A few weeks ago, Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign sent an email out to its subscribed supporters. It asked them to fill out a short survey about the top five most important issues to them politically. There was a pre-provided list, which included all of Nader’s main campaign issues (which can be seen here), and you could write in any other choice. The choices were:
The results were recently published, and are available at this page. They reveal that the most pressing issue to active Nader supporters is getting single payer, government-run health care in the United States. Almost three percentage points behind is getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan (both military and private contractors). Not far behind that is “converting to a renewable energy economy.”
The issues were ranked in a system that gave number one five points, number two four points, and so on. The weighted and unweighted results are available in an Excel spreadsheet at votenader.org, and are posted below:
| Issue Expression | Issue 1 | Issue 2 | Issue 3 | Issue 4 | Issue 5 | Weighted Total | Raw Total | |||||||||
| Adopt single-payer healthcare | 1,865 | 18.68% | 1,557 | 15.69% | 1,061 | 10.71% | 787 | 8.01% | 511 | 5.24% | 20,821 | 14.00% | 5,781 | 11.70% | ||
| Full military and corporate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan | 1,634 | 16.37% | 1,193 | 12.02% | 761 | 7.68% | 591 | 6.01% | 451 | 4.62% | 16,858 | 11.33% | 4,630 | 9.37% | ||
| Convert to a renewable energy economy | 1,251 | 12.53% | 1,010 | 10.18% | 1,080 | 10.90% | 920 | 9.36% | 768 | 7.87% | 16,143 | 10.85% | 5,029 | 10.18% | ||
| End corporate welfare, subsidies and bailouts | 853 | 8.54% | 957 | 9.64% | 949 | 9.58% | 903 | 9.19% | 722 | 7.40% | 13,468 | 9.05% | 4,384 | 8.88% | ||
| Include 3rd party candidates in presidential debates | 739 | 7.40% | 685 | 6.90% | 770 | 7.77% | 751 | 7.64% | 866 | 8.88% | 11,113 | 7.47% | 3,811 | 7.72% | ||
| Major cuts in the U.S. military budget | 358 | 3.59% | 714 | 7.19% | 710 | 7.17% | 663 | 6.75% | 570 | 5.84% | 8,672 | 5.83% | 3,015 | 6.10% | ||
| Amend the constitution to end corporate personhood | 575 | 5.76% | 550 | 5.54% | 538 | 5.43% | 547 | 5.57% | 560 | 5.74% | 8,343 | 5.61% | 2,770 | 5.61% | ||
| Other | 871 | 8.72% | 364 | 3.67% | 315 | 3.18% | 261 | 2.66% | 408 | 4.18% | 7,686 | 5.17% | 2,219 | 4.49% | ||
| Prosecute corporate criminals | 318 | 3.19% | 534 | 5.38% | 573 | 5.78% | 683 | 6.95% | 661 | 6.78% | 7,472 | 5.02% | 2,769 | 5.61% | ||
| Federalize ballot access for federal candidates and end obstructions to 3rd parties | 289 | 2.89% | 406 | 4.09% | 497 | 5.02% | 566 | 5.76% | 607 | 6.22% | 6,299 | 4.24% | 2,365 | 4.79% | ||
| Pass a federal living wage | 261 | 2.61% | 377 | 3.80% | 494 | 4.99% | 586 | 5.96% | 526 | 5.39% | 5,993 | 4.03% | 2,244 | 4.54% | ||
| End the war on drugs | 196 | 1.96% | 320 | 3.22% | 455 | 4.59% | 536 | 5.45% | 645 | 6.61% | 5,342 | 3.59% | 2,152 | 4.36% | ||
| Support and defend a two-state solution for Israel/Palestine | 137 | 1.37% | 223 | 2.25% | 290 | 2.93% | 314 | 3.20% | 464 | 4.76% | 3,539 | 2.38% | 1,428 | 2.89% | ||
| Prevent corporate exploitation of public lands | 95 | 0.95% | 184 | 1.85% | 261 | 2.64% | 355 | 3.61% | 412 | 4.22% | 3,116 | 2.09% | 1,307 | 2.65% | ||
| Enact federal instant-runoff voting | 149 | 1.49% | 145 | 1.46% | 183 | 1.85% | 163 | 1.66% | 248 | 2.54% | 2,448 | 1.65% | 888 | 1.80% | ||
| Adopt a carbon pollution tax | 84 | 0.84% | 160 | 1.61% | 212 | 2.14% | 199 | 2.03% | 217 | 2.22% | 2,311 | 1.55% | 872 | 1.77% | ||
| Repeal the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act | 53 | 0.53% | 103 | 1.04% | 194 | 1.96% | 258 | 2.63% | 307 | 3.15% | 2,082 | 1.40% | 915 | 1.85% | ||
| Expand citizens’ ability to defend their rights through the civil justice (jury) system | 77 | 0.77% | 136 | 1.37% | 159 | 1.61% | 213 | 2.17% | 237 | 2.43% | 2,069 | 1.39% | 822 | 1.66% | ||
| Stop new nuclear power plants | 60 | 0.60% | 130 | 1.31% | 185 | 1.87% | 227 | 2.31% | 227 | 2.33% | 2,056 | 1.38% | 829 | 1.68% | ||
| Adopt a national initiative/referendum | 85 | 0.85% | 89 | 0.90% | 97 | 0.98% | 125 | 1.27% | 153 | 1.57% | 1,475 | 0.99% | 549 | 1.11% | ||
| Adopt a securities speculation tax | 33 | 0.33% | 88 | 0.89% | 121 | 1.22% | 178 | 1.81% | 194 | 1.99% | 1,430 | 0.96% | 614 | 1.24% | ||
| 9,983 | ##### | 9,925 | ##### | 9,905 | ##### | 9,826 | ##### | 9,754 | ##### | 148,736 | ##### | 49,393 | ##### |
Interestingly, including third party candidates in the presidential debates was the fifth most popular issue. Ballot access reform (Nader was very specific on what he wants here) rounded out the top ten. And adopting Instant Runoff Voting – as opposed to approval voting, condorcet voting, or some other method of voting – made it to number fifteen.
Interestingly, “adopt a national initiative/referendum” was picked by just over 1.1% of Nader supporters, or 549 people. This is an idea that fellow third party candidate Mike Gravel has championed for the past thirty years, and just this year made it into Nader’s official campaign platform. Considering the relative freshness and general unfamiliarity with this issue compared with the other things Nader is proposing, it is interesting that this many people picked it.
The results of the “other” choices will be published soon, as well. As for what is available now, here is an excerpt of the Nader campaign’s commentary:
Some points of interest from the results:
- A full one-third of the respondents chose the adoption of single-payer healthcare as either their top issue or ranked it second. Almost 12 percent picked it in one of the five slots, also giving that issue the highest raw total.
- Withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, when combined with major cuts in the US military budget, shows a strong preference for peace, in addition to good health.
- Third in the weighted total rankings is the conversion to a renewable energy economy. Stopping nuclear power plants and enacting a carbon tax were not highly popular avenues for accomplishing this goal, which would seem to anticipate the intense debate that will take place over the coming years on just what will be required to put the US and the world on a sustainable energy footing.
- There is a broad consensus among the respondents in favor of corporate reform, re-regulation, and sanctions and supervision as remedies for increasingly evident corporate malfeasance.
The high number of “Other” responses in the top issue category was due to a number of factors, and requires more time to evaluate. Please check back here over the coming days for a more complete discussion of the results. In the meantime, some preliminary observations from the survey responses:
Many people expressed, as their alternative top issue, a desire for broad and sweeping improvements in the state of our democracy. That desire was a major theme of the Nader/Gonzalez campaign, but is hard to quantify.
2 responses so far ↓
1 more voices // Dec 8, 2008 at 12:22 pm
A few thousand of us need to send this off to http://www.change.gov and see if the Obamans are actually listening… Thanks for posting it here.
2 Ross Levin // Dec 8, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Great idea! How do you submit it, exactly?
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