquets when he calls Fallon "a flaming lib."

Fallon was anti-Jordan Creek mall and Carlson still holds that against him.

"The entire area exploded," Carlson writes, "and did so because that's where people want to hang out. Fallon's a bit too militant about urban sprawl, though his point is well-taken."

But ...

"If I were a Democrat," Carlson continues, "he'd definitely be my guy. The others are fake, corporate-owned Democrats. He's the real deal, if that's what you want. I love that he doesn't take money from the usual suspects."

Candidates are judged on more than issues, of course. They're judged on character and consistency. Carlson doesn't see Fallon coming up short there, either.

"Generally, I wouldn't fault anyone who voted for Fallon. I think he's pretty sincere, a quality not often found in politicians. He just needs to lose the driving cap and embrace his baldness."

I don't know what Fallon needs to lose or embrace, but consider this:

If Iowa's best-known, most successful old-school Democrat were a young politician today, running for the first time, he'd probably be considered unelectable, too.

That would be Tom Harkin.