Select2008 Blog - Comparing and tracking the 2008 presidential candidates

The Select2008 Blog was just added to the Wonkosphere directory of political blogs tracking the 2008 election cycle. The Select2008 Blog is one of the only 65 independent blogs tracking the 2008 presidential election - as opposed to over a thousand liberal and conservative blogs.

The Select2008 Blog currently focuses on the four top face offs of the 2008 presidential primaries - Clinton v. Obama, McCain v. Huckabee, Clinton v. McCain, and McCain v. Obama, by:

- Comparing and tracking candidates’ programs and policy positions, which is based on Select2008.com’s detailed analysis of presidential candidates’ electoral platforms (over a thousand bite-size questions);

- Compiling and reporting on Select2008.com’s live polling, which is based on 450,000 votes over the last month.

For additional information on Wonkosphere, here’s a summary in their own words:

“Wonkosphere is designed for those who seek an analysis of the political buzz that is timely and unbiased.

Wonkosphere tracks hundreds of blogs and web sites per day, more than any human can read. Patented technology text analysis technology identifies posts that matter, not just posts that are popular.

If you’re tracking individual candidates, our unique analysis will show you their share of buzz in conservative and liberal blogs, highlight the most representative posts, and tell you whether the tone of discussion about your candidate is trending up or down.“

Popularity: 28% [?]

Rudy Giuliani has abandoned his bid to the presidential candidacy in the aftermath of the Florida primaries and endorsed John McCain. However, his supporters might want to make up their own minds and choose between John McCain and Mitt Romney. Although other candidates are still in the race on the Republican side - namely Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul - McCain and Romney have really jumped ahead of the pack, so we’ll focus on them for now.

We highlight below the key policy issues that will help Giuliani’s supporters choose between McCain and Romney for the remaining Republican primaries and Super Tuesday:

- Energy and environment: Giuliani agreed with Romney and disagreed with McCain on global warming and energy independence, including supporting biofuels and corn ethanol subsidies, tapping into domestic sources of oil such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), setting up a Federal market to trade carbon emissions caps, and increasing research funding for alternative energy technology;

- Healthcare: Giuliani’s healthcare plan and support for market-based approaches to lower healthcare costs and to increase access to health insurance has differences and similarities with McCain and Romney’s proposals, such as drug reimportation, setting up a means-tested tax credits for healthcare insurance, creating a tax deduction for out-of-pocket healthcare expenses, a tax deduction for healthcare costs, or subsidies to high-cost and low-income individuals to supplement tax credits and Medicaid;

- Homeland Security and war on terrorism: Giuliani and McCain have both boasted his leadership skills, as well as military and foreign affairs experience, to propel their candidacies; however Giuliani disagreed more often with McCain than with Romney on this issue, in particular on maintaining the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, supporting the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, like waterboarding,, and supporting the NSA‘s warrantless wiretapping program; on the other hand, Giuliani and Romney had their strongest disagreements on illegal immigration, for instance on Federal grants to sanctuary cities.

- Social issues: Giuliani’s stance on conservative social issues undermined his candidacy; however, even McCain and Romney disagree on gun control and on whether to propose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution on marriage, defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman; their support of a pro-life position and record on the question also differ;

- Taxes: Giuliani disagreed with both McCain and Romney on the Alternative Minimum Tax; Giuliani proposed steep tax cuts, which provide common grounds with both McCain and Romney, although these candidates differ on both on tax incentives to corporations and income tax; they also have not both signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.

Popularity: 69% [?]

As noted in a previous post, Rudy Giuliani still has an edge when it comes to connecting with voters on issues and proposals. If he managed to maintain his lead over John McCain, he would still have a good shot at coming back to the top of the pack in the Florida primary and the Super Tuesday contest.

Rudy Giuliani‘s position might nonetheless be weaker than it seems: although he ends up being ahead of other candidates overall, his lead stems from being strong on all issues, but without necessarily leading. Although, this seems to indicate that his candidacy is overall well-rounded, it might prevent him from differentiating from the other candidates, as Huckabee has done it on social issues for instance.

However, policy and programmatic positions are only one aspect of the political equation. Giuliani‘s lower profile over the last few weeks might have hurt his exposure in the media beyond recovery.

Popularity: 27% [?]

The What’s Hot section on the Select2008 website tracks and updates in real time the most disputed questions within the Select2008 community. Select2008 identifies the hottest questions as the questions that are the most divisive within the community (the maximum being a 50/50 split) and that have gathered the largest number of votes. These questions provide an insightful look into the most debated issues among voters.

As of today, the top five hottest questions are:

- Lower income limits on Child Tax Credit to enable 600,000 more families to benefit from the credit

- Create a universal mortgage credit of 10 percent of interest payments, even for taxpayers who do not itemize their tax deductions

- Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision

- Expand Federal weatherization program to $500 million a year

- Have female contraceptives covered by health insurance

Popularity: 10% [?]

Select2008.com has now been in public beta for the last two months. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our users for their useful and insightful feedbacks.

Select2008.com helps users select their top candidate for the 2008 Primaries and/or the Presidential election by answering a personalized sequence of questions on policy and programs. Select2008.com is now geared towards the Democratic and Republican primaries, ahead of the primary seasons and February 5 “Super Tuesday”.

We have added a workflow to the questionnaire to make it easier for users to change candidates, select specific issues to vote on or to review their results. Our analysis has worked out the policy and program differences between the candidates to save users valuable time and effort.

We use advanced analytics to ask the most relevant and selective questions to zero in on your top candidate, from a database of over 1,500 questions on policy and programs.

The service now pre-selects for Democratic and Republican voters the major candidates in each field, Clinton, Edwards, and Obama for the Democratic primaries and Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain, Paul, Romney, and Thompson for the Republican primaries. This segmentation also helps selecting the most selective questions in the key topics for each party, such as the economy and taxes for the Republicans and healthcare and the war in Iraq for the Democrats.

The What’s Hot section enables users to continuously screen for the most disputed questions across the entire field of presidential contestants. Select2008 now also offers candidate profile pages that let users analyze, compare, and explore candidates’ positions on all questions in our database.

Select2008’s database of 1,500 questions covers the whole spectrum of policy and programmatic issues for the 2008 presidential elections, including the war in Iraq, the economy – globalization, business regulation, home ownership, and predatory lending, innovation and public funding for research –, healthcare plans, taxes, government reform, war on terrorism, homeland security – Guantanamo Bay prison, enhanced interrogation techniques, and preparedness –, education – student loan reforms, access to college education, and support for education vouchers –, energy and environment plans – alternative energy sources, global warming, and energy independence.

Results not only tell users who their favorite candidates are, but also how much in agreement they are with them issue by issue. Users can then register to save their results and compare their position and results with their friends.

Popularity: 11% [?]

The Peace Conference in Annapolis has heightened the sense of urgency on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Support for Israel is unanimous among candidates, albeit with different levels of intensity. Clinton (D), Giuliani (R), McCain (R), and Obama (D) have all demanded that Palestinian leaders commit to fight terrorism and live in peace with Israel.

However, support for peace negotiations and support for a two-state outcome cut across party lines and spark contrasting views.

Giuliani (R), McCain (R)and Thompson (R) have posed two conditions for initiating negotiations with Palestinians: (i) recognition of Israel, and (ii) commitment to fight terrorism.

Edwards (D), Obama (D), and Richardson (D) have committed to become directly engaged in negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Only Obama (D), Richardson (D) and Thompson (R) have expressly committed to a two-state outcome, while Edwards (D) described the two-state outcome as a goal worth making a “serious effort to achieve.”

Biden (D), Clinton (D), Dodd (D), and McCain (R) have all co-sponsored in 2006 the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, which expressed support for a two-state solution.

Nonetheless, Clinton (D) has lately promised neither personal involvement in peacemaking nor committed to a two-state outcome.

Huckabee (R) has just expressed doubts about the viability of a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine on CNN. Romney (R) has mainly focused his attention on Iran in political addresses to the Jewish community.

You can cast your votes on the U.S. support to Israel, the importance of peace in the Middle East, and the path towards peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Popularity: 37% [?]

Second Amendment rights are dear and near the heart of Republican voters. It is a contentious issue in this year’s primaries. Two leading contenders for the Republican nomination – Mitt Romney and Rudolph Giuliani – have a mixed record on gun rights and gun control, at least in the view of staunch pro-gun rights supporters and despite efforts to distance themselves from earlier positions. As Mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani implemented strict gun control to curb violent crimes. As Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, was also a strong supporter of gun control.

The Supreme Court of the United States has just agreed to review the District of Columbia‘s decades-old handgun ban. By agreeing to review a lower court decision that struck down the District’s ban and affirmed Second Amendment rights for individuals, the Supreme Court will have an opportunity to clarify the law on individual rights to gun ownership and constitutional protection against State and local government restrictions.

Rudolph Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson stated their support of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to review the case. The three candidates also expressed their support of striking down D.C.’s gun control law. John McCain has not released any statement on the Supreme Court announcement but has co-sponsored in the past a law “to lift a ban on the law abiding citizens of the District of Columbia from exercising their Constitutional right to bear arms”. Tom Tancredo also expressed support a few weeks ago for striking down the D.C. gun control law.

This Supreme Court announcement was also an opportunity for conservative candidates to reaffirm their intent to nominate strict constructionist judges.

Democratic candidates have been mute on this topic. Most Democratic candidates support gun control laws or dodge the question. Bill Richardson stands as the outlier on this issue, having been life-long NRA member.

You can cast your votes on Second Amendment issues, such as the D.C. gun control law, NRA membership for candidates, waiting periods for gun purchases, and the multiple forms of gun control. You can also cast your votes on nominating strict constructionist judges.

Popularity: 26% [?]