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Choosing A Presidential Candidate : The Future President Will Do For The Country

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Generally there are several key positions voters focus on when selecting a presidential candidate. Whether they release it or not, macroeconomics take a key in their thoughts by defining candidates based on positions of unemployment, income, and inflation. Many believe that voter support is based on differentiating viewpoints of past, present, and future economic conditions. For the most part, voters position themselves on one side or the other of the same coin. There is one side of the coin that is largely concerned with what the incumbent will personally do for them; the other side focuses on what the future president will do for the country. Donald R. Kinder and D. Roderick Kiewiet refer to the first group as pocketbook voters (Kinder & Kiewiet, 1981, p. 130). In the British Journal of Political Science, they further state that these citizens “support candidates and parties that have advanced their economic interest and oppose candidates and parties that appear to threaten them.” The other side of the coin represents what Kinder & Kiewiet refer to as sociotropic voters. These citizens are “influenced most of all by the country’s pocketbook, not their own” (Kinder & Kiewiet, 1981, p. 132). In Sociotropic Politics: The American Case, Kinder and Kiewiet further explain sociotropic judgments to be: “assessments of recent trends in general business conditions; evaluations of how well the government was management economic problems; and which party was more competent

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