Once Again: It's the Economy!

As the daily drumbeat on the business pages makes clear, the economy is again likely to become the key issue in the 2008 elections. Voters in the Republican primary in Michigan told exit pollsters that the economy was their lead issue. According to this morning's summary in the New York Times:

"Surveys of voters leaving the polls showed that 55 percent cited the economy as their biggest concern, and 42 percent of them cast their ballots for Mr. Romney compared with 29 percent for Mr. McCain. In Iowa, by contrast, only 26 percent of Republican caucusgoers cited the economy as the most important issue, behind immigration. In New Hampshire, the economy was cited as the top concern by 31 percent of Republican primary voters, followed closely by Iraq, at 24 percent and immigration, at 23 percent."

There is no reason to expect that voters in the 6th PA would rate the issues any differently than voters in the recent Michigan primary. Although conditions locally are not yet recessionary (as they are in Michigan, California and other parts of the country), the drumbeat of bad news and the presence of real economic anxiety in a Congressional district with a sprawling suburbs and old manufacturing towns will mean that voters in November will want to select a candidate prepared to address the economy.

Ideal Candidate has laid out talking points (see below) that focus on economic anxiety and provide concrete policy options for addressing short-term cyclical weakness and the roots of our long-term structural economic underperformance. Where do would-be candidates Mike Leibowitz or Bob Rovner stand? Which of these gentlemen (or someone else) will have the vision to become worthy of the title "Ideal candidate?"