Select2008 Blog - Comparing and tracking the 2008 presidential candidates

Today’s top five hottest questions are:

- Lower corporate taxes from 35% to 27%

- Strengthen tax incentives for extending broadband Internet to underserved areas

- Oppose photo ID requirements to vote, because they disproportionately disenfranchise the poor, disabled and minority voters

- Expand affordable housing

- Congress should authorize any preemptive attack in the war on terrorism

Seeing the most selective and divisive issues for the 2008 elections gradually bubble up is a fascinating process of real time democracy!

Popularity: 17% [?]

The upcoming primaries are causing a stir on Select2008! As of today, the top five hottest questions are:

- Create second-chance schools for high school dropouts

- Maintain the current policy towards North Korea

- Oppose photo ID requirements to vote, because they disproportionately disenfranchise the poor, disabled and minority voters

- Allow States to devise their own path to universal healthcare

- Raise the tax rate on dividend and capital gains to fund tax benefits for the working class

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.

Popularity: 13% [?]

The three major Democratic candidates to the 2008 Presidential election – Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama – have all recently released an economic stimulus package, as the softness of the U.S. economy comes into focus.

These plans include quite a few repurposed proposals, which are now being legitimized by the sudden worsening of the economy. Clinton and Edwards seize the opportunity to tout their “green” initiatives, as a way to boost the economy and convert blue collar jobs to “green collar” jobs.

There are three sets of differences between these plans: their respective size (from $25 billion to $75 billion without supplementals), their conduits (from tax cuts to direct hand outs) and their main beneficiaries among the working and the middle class, the retirees, the home owners hit by the subprime crisis, and the unemployed workers.

The charts below show that Clinton’s key measures focus on home owners impacted by the subprime crisis, as well as people hit by the rising cost of energy. On the other hand, Obama’s key measures are a large tax cut to the working and middle class and additional hand outs to retirees in need.

Popularity: 18% [?]

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: 33% [?]

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: 24% [?]