Once-key issues vanish from presidential race
Unforeseen events contribute to one of the most unpredictable elections
By STEWART M. POWELL and KYLE PENDERGAST
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
Nov. 2, 2008, 11:43PM

DISAPPEARING ISSUES

A look at the candidates' stances on issues that have been moved to the campaign's rear:

Iraq

McCain : It would be a mistake to pull U.S. forces out of Iraq before Al Qaida is defeated. American troops should remain in the country until Iraqi forces can take over.

Obama: The war in Iraq never should've been fought in the first place. The U.S. should complete the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq in 16 months.


Immigration

McCain: The central focus should be on tightening border security, but the country should also implement a guest worker program and provide a path to legal residence.

Obama: There must be comprehensive immigration reform with greater border-control mechanisms, a guest worker program and a path to legal residence.


Education

McCain: No Child Left Behind is a good start but academic standards should be the responsibility of state and local agencies.

Obama: No Child Left Behind needs to do better at measuring student progress. It should take a less punitive approach to failing schools.


Social Security

McCain: We should supplement the current Social Security system with personal accounts, allowing younger workers to invest a portion of their payroll taxes in the stock market.

Obama: The next president should consider all possibilities to solving the problems of Social Security, but privatization is not an attractive option. Instead, we should raise the payroll tax on incomes over $250,000.


Health care

McCain : The tax exemption for health-insurance premiums paid by employers should be eliminated. In place, a refundable tax credit of $5,000 should be given to families, or $2,500 to individuals.

Obama: Employers would be required to share the costs of insuring their workers. A $65 billion dollar package would mandate coverage for children, but not adults.


Trade

McCain: Free trade should be expanded and trade barriers should be lowered.

Obama: Free trade must be fair. NAFTA should be re-negotiated to bolster labor and environmental standards.

COMPILED BY KYLE PENDERGAST


WASHINGTON — Immigration was a hot-button issue when underdog John McCain fought his way through a crowded field to capture the Republican presidential nomination.

And the North American Free Trade Agreement was causing heartburn for Democrat Barack Obama as he negotiated primaries in economically strapped industrial states such as Ohio where many Democrats and union members questioned free trade.

But not any more.

Those two issues — and many others — have vanished from the political landscape as McCain and Obama head into Tuesday's election.

Why? Some have run their course. But others lurked beneath the surface until they were triggered by unforeseen events. The result is that the campaign was one of the most unpredictable in our history.

In February, the Iraq war topped concerns in Gallup Polls. By June, energy had seized the spotlight with $4-a-gallon gasoline. By October, Wall Street's meltdown elbowed its way to the top of the polls as fears spread about jobs, retirement accounts and college funds.

"The economic issues sucked all the oxygen away from all the other issues — (issues that) are important but neglected," says Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin.

B. Dan Wood, a political scientist at Texas A&M University, sees "a crowding-out effect" with the economic issues taking hold. He explains: "Candidates and people process issues serially rather than in parallel," giving today's concerns greater impact.


Shying away
But shifting public attention does not account for all the issues that came and went on the campaign trail. Both McCain and Obama shied away from tricky issues that threatened to alienate their bases.

McCain curried support among conservative Republicans by glossing over his backing for immigration reform that offered a pathway to citizenship for some illegal immigrants. Instead, he pressed for increases in the Border Patrol and a border fence.

Now, both McCain and Obama support comprehensive immigration reform that would include border controls and a legal path for illegal immigrants to work in the U.S. and eventually seek citizenship. That agreement, says Buchanan, has been largely ignored on the campaign trail because the candidates have focused instead on "trying to isolate distinctions."

Obama has remained largely silent about NAFTA, the free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, during his final push. Many union members in the battleground states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania blame job losses on the 15-year-old trade pact.

Obama's decision to skirt the issue also avoided reviving a controversy ignited by an economic adviser's reassurances to the Canadians after the candidate threatened to renegotiate the treaty.

Some issues left the political landscape because they had run out of steam.


Broadening attacks
In September, McCain attacked Obama over his acquaintance with former 1960s radical William Ayers, now an education professor in Chicago, before shifting to other avenues of attack, including assertions that Obama is a "spread the wealth" socialist.

Similarly, Obama broadened his attacks on McCain beyond his initial claims that the Arizona senator was a puppet of President Bush.

"Normally candidates have more control over the campaign agenda than they did this year," says Forrest Maltzman, a political scientist at George Washington University. "Given the public focus on the economy, the candidates started to look foolish for talking about anything else."


Lessons from 2000
The candidates barely touched upon perennial disputes over issues such as the philosophies of prospective judicial appointments, gay rights or abortion.

Voters' abrupt shift to the economy and McCain's and Obama's responses left many other issues neglected.

Both men skated past differences on overhauling the nation's health insurance system, their plans for the Social Security system and their foreign policy objectives.

Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, a political scientist at the University of North Texas, says candidates sometimes can push long-term problems off their plates because they have difficulties fashioning coalitions to solve the problems.

"They're going to be really cautious about whether or not they're going to be the one to put their job on the line," he says.

The irony is that many of the issues ignored during a presidential campaign often show up on the winner's desk in the Oval Office. As Buchanan observes: ''Campaigns are moments in time that don't necessarily govern what happens later."

During the 2000 presidential campaign, for example, neither George W. Bush nor Al Gore mentioned Islamic terrorism during three debates. Yet the repercussions of Osama bin Laden's subsequent attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, dominated the administration's agenda for the remainder of the Bush presidency, and contributed to Bush's re-election in 2004.

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