Healthcare issues have bubbled up to the top of the Select2008.com’s live polling over the last couple of weeks of intense primaries campaigning, on both Democratic and Republican sides of the spectrum.
Universal healthcare is a key point of contention between Clinton and Obama, in terms of mandate and scope. The Federal government’s role in healthcare is a key contention point between Democrats – who favor an extension of the Federal government’s role – and Republicans – who favor Federal disengagement and market-based solutions to healthcare issues.
As independents keep tuning into the campaign, the following issues - based on over 300,000 votes over the last week - will remain critical:
Select2008.com’s activity has accelerated ahead of the South Carolina’s primaries as a vast number of users turn to our site for help to choose their favorite candidate for the 2008 primaries. The website’s live polling statistics are now starting to yield some interesting facts. The audience’s geographic distribution is still concentrated on the West Coast (California and Washington states), New York, New England, and the Chicago area. Therefore, Select2008’s insights on candidates’ popularity and most divisive issues will be most relevant for the February 5 Super Tuesday.
Ahead of the 2008 South Carolina primaries, today’s top five hottest questions highlight voters’ concerns with traditional social issues (such as gun control), the war in Iraq and on terrorism, and socio-economic concerns related to the government’s involvement in healthcare and education matters.
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.
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.
