PRESIDENTIAL RACE E-mail survey reveals voters' key concerns

Answers came from 1,750 people in 48 states, 70 from Vindicator readers.
By PHIL SHOOK
SPECIAL TO THE VINDICATOR
Presidential candidates on a living-room tour of the country would find plenty of hosts with questions, many of them about the war in Iraq and other foreign policy challenges, many about health care and the economy.
That's the picture that emerged when 35 news organizations around the country, including The Vindicator, e-mailed 11,495 people recently. They were asked: "If you had an informal chat in your living room with each of the presidential candidates, which issues would you discuss with them as being the most important to you?"
Within four days, answers came from 1,750 people in 48 states, 70 from Vindicator readers. They put almost 5,000 suggestions of issues to ask about on editors' lists. More than a third of those answering had a foreign policy question. A third also said they were concerned with health care or about the state of the economy.
Dean Burns of Struthers wants to know: "What plans do they have to improve the economy? How will they address the health-care issue?"
"What is the plan for Iraq? Do we have a plan?" asked the Rev. Barry Knaub, also from Struthers.
Susan Armstrong Smith of Bluff City, Kan., would ask: "What is your plan for rebuilding the nation we destroyed?"
"What specific plans would you present to Congress to bring the deficit back down to late-1990 levels without compromising the mission in Iraq?" asked Bob Kovitz of Tucson, Ariz.
Project's goals
The effort to ask readers about presidential campaign issues is part of The Associated Press Managing Editors National Credibility Roundtables Project.
One of the project's goals is to encourage editors to include voices of the public in conversations about news coverage and journalistic issues.
The newspapers and online sites taking part have built reader e-mail feedback systems. They find readers willing to get occasional e-mails asking their input. Editors send queries when they want to quickly hear more voices on a journalistic question or to gather a wider variety of sources for news coverage.
The e-mail queries are not a scientific poll.
"The idea is to hear more voices inside newsrooms when editors are planning coverage, to get messages with personality and passion," said Carol Nunnelley, director of the Roundtables Project.
"It's like conducting 1,750 person-on-the-street interviews," said Ken Sands, chief architect of the reader e-mail project and the online managing editor of The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash. "Editors love to hear from 'real' people in their own words."
"Many politicians would prefer [we] focus solely on their sound bites and the mudslinging against their opponents. But our readers clearly want more than just horse race-type coverage of elections," said Steve Thomas, managing editor of the Lincoln Journal Star in Nebraska.
"Many times, the voice that gets left out in elections is that of the citizen," Thomas said.
No surprises
The recent e-mail questions unearthed no surprise issues on a national scale. For example, a CBS News/New York Times poll in January asked registered voters nationwide "which one issue would you most like to hear the candidates for president discuss during the 2004 presidential campaign."
The top five issues cited were the economy and jobs; war/Iraq/foreign policy; education; taxes/IRS and defense/military.
The e-mail queries attracted distinct voices on the issues making headlines, speeches and debates. Here is a sampling of what editors around the country were told:
"If I had the candidates in my living room to chat with me, I would be selfish and want to talk about issues that affect my family," said Darin Arnold of LeSueur, Minn. "I would like to strip down their rhetoric and discuss the meaty issues -- the ones that everyday working class people face such as poor highways, expensive drugs and health insurance that is becoming out of reach for the average American."
Valley residents
Ryan Silvashy of Youngstown would ask about health care.
"I am a 23-year-old male who is on COBRA and starting a new job that doesn't offer benefits. I also have a pre-existing condition that prevents me from getting insurance," he said.
John Farcas of Hubbard would ask about the loss of good-paying jobs to outsourcing. The middle class is being eliminated with the exporting of jobs that made it affordable to maintain a good standard of living that our steel mills and other heavy industries provided, he said.
More Ohioans
"What specific actions would you take with the terrorist issue? How would you protect America from another attack? Why would this be better for the U.S.?" Joyce Schafer of Medina would like to ask.
Rick Kennedy of Akron would ask about "War In Iraq -- the lies that took us there."
Ron Hutchins of Ulysses, Neb., said: "I would like to know, from the Democratic candidates, what they see as a purpose or the role of our military."
Jeff Konzelman, of Burlington, N.J., like most who responded, has questions about a list of issues: Determining the proper exit strategy from Iraq, protecting U.S. borders, terrorism prevention, cutting or keeping taxes from going up, making it easier to go to or save for college.
Youngstowner's concerns
Brian Corbin of Youngstown has a lot of questions, too.
"How will you deal with the 43 million Americans without health-care insurance? How will you deal with free flow of labor between the U.S. and Mexico/Central America? How will you deal with the new foreign policy directive of 'preventative attacks' in a world wherein other countries could use the same justification to attack us first?"
Readers also raised questions about ethics in government, gay rights and same-sex marriage, and environment and energy concerns.
But at least one person, Earl Gates of Appleton, Wis., doubts the idea of his quizzing the candidates: "I can think of no useful purpose that such a chat would serve. The practicalities of running for office would overrule any announcement of principle or intent that might be made in such a venue as my living room."
XPhil Shook is a free-lance writer based in New York City who works with the APME National Credibility Roundtables project.