June 29, 2008

Once again, It’s the Economy, Stupid

Economic first term issues dominate the top ten list for both candidates based on voter prioritization in landmark study

Five of the top eight first-term Democratic priorities centered on economic issues as were four of the top seven Republican priorities. Obama’s economic issues, as prioritized by voters in the OPTIMIZE*08 study, include middle class tax cuts, foreign trade policy, clean energy jobs, cutting health care costs and making college tuition affordable. For McCain, voters’ top economic issues include ending earmarks, cutting taxes, addressing oil prices, and mortgage crisis relief.

Beyond the economy, national security and veterans issues topped the McCain priority list with four separate statements addressing military budget reform, military pay raises, anti-terrorism, and veterans’ benefits.  Ranking ninth and tenth were educational reforms and preserving traditional marriage.

The non-economic Democratic priorities for the Obama tickets include chronic disease prevention, education reforms, restoring constitutional principles, green technology leadership, and inspiring public service.

Methodology:

The study considered a total of 120 one-sentence statements paraphrased from the two candidates’ campaign websites ( http://www.barackobama.com/issues/ and http:/www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/). Voters chose among presidential ticket concepts with each concept displaying three first term priority statements.  Based on the aggregate of 40,000 choices made throughout the study, the sixty statements from each candidate were ranked.

Traditional polls cannot handle the full range of candidate positions on issues nor consider how they should be combined.  Affinnova's evolutionary optimization technology makes this possible which enables these unique and powerful findings.