The post-mortem on Iowa has already filled megabytes and megabytes of web content.  But one key point seems to keep jumping out: THE ECONOMY.

ManufactureThis has been saying it for a while, and we hate to be right—but clearly the American people are worried about job security, and they’re taking their concerns to the polls.

How else to explain the very striking results in Iowa.  Populist, anti-outsourcing Republican Mike Huckabee won in a walk.  And former Senator John Edwards edged out current Senator Hillary Clinton for the number two spot by touting his strong opposition to NAFTA and other “job killing” trade agreements.

 The New York Times conducted a pre-caucus survey of voter attitudes that revealed just how significantly “the economy” was a big issue for voters.  Among Democrats, the economy tied “war in Iraq” as the leading Issue That Matters Most.  Among Republicans, the economy trumped both Iraq and “terrorism,” superseded only by “immigration.”

En route to New Hampshire and Super Tuesday, the candidates would be wise to focus on economic issues like jobs and China.  Hopefully they’ll start spending more time perusing ManufactureThis.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 4th, 2008 at 8:15 pm and is filed under Manufacturing in the U.S., Economic Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.