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I read last night regarding voters and pocketbook issues. In this survey 2/3 polled want universal health care. Those graphs are great! The health insurance companies are largely the culprit. The Teflon Don would be less greedy than BCBS, Aetna, etc.!!!

Poll: Pocketbook Issues Rising

By JIM KUHNHENN and TREVOR TOMPSON � 1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AP) � Kitchen table worries pushed ahead of the war in Iraq over the past month, a shift toward pocketbook issues that has gained currency as the election year dawns.

More than half the voters in an ongoing survey for The Associated Press and Yahoo News say the economy and health care are extremely important to them personally. They fear they will face unexpected medical expenses, their homes will lose value or mortgage and credit card payments will overwhelm them.

Events, however, can quickly change public opinion. Thursday's assassination of Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto could draw more attention to terrorism and national security, an issue that still ranked highly with the public and which 45 percent of those polled considered extremely important.

This latest AP-Yahoo News survey of more than 1,800 people by Knowledge Networks offers a unique opportunity to track changes in public attitudes as the presidential campaign unfolds. The first poll was last month and set a base line to measure national sentiment.

In the new results, men and women approaching retirement were especially attentive to the economy and health care, with six out of 10 ranking both issues extremely important. Politically, the attention to such domestic issues hangs darkly over Republicans. Voters say they are far more likely to trust Democrats to handle the economy and health care.

Consider Linda Zimmerman, a 50-year-old sheep farmer from Thurmont, Md. Her daughter and son-in-law are having trouble keeping up with two mortgages on a town house, she said. One street in her neighborhood has five homes for sale, and one has been on the market for two years.

Registered as a Republican, she's ready to reconsider.

"We're Republicans and I'm very unhappy with them, and I've been watching the Democrats," she said. "We did better when (Bill) Clinton was in than we did with Bush. It's just terrible."

The Democratic edge on such issues illustrates the predicament Republicans face going into a presidential election. Iraq doesn't dominate the news as it used to, replaced by headlines about slumping home sales, high gasoline prices and a credit crunch.

The impact of Bhutto's assassination on public opinion depends on whether Americans perceive her death as an added threat to the United States. Terrorism was the only issue polled that Republicans were more trusted than Democrats to handle well.

Republican Rudy Giuliani had benefited most from people's fears of terrorism. But over the past month his level of support dropped, even among voters who said terrorism was an important issue. Giuliani is now trying to get some of those voters back, releasing an ad Thursday that uses images of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on New York.

All in all, though, voters appear to be weighing other issues at least as heavily as the country heads into the first voting of the presidential election.

Financial worries have risen in prominence. Forty-eight percent of those polled said Social Security is extremely important to them, up from 42 percent in November. That's virtually the same as the 46 percent who considered Iraq extremely important.

These new public concerns are reflected on the campaign trail, where candidates are hitting domestic topics hard. There too, Democrats have an edge over Republicans when it comes to connecting with their core voters.

Overall, 42 percent of Democrats are very or extremely satisfied with the amount of attention their favored candidates are giving to the issues that matter most to them. Only 32 percent of Republicans feel that way about their candidates. Of all the candidates, Democrat Barack Obama gets the best rating among his supporters.

Bill Hine, a 65-year-old Vietnam veteran from Warrenton, Va., considers himself a "soft Republican" who is partial to John McCain. But the nation's health system needs fixing, he said, and he's not happy with what he's hearing.

"A lot of Republicans are just anti-anything, anti-changing anything, and that's one of the things I'll be looking at," he said.

Six out of 10 people polled said they believe it is at least somewhat likely that the U.S. economy will enter a recession next year. Slightly more � 64 percent � said they worried about a major unexpected medical expense, and 55 percent worried that the value of their stocks and retirement investments would drop.

Forty-four percent said they were concerned that the value of their homes would decrease during the next six months. That sentiment was especially strong in the mountain states.

"Middle-class America is being chipped away at," said Edward Lemieux, a 57-year-old pattern maker from North Smithfield, R.I., who plans to support Obama for president.

His view is influenced by the flight of manufacturing jobs from his state, by the "For Sale" signs that outnumber the "Sold" signs on neighborhood lawns and by his mother's health care needs.

"We're all of a sudden becoming a country of rich and poor," he said. "The middle class is eroding."

Despite those worries, respondents have grown slightly more optimistic about the direction of the nation during the past month. Nearly three out of 10 say the country is on the right path, compared with 24 percent last month. This uptick in the national mood is evident in both parties, though it's much stronger among Republicans. Still, more than seven out of 10 said they believe the U.S. is headed down the wrong track.

Interest in immigration � a major issue in the Republican presidential contest � remained the same as last month, with 37 percent saying it was an extremely important issue. But for all the candidates' efforts to distinguish themselves on that issue, the poll found that none of the leading contenders holds an advantage among Republicans who feel most strongly about immigration.

Sentiments on health care and the economy could make a difference in the Democratic contest.

Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards supporters have much stronger feelings about the economy and Social Security than Obama voters. Edwards has staked his campaign on a message of economic populism, while Clinton draws 40 percent of her support from people with household incomes of less than $25,000, far more than her rivals.

Clinton, Obama and Edwards have been feuding over who would provide the most comprehensive health care plan.

Nearly two-thirds of voters polled said the United States should adopt a universal health insurance program "in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare that is run by the government and financed by taxpayers." Fewer, but still a majority at 54 percent, said they supported a single-payer system whereby all Americans would get their health insurance through a taxpayer-financed government plan.

Lynn Haynes, 42, of Huntington, W.Va., works in the state government's welfare department where she sees clients who can't afford health care. What's more, she has a 35-year-old sister who is developmentally delayed and "falls into the cracks" of government assistance programs. She's a registered Republican, likes Giuliani but supports universal health care and is giving Democrats a hard look.

"I see too many people at work especially who just don't get any health care," Haynes said. "I look at what they get for retirement and Social Security, and I don't see how they live on that and afford their prescriptions."

The survey of 1,821 adults was conducted from Dec. 14-20, and had an overall margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. Included were interviews with 847 Democrats, for whom the margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.4 points, and 655 Republicans, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.8 points.

The poll was conducted over the Internet by Knowledge Networks, which initially contacted people using traditional telephone polling methods and followed with online interviews. People chosen for the study who had no Internet access were given it for free.

AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and Associated Press writer Christine Simmons contributed to this report.

Ahh, the paradox of what is God's will. "Thou shalt not kill" being one of the commandments, I find it really strange how many bloody battles are chronicled in the Bible and of course, God's team always wins. So what's that message - don't kill unless God tells you its cool? How do you know GOD is the one telling you to kill - maybe its a demon impersonating god and trying to get you sin by killing without God's express permission?

Certainly our president must have a direct line to God and has direct permission to go kill - it can't possibly be God's will for those people to stay alive (yet strangely he created them in the first place, hmmmm).

And what about bugs and vermin? Its OK to kill them - right? Its OK to kill animals for sport and food, right? Don't need God's permission to kill them - even though it is presumably God's will for them to be alive or they wouldn't be here?

posts that is important to understand the profound difference in liberals and conservatives...while I don't agree with the exact wording...it is in the right vein. She said "liberals view it as a human issue and conservatives view it as a business." That is not entirely true, because that suggests conservatives do not view it as a human issue at all. They do. The difference is, I believe, that while conservatives do have the same compassion, that is tempered with sober thinking. Thinking about what it will cost. Thinking about the long-term effects. Thinking about how it affects everyone. There has to be that balance. One part of the family needs to try to keep the other part of the family from giving away the farm, to put it simply. You make similar decisions in your personal lives. Your kids want a lot of things. You can't afford to give them everything they want, so you have to make choices. There just needs to be that balance. That is obvious from the postings. Any long-term effect or cost of an entitlement is not entertained, and if it is brought to light, it is greeted with, for lack of a better phrase, "Why do you want to rain on the parade?" And that really is not the intention. Conservatives are not against everyone having health care. Conservatives are not against helping those truly in need. Conservatives are against keeping people in poverty and beholden to the central government for their every need. That is a dangerous path.

Why can't we ask the government, instead of just adding yet aonther entitlement, to look at how much money comes in from income taxes as they now stand. Then look at how much is spent on entitlements. If it is the consensus of the nation that national health care is the most important to them, then that should be funded first. Without raising taxes. That would be reform; you say you want reform.

Why not reform the welfare system? Much money could be saved there. Tighten it up. Stop making assistance permanent if the person is able to work. Give them a check, and with that check mandatory participation in job training and placement program, and when they place you, the check stops. No more endless welfare checks for people who are able to work. If it is a low wage job, then other entitlements can help...food stamps, etc. Get people off the government tab who are able to work. I think we would all be amazed at how much money that would free up for other more important entitlements. That is what I am talking about. Let's not create yet another entitlement and raise taxes yet again. Let's tighten up the government belt.

All that being said, I still have great reservations about national health care from a socialism point of view. Reform health care, introduce more free market negotiation to get the cost of health care down....all those things I am not against. We don't know if it will work or not, but I would think we should try that first before starting down the slippery slope of socialist programs.

In closing, I would just like to say....we are all Americans, and we do have that in common. Our lives are probably very similar and we probably come from about the same economic group. We have differing views, but that doesn't mean we can't treat each other respectfully and not take postings personally, and yes, I am guilty like others of the "pouty postings." I would like to start away from that, and am going to make a concentrated effort to do so. I hope others will join me. We can have discussions, disagreements and lively debates...without disliking someone we don't really know because their opinions differ. AsI have said and others have said...we have friends or family members with opposing views, but we manage to get through that. My stepdaughters both are verryyy liberal gals, and we have lively discussions, I agree with them occasionally and they agree with me occasionally...and in the end...we all know where we would like to go, we just differ in how to get there.

*Pro-life to me means anti-war, anti-starvation, anti-subjugation, etcetera, for all living things.*

I agree 100% with what you had to say. Too many Americans have been brainwashed by fear, and I think many Americans who are against universal healthcare are just buying into the Chicken Little syndrome that is so prevelent in this country lately. The sky will fall if all of our citizens have access to affordable healthcare!

As you said, using France's system as a model does not mean we have to do everything exactly as France has, but they are a great example of a system that is working.

That's exactly what I said. Scarborough has always supported Bush. There is a difference between supporting and blindly following. For example, you see nothing wrong with how this case was handled. You see nothing wrong with Bush lying every time he opens his mouth. That's blind faith.

Scarborough is an objective Republican who believes in honesty. I realize this is a difficult concept for some CONS to understand. Once upon a time, honesty was considered a good thing in the United States. People who were honest were considered to have moral character and integrity. Scarborough is one of those rare of Republicans, totally foreign to you, I'm sure.

To blindly follow (which I'm sure you're quite familiar with) means worshiping a man as if he's some kind of god, believing every single word he says, even when you see evidence to the contrary right before your eyes. He lies every day; those who follow blindly believe him every day. And when it becomes common knowledge that he's lied and when they can't twist and manipulate the lie out of recognition any more, then his blind followers make excuses for him, usually blaming democrats or anyone else who is handy but never blaming the liar himself. And they justify all the lying because they have that special *connection* with God. They can lie all they want and God just winks at them and says it's okay because their place in heaven has already been guaranteed, unlike the rest of us poor slobs out there without that special connection.

The only thing that scares me more than Bush having the same credibility as Al Qaeda is the fact that there are so many morons who blindly follow him, who just aren't smart enough to figure out that Bush was never on their side - he's only on the side of big money. He even joked about his *base* - the *haves* and the *have nots.*

By the way, you are on the liberal board. If you don't care for the liberal point of view, the CON board is ---->

I was responding to this: *And know a lot PK. I know A LOT about your posting habits more than you could ever imagine.* I was accused of doing something I simply didn't do, so that just shows me how much you people really DO know, and, yes, I can *imagine* a LOT when faced with this kind of ominous post.

Those of your ilk have dark histories of murdering people of different beliefs (for example, personnel at abortion clinics), and the latest tactic of the Neocons is intimidation and retribution. Just ask Valerie Plame, who used to have a career before her husband spoke the truth.

If someone said that to you on your board, you'd be accusing them of threatening to assassinate you and contacting the FBI. Who are you KIDDING? Typical neocon double standard and hypocrisy at work again.

but the point is, the far left hates Cheney as much or more than Bush, so impeach Bush, get Cheney, then what? Impeach Cheney? Then you get Hastert. I know the far left doesn't like him. Impeach him and get Ted Stevens. He's a Republican, too. (President pro tempore of the Senate). Impeach him and get...Condi Rice...if she isn't buying shoes. What have you gained. Absolutely nothing. Well...maybe some payback for Clinton, which is what this is all about anyway. Why not just wait until 2008 and vote the bums out.

Yeah Piglet!!

Poll: Pocketbook Issues Rising