The Gamut

White House 2004

Look at these two graphs:

Graphics from pollingreport.com

I have no idea why Bush scored so well on National Security issues on the first poll. It really makes no sense. And if the Kerry people are good enough at using the spoils of the recent 9/11 hearings to their favor, hopefully even those numbers will change.

But the thing I want to note is that according to the second poll, national security and the war in Iraq are not as important to voters as the economy and healthcare respectively, and Kerry scored much better in both of those areas than Bush did. So if we weigh the issues on a sliding scale giving incremental points according to each issue's significance, we should see that Kerry should clearly be elected president on the merits alone. Right? Well, you'd think so anyway.

But let's see how the points play out. For the sake of this comparison, I'm calling terrorism and national security the same issue.

Jobs 35 points

Kerry 50% = 17.5 points
Bush 39% = 13.65 points

Terrorism/National security 22 points

Kerry 35% = 7.7 points
Bush 56% = 12.32 points

Health Care 16 points

Kerry 53% = 8.48 points
Bush 37% = 5.92 points

War in Iraq 11 points

Kerry 38% = 4.18 points
Bush 53% = 5.83 points

Education 8 points

Kerry 46% = 3.68 points
Bush 43% = 3.44 points

Taxes 5 points

Kerry 44% = 2.2 points
Bush 45% = 2.25 points

Totals

Kerry = 43.74 points
Bush = 43.41 points

That's too close.

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