Rails - ActiveRecord Issue - ruby-on-rails

Question

I am creating a political Rails app that will allow users to compare candidates' positions on issues. At the heart of it is a table, representing the Active Record table, where the rows represent five presidential candidates and columns represent issues. Each <td> will represent whether or not the specific candidate has stated a position on the issue. If not, of course, it will be nil.
The problem:
I have code for candidate.issues.each and issue.position, but I can’t seem to create new positions for candidates without overriding other ones.
The goal is to include both candidates and both positions, so that the user can get a closer look at where they stand on the issue.
ActiveRecord::Schema.define(version: 20160827005554) do
create_table "candidates", force: :cascade do |t|
t.string "fname"
t.string "lname"
t.string "title"
t.string "minitial"
t.string "party"
t.datetime "created_at", null: false
t.datetime "updated_at", null: false
end
create_table "issues", force: :cascade do |t|
t.string "issname"
t.datetime "created_at", null: false
t.datetime "updated_at", null: false
t.integer "candidate_id"
t.string "position"
end
end
Models: Issue belongs to candidate
Candidate: has_many issues (or should it be positions for each issue?)
Examples, in the Rails console:
i = Issue.find(1) *Agriculture
c = Candidate.find(2) *Trump
c.i.position = “(a couple paragraphs of text)” => error.
Example 2, also in the console:
i = Issue.find(1) *Agriculture
i.candidate_id = 1 *Clinton
i.position = “(some paragraphs of text)"
i.save
i.candidate_id = 2 *Trump
i.position = “(some other paragraphs of text)"
i.save *overrides candidate_id(1) and, with it, Clinton’s position.
By the way, I intend to save paragraphs in the console so that I could give detailed positions on the issues. Is it feasible to include <b> tags, <i> tags, etc.?
Ex. Clinton on agriculture:
ENERGY
Clinton has touted the benefits of cleaner energy sources and posited them as a boon for agricultural economies. Most notably, her plan calls for the expansion of solar panels by half a billion by 2021. She supports expanded biofuel research and use.
FOOD POLICY
Clinton favors keeping federal food programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program, funded. She also wants to increase local food options through different channels - grants that aim to connect consumers directly to farmers, increased funds for USDA marketing programs, and other non-specified avenues.
She has indicated support for the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Answer 1

It seems that you want to keep issues unique and at the same time save each candidate's position for the issue.
That will only work if you duplicate issues in the table. Like this:
trump = Candidate.find 1
clinton = Candidate.find 2
Issue.create(issname: 'Agriculture', candidate: trump, popsition: 'some text')
Issue.create(issname: 'Agriculture', candidate: clinton, position: 'text')
But for me it's not ideal. You'd better add another model - Position
class Position
belongs_to :candidate
belongs_to :issue
end
class Candidate
has_many :positions
end
class Issue
has_many :positions
end
create_table "positions", force: :cascade do |t|
t.integer "issue_id"
t.integer "candidate_id"
t.string "text"
t.datetime "created_at", null: false
t.datetime "updated_at", null: false
end
Than you can write like this:
agriculture = Issue.find_by(issname: 'Agriculture')
trump = Candidate.find_by(lname: 'Trump')
trump.positions.where(issue: agriculture).create!(text: 'text')