Seals, Dold; Satisf ying Voters’ Concerns and Keeping Party Values
When it comes to partisanship, the voters of Illinois’ 10th Congressional District are confused as to which party the candidates belong to. Democrat, Dan Seals, and Republican, Bob Dold, are in agreement on several issues and individually portray themselves as deficit and tax hawks yet social moderates in a recent debate. Contrary to the position of their National Parties as spelled out in a Yahoo!News article, both candidates oppose raising taxes and support keeping all of the tax cuts in place under former President George W. Bush which expire at the end of the year. Dold and Seals each campaign to take action on the issue of Medicare fraud. Furthermore, both candidates vow to help small businesses stimulate economic progression.
Social Security is the major issue that Dold and Seals hold different views on. Sponsored by the AARP, the 10th Congressional District debate focused on the topic of Social Security. Dold has proposed gradually raising the retirement age as a solution to the lack of funds for America’s aging population. Seals is against raising the retirement age and instead proposed cutting retirement payouts to some of the wealthiest Americans who “don’t need” the benefits. Dold told media sources during the primary that he supports allowing Americans to put up to 25% of their Social Security payments into individual bank accounts. Of course it is no surprise that Seals is completely against any type of privatization of Social Security payments.
Clearly both candidates have molded their platforms to please the voters of IL’s 10th Congressional District. The major concerns of these voters are reflected in the candidates’ ambitious platforms that are equally focused on the economy and creating jobs. The issue of Social Security is where Dan Seals lines up with the national Democratic Party and Bob Dold with the Republican Party. In the next few weeks the candidates, especially Bob Dold who lacks in the polls, need to make their platforms stand out in order to sway voters while still straddling the median voter line. Likewise, if elected, it would be no shock at all to see Dold go back on his word on the issue of tax cuts and follow the G.O.P’s new Contract on America which will very likely devalue tax cuts with major spending and program cuts. Of In any close competition, deception is key.
Nice post, I like the way you set the record straight and also at the same time laid out both of the candidates platforms. It is going to be interesting to see which platform IL-10 voters see would be the best fit for them.
ReplyDeleteI find it very interesting how the candidates line up on perhaps the most important issues of the election: Job creation and taxes. Like you said, they both seem to be appealing to the independents and the more moderate voters who are looking for stability at a time of economic turmoil like this. Their stances on Social Security were also interesting to me, when so much is focused on improving the economy not as much is heard about S.S., but really it is a becoming a larger problem in the United States. I'm interested to see how these candidates will make their cases on the matter.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting topic and something that you probably wouldn't expect to see in an election. it is probably a mark of how close this race is looking that the candidates seem to see eye to eye on so many nationally important issues; neither wants to alienate a large portion of voters so they're sticking to generalities about what needs to be fixed. It should be interesting to see where the major differences lie as it get closer to election day.
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