Updated: February 1, 2008

In this section we proceed to the analysis of the media coverage given by the media to the campaign issues, for each party and for each candidate.

The graph below shows a global view of the more relevant issues as perceived by the global media in English. This result is generated by the presence of the selected issues in the news articles of each one of the main candidates of each party.

According to our results, the main issue as viewed by the press is the Iraq issue, followed by the economic situation and remedes. Third and fourth issues, well ahead from the two main campaign issues are Immigation and Health Care.

Updated: February 2, 2008

In the following graph we contrast the views presented by  the global media coverage concerning the electoral issues with the actual concerns of US voters. We use as reference the poll conducted by Economist/YouGov/Polimetrix, 28-28 January 2008. The following question was answered by 993 people: "Which of these is the most important issue for you?". The wording of the answers does not always coincide with our own references, based in Gallup questionnaires. We have made the following regrouping: Our "Economy" and "Taxes" issues correspond to "Economy" for The Economist.  Our "Energy" issue corresponds to  "Environment" and "Global Warming" issue for The Economist. Our "National Secutiry" issue corresponds to "Terrorism" for The Economist. There is no a direct correspondence to our "Abortion" issue in The Economist poll.

We can appreciate from the table a quite suprising closeness between voters' views and worries and the issues conveyed by the press in relation with the Democrat and Republican candidates. According to our results, the war in Iraq is receiving a substantial higher coverage than the actual voters' worries. The economy receives less media attention than the importance given by people.

We will check in the coming weeks the evolution of both series and their interrelationship.