Source: Brookings Institution, 2008
Compiled by Brookings Institution experts, this chart is part of a series of issue indices to be published during the 2008 Presidential election cycle. The policy issues included in this series were chosen by Brookings staff and represent the most critical topics facing America's next President.
Available vote records and statements vary based on time in office.
The index displays the presumptive candidate from both major parties.
Source: Marc Dunkelman, Democratic Leadership Council, Policy Report, June 2008
From the summary:
Voters are frustrated by the gridlock in Washington. Surf by C-SPAN on the dial and it is not hard to find members talking past one another from the political extremes.
In large measure, today's stalemate is the result of partisan gerrymandering. The boundaries that separate districts hew to the partisan advantage of one party or the other, encouraging members of Congress to play to their party's base, rather than the broad center of the electorate.
When members can't lose, voters do -- because it takes pressure off Congress to get the job done. But gerrymandering has another nefarious effect: pre-determined election results suppress the vote. This study explores just how dramatically partisan redistricting hampers the ability of voters to affect policy in Washington, D.C.
Key Findings:
• Low Voter Turnout. The United States ranks 139th in the world in terms of voter participation, according to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
• 30,000 Additional Voters Cast Ballots in Competitive Elections. On average, 30,000 additional voters cast ballots when elections are competitive. That's the equivalent of expanding the voting pool by one-sixth.
• 11 Million Votes Suppressed. As many as 11 million voters fail to cast ballots because of gerrymandering.
• 86 percent of Members Coast into Office. During 2002, 91 percent of House members won their seat by 10 percent or more. And in 2006, all but 60 of the 435 voting members of the House won by as large a spread.
• 28 Percent More Voters in Most Vs. Least Competitive Districts. On average, 214,000 voters cast ballots in each of the 60 most competitive House races run in 2006. In 60 of the least competitive elections (where members won by between 50 and 90 percentage points), only 153,000 voters came out to have their choices counted -- 28 percent fewer.
• "Dirty Dozen" States. Of the almost 11 million suppressed votes, as many as 9 million might be cast in 12 particular states: Alabama, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Source: Todd Tucker and Mary Bottari, Public Citizen, Global Trade Watch, February 2008
From the press release:
Public Citizen today identified changes needed to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and the investment provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to implement a dozen of the presidential candidates' key health and climate policy proposals.
The changes were detailed in a report, "Presidential Candidates' Key Proposals on Health Care and Climate Will Require WTO Modifications, Overreach of WTO Highlighted by Potential Conflicts with Candidates' Non-Trade Proposals."
...
Although they have nothing to do with trade, key health care cost containment proposals on the creation of health insurance risk pooling mechanisms, reduction of pharmaceutical prices and electronic medical record-keeping, a proposal to expand coverage by requiring large employers to provide health insurance and a proposal to establish tax credits for small employers as an incentive to provide health insurance fall within WTO jurisdiction. In addition, proposals that address climate policy, such as increasing Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards, banning incandescent light bulbs, establishing new regulation of coal-fired electric plants and establishing national renewable portfolio standards (RPS), green procurement proposals and green industry subsidies come under the jurisdiction of existing U.S. WTO commitments.
Source: Brookings Institution, 2008
This series of charts, compiled by Brookings Institution experts, outline the candidates' positions on the most critical topics facing America's next President. The topics were chosen by Brookings staff and the indices will be published throughout the 2008 Presidential election cycle.
▪ Immigration
▪ Climate Change
▪ Trade
Source: Katherine K. Shea, Sara R. Collins, and Karen Davis, Commonwealth Fund, January 2008
From the overview:
The 13th Commonwealth Fund/Modern Healthcare Health Care Opinion Leaders Survey asked a diverse group of experts for their perspective on the health care reform proposals of the 2008 presidential candidates. Survey participants strongly support reform proposals that applied a mixed private-public market approach. Additional favored policy strategies for reform include a requirement for individuals to obtain health insurance, new private market regulations, and a requirement for employers to provide coverage or contribute to a coverage fund. Alternatively, respondents think proposals that focus on tax incentives to purchase individual private health insurance are not an effective method for controlling the rising costs of health care or achieving universal coverage. Health care opinion leaders call for the next president to simultaneously address universal coverage and quality, efficiency, and cost containment policies to move our health care system toward high performance.
Related commentaries:
● Reform Is No 'Either-Or': We Must Fix the Payment System Along with Access
Darrell Kirch, M.D, president and chief executive officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges
● Tough Choices Ahead: Candidates Ignore Pain of Needed Cuts to Health Costs
Dallas L. Salisbury, president and CEO of the Employee Benefit Research Institute and a member of The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System
Related resources:
● Data Brief
● Chartpack
● Tables
● Methodology
For the first time since 1928, neither the Democratic nor the Republican party has an incumbent president or vice president among the candidates in its field, so both primaries are particularly open to all challengers and very competitive. In this article, we report findings from public opinion polls that assessed how health care issues might affect voters' choices in the 2008 presidential primaries.
This article examines the role of health care in the 2008 presidential primary elections in two ways. First, it draws on data from multiple opinion surveys to better understand how Republicans and Democrats differ in their values, beliefs, and attitudes with regard to health care and health care policy. Second, it focuses particularly on voters who say they are going to participate in the early Democratic and Republican primaries and caucuses, looking at differences in their health care preferences and the extent to which the health care issue is affecting their vote.
Finally, we explore how the differences in views and desires concerning health care among Republicans and Democrats are reflected in the kinds of proposals being put forward by the major candidates, and we assess the ways in which these divisions might affect the general-election campaign.
See also:
The Amazing Noncollapsing U.S. Health Care System -- Is Reform Finally at Hand?
Source: Dan Seligman, Campaigns & Elections, Vol. 28 no. 10, October 2007
(subscription required)
American Viewpoint's client roster reads like a Republican Who's Who. ... So when Randall Gutermuth mentions his firm's latest client at parties, it tends to raise some eyebrows. "The National Education Association has over a million Republican members, so it makes a lot of sense to me that they'd be reaching out to those members," said Gutermuth, who is American Viewpoint's director of political affairs. The firm is helping the teachers' union reach out to those members--not a simple task for what many on the right view as the great bastion of liberalism. ... So the union landscape this cycle is some pretty unique terrain. Politicians are bypassing union leadership to court individual workers, and unions find themselves trying to court their own members. The question is: Will the grout that binds these workers hold them together politically for yet another campaign cycle?
Source: Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com, October 9, 2007
A political Web site set to launch on Tuesday plans to become a kind of Wikipedia-like destination specializing in elections, governments, and political candidates.
The idea behind PoliticalBase.com is to provide a neutral, one-stop source of information about politics (and politicians) to which anyone can contribute. Changes must be approved by a staff editor before they take effect.
Related sites:
From the Center for Media and Democracy:
• PRWatch
• Coming this Week in Congress
• SourceWatch
• The 2008 U.S. Congressional Elections Portal
• U.S. presidential election, 2008
• Congresspedia
• TobaccoWiki
See also:
• Beta of LOUIS (Library Of Unified Information Sources) Database
• Citizendium
Source: Elisabeth Jacobs, Brookings Institution, Issues in Governance Studies, no. 10, September 2007
Recent media reports suggest a rising tide of economic populism among presidential candidates and voters. In newspapers' business sections, personal finance columnists offer advice for avoiding mortgage foreclosure, managing credit card debt and navigating a job search. On the political pages, economic rhetoric aimed at winning over anxious middle-class families forms the core of the presidential campaign messages from many candidates. This paper shows, through data and analysis, that the populist message is rooted in an empirical reality.
Economic insecurity is perhaps best understood as the intersection between "perceived" and "actual" downside risk, which carry nearly equal importance in politics. Americans' assessments of their personal financial well-being play at least some part in shaping their candidate preferences. And the empirical reality reflected by household financial data should play a critical role for candidates' and elected officials' framing of policy options, particularly when faced with the challenge of efficiently targeting scarce public resources. Of course, the relationship between perceived and actual risk is an intimate one, as perceptions are often informed by, and inform, reality.
Source: The American National Election Studies, University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies, 2007
The Guide provides immediate access to tables and graphs that display the ebb and flow of public opinion, electoral behavior, and choice in American politics over time. It serves as a resource for political observers, policy makers, and journalists, teachers, students, and social scientists. The Guide currently contains data from 1948 through 2004.
Source: Bob Moser, The Nation, Vol. 285 no. 5, August 13, 2007
What on God's green earth has gotten into the Wilkes County (NC) Democrats? Here it is, the first pretty April Saturday of a snowy, blowy spring. There's yards to mow, balls to toss, plants to plant, Blue Ridge Mountains to hike--all of which you'd think would be mighty tempting on Democratic convention day in a place where Republicans have a damn near two-to-one edge. "Welcome to red-hot Republican territory," says Dick Sloop, a career-military retiree turned antiwar protester who's the new county Democratic chair. "We've been like the homeless around here: silent and invisible. The best we ever did in my lifetime, we had two Democrats once on a five-seat county commission." Even here in western North Carolina, where Republicans have proliferated since the Civil War (when the woods were full of Union sympathizers rather than pro-lifers), Wilkes County--Bible-thumping, economically slumping--has stood out for its fire-and-brimstone conservatism. It's been a stiff challenge to find folks willing to run against the Republicans. Hell, it's been rare to hear anybody publicly admit to being a Democrat. "You've got a lot of people in this county who probably couldn't tell you if they've ever met one," Sloop says. But in a scene playing out this year all across "red America," from these lush hills to the craggy outcroppings of the Mountain West, previously unfathomable crowds of Democrats are streaming up the steps of the old county courthouse, past bobbing blue balloons and Welcome Democrats! signs. They're hopping mad about the national state of things but simultaneously giddy with a new-found hope--finally!--for their party.
Source: St. Petersburg Times and CQ.com
New resource from the St. Petersburg Times and CQ.com. Access is free.
PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly to help you find the truth in the presidential campaign. Every day, reporters and researchers from the Times and CQ will analyze the candidates' speeches, TV ads and interviews and determine whether the claims are accurate.
See also:
FactCheck.org from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania
Source: CQ Politics.com, Congressional Quarterly Inc.
To navigate the timeline, click and hold your mouse on each band to scroll left and right. The top band represents each month, the bottom each year. Clicking on the text will display information on each event.
See Also: 2008 White House Derby: The Field So Far
Podcasts and other info linked to each candidate
Source: Richard Auxier, Pew Research Center, August 8, 2007
An analysis of voters' views on unions and other pertinent issues in light of Democratic candidates' efforts to win union support.
Seven Democratic candidates met on Soldier Field in Chicago on Tuesday to address a predominantly union audience at a candidate forum sponsored by the AFL-CIO. While membership in labor unions nationally has been declining in recent decades, nearly two-in-10 self-described Democrats (18%) live in households with a union member, according to a January poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
Source: National Conference of State Legislatures, 2007
Stay tuned to this calendar from the National Conference of State Legislatures for updates.
As it stands right now, 32 states and the District of Columbia will hold presidential primaries or caucuses before the end of February. On February 5 alone, 16 states will hold primaries or caucuses. If changes currently under consideration in five states are made, that number could grow to 37 states and D.C.
Source: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2007
From the press release:
Menlo Park, CA – With health care emerging as the top domestic issue in the 2008 presidential election, the Kaiser Family Foundation today launched a new website – health08.org – that will provide analysis of health policy issues, regular public opinion surveys, and news and video coverage from the campaign trail….
…The new health08.org website (http://www.health08.org) – which will be free of charge and not include advertising – will serve as a hub of information about health and the election, including original content produced by Kaiser and easy access to health-related resources from the campaigns, other organizations, and news outlets.
Source: Roland Zullo, Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society, Vol. 10 no. 2, June 2007
(subscription required)
This essay examines the strategy of political voluntarism, defined as a neutral political affiliation, by testing whether or not union political action committee (PAC) donations to congresspersons in the 2000 election cycle affected their roll call votes in subsequent years. Results indicate that overall, the Republicans became more antilabor in their roll call patterns after the election of George W. Bush, and that labor PAC donations did not moderate this shift. Democrats, however, became more prolabor in their roll call voting, and this trend was likewise independent of labor support. Finally, there is no evidence that congresspersons retaliated against labor when an electoral rival was supported. These findings underscore the importance of political parties in shaping public policy and challenge the utility of a labor political strategy that is party neutral. A strategic alternative, political idealism, is discussed.
Source: Robert Bussel, Labor Studies Journal, Vol. 32 no. 2, June 2007
(subscription required)
…To be sure, many legislators exhibited an appreciation of the union movement’s political role, especially its fundraising ability and capacity to mobilize volunteers for electoral activity. However, members of the United Labor Lobby believed that the focus on specific pieces of legislation and the logistics of campaign support tended to obscure political leaders’ understanding of the underlying values and motivations involved in shaping labor’s political priorities. As a result, the United Labor Lobby and LERC agreed to develop an educational program that would address this knowledge gap and provide Oregon legislators with a broader perspective regarding unions’ fundamental beliefs and their larger social role.
Source: Nelson Lichtenstein, Dissent, Spring 2007
A labor victory in the new Congress depends on the definition of what it means to win. Labor’s broad agenda is passable in almost inverse relationship to that agenda’s capacity to strengthen the institutional and political power of trade unionism itself. This has been true for more than forty years, ever since the mid-1960s, when, during the second of the two great surges of liberal legislation in the last century (the mid-1930s is the other one) civil rights, Medicare, immigration reform, and aid to education passed with relative ease, while the repeal of 14b, which allowed Southern and Western states to pass and maintain right-to-work laws had no chance in a Congress dominated by ostensible liberals.
Today’s Congress is far less liberal than that of forty-two years ago, and of course there is a right-wing Republican in the White House, but the dynamic is much the same. Those elements of labor’s agenda that are the least attached to the institutional needs of trade unionism per se have the best chance of passage. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and it provides some guidance for labor strategists.
Source: Bob Moser, The Nation, February 12, 2007, Vol. 284 no. 6
The South is more purple than red, and Democrats don't need to sell their souls to win it back.
