Voters in Poll Want Priority to Be Economy, Their Top Issue

By MICHAEL COOPER and DALIA SUSSMAN
NYT

Senators Barack Obama and John McCain are heading into their conventions neck and neck in the presidential race, with voters focused overwhelmingly on economic issues but convinced that the candidates are not paying enough attention to their priorities, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Slim majorities said neither candidate had made clear what he would do as president, suggesting that both need to use their conventions to provide voters with a better sense of their plans for addressing the deteriorating economy, high energy prices, access to health care and national security.

Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is still closely associated with the deeply unpopular President Bush. Nearly half of those surveyed said that they expected him to continue the Bush administration’s policies if he were elected president. But voters, by a wide margin, view Mr. McCain as better prepared to be president than Mr. Obama, and as more likely to be an effective commander in chief.

Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, was trusted more by voters to handle their top concern, the economy. Sixty-five percent of those surveyed said they were confident that Mr. Obama would make the right decisions on the economy, compared with 54 percent who expressed confidence that Mr. McCain would. When it came to foreign policy, the image was inverted: 66 percent expressed confidence in Mr. McCain to make the right decisions, and 55 percent in Mr. Obama.

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