Rising Home Assessments/Taxes: 39 votes (19.50%)
Education (38 votes): 19.00%
Health Care (28 votes): 14.00%
Other (27 votes): 13.50%
Environment (22 votes): 11.00%
Rising Gas Prices (19 votes): 9.50%
Traffic (18 votes): 9.00%
Crime (6 votes): 3.00%
Car Taxes (3 votes): 1.50%
Admittedly, these results are unscientific and probably skewed towards Democrats. Nonetheless, I think they are interesting, if for no other reason than they do NOT show a single dominant issue this year, like the "No Car Tax" in 1997 for instance. If true, that could mean that this campaign season may lack the focus of some previous seasons, with a panoply of issues jockeying for attention.
What this survey DOES appear to show is that, although there's no dominant single issue, rising taxes on peoples' homes (39 votes) comes out, barely, on top. Thus, the dueling proposals to deal with this "problem" from the Kaine and Kilgore campaigns. Right behind rising real estate taxes comes education (38 votes), with health care (28 votes) not far behind. These latter two issues traditionally favor Democrats, as does the environment, with a surprisingly high 22 votes. Bad news for the Republicans this year?
Interestingly, to the extent that transportation is an issue this year, it's not car taxes (3 votes), but rising gas prices (19 votes) and traffic (18 votes). Will $2.30 per gallon gasoline have an impact on the Virginia governor's race? Who knows, but it's an interesting wildcard.
What's in the hodgepodge "other" category, which gets 27 votes? Most likely these are the "values" issues like religion, gay marriage, abortion and end-of-life issues (i.e., Terry Shiaivo). Whoops...guess I should have listed some of those explicitly as options.
Second to last -- but not least? -- comes crime, with just 6 votes. Looks like crime is not going to be much of an issue this year, potentially bad news for the "law-and-order" Republican candidates. This issue just doesn't seem to be high on the agenda for people, at least in this unscientific survey.
Anyway, these are the issues that appear to be on the minds of RaisingKaine readers. The question is whether or not the readership of this blog is representative of anything -- Democrats, blog-reading political junkies, or none of the above? Maybe I should do another survey and ask THAT question! On second thought...nah!