Why Independents Care So Much About Health Care

[Hope And Change]

Why Independents Care So Much About Health Care

A Commentary By Froma Harrop

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

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Political independents now rank health care second among the issues they most want the presidential candidates to discuss, according to a Kaiser Health Tracking Poll for September. The No. 1 issue for independents, as well as for Democrats and Republicans, is the economy.

Independents are the key to victory in this election. Their opinions matter. And asked which candidate best represents their views on health care, 40 percent said Barack Obama and 25 percent, John McCain.

Health care has recently moved up as a concern for independents. While only 11 percent of Republicans named health care as the topic they most wanted the candidates to address, 26 percent of independents did. Democrats showed nearly identical interest at 25 percent. How come the wide differences?

"As gas prices have fallen, and Iraq has declined as an issue," Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Foundation, told me, "the voters go home to Mama. For Republicans, that's back to taxes and terrorism, and for Democrats (and apparently independents), it's health care."

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To recap, independents consider health the second most important issue for the candidates to address, and they greatly prefer Obama's vision to McCain's. Independents are nearly 40 percent of the electorate. Do the math however you want to. These numbers have to be encouraging for Barack Obama.

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more...

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_froma_harrop/why_independents_care_so_much_about_health_care

[galaxy21]

1. the main issues for republican voters

1. Gay Marriage
2. Abortion
3. Did we mention gay marriage?
4. Stop them taking our guns!
5. Who can I have a beer with?
6. Apparantly, the economy is in trouble or something....

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. This supports the supposition that the majority of independents are

democrats who have been split away from the party on wedge issues.

That's why the republican strategy for 3 decades has not been to increase their own base, with greater diversity, but to decrease the democratic base while hanging onto their core. Effective in the short term, but ultimately self-destructive - like everything else the republicans do.

[EC]

3. Health care is part of the economy...

small businesses need it, large business needs it to compete with world trade. It is the number one thing needed to increase jobs.