7 issues the 2012 candidates should be talking about

ANALYSIS - Presidential campaigns rarely lead to great discussions of public policy, and this one has been no exception...

perrybaconjr

Sep 23, 2012

But both Obama and Romney have favored stricter gun laws before, suggesting their reluctance now is more political than personal. Romney is in some ways bowing to both members of his party and the National Rifle Association, which strongly backs GOP candidates and opposes nearly all gun laws.

Democrats believe gun control is a losing issue, citing Al Gore’s defeat in 2000 in his home state of Tennessee during his presidential campaign after he highlighted gun control. But twelve years is a long time, and it’s hard to imagine many voters who are backing the president now but would defect from him if he proposed some kind of limited gun control measure.

4. Education

The two candidates have given lip service to education. (Romney has cast it as the “civil rights issue of our era,” while the president has touted his ideas to increase student aid and the number of middle and high school teachers in math and science.)

But the American education system is confronting some major issues, as the recent teacher strike in Chicago illustrated. Is the struggle of some schools the result of bad teachers, the students they teach, parents, neighborhoods or all of the above? Should teachers be paid more to encourage more higher-achieving people to enter the profession? Is increased accountability for teachers helping?Are teachers’ unions an unnecessary major barrier to school reform?

5. The Drug War

“Hundreds of thousands of Americans, mostly black and poor, are unable to get a job, a credit card or even an apartment to rent because of the lasting stigma of a criminal record for carrying an ounce of marijuana,” the New York Times wrote earlier this year.

While in office, Obama has reduced the disparity in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine and has said he would not legalize marijuana use. But it’s unclear if he would take additional steps to limit the drug war, or what, if anything, Romney would do on an very important issue.)

6. The War on Terror

President Obama has employed a number of controversial tactics in the pursuing and killing of terrorists, mostly notably the use of unmanned military airplanes called drones. Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have cast the policy as an “illegal “targeted killing” program.” It could be argued that the bi-partisan decision of Congress not to allow the closing of the military prison at Guantanomo Bay or allow the transfer of most alleged terrorists for trials in U.S. courts has effectively forced the administration to kill, rather than capture, terrorists.

Obama has not faced sustained questioning about these policies and whether they violate international law. And it’s not clear Romney would keep this structure in place if he won.

7. Affirmative action

The Supreme Court holds a hearing Oct 10 on the controversial policy and is expected to make a ruling next spring on its constitutionality. The case in particular regards a white female student who sued the University of Texas at Austin, arguing she was denied admission in part because the school’s policies allow the consideration of race and therefore unfairly favored non-white applicants.

With ex-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who provided the fifth vote to keep affirmative action in place in 2003, now replaced by the more conservative Samuel Alito, it is widely expected affirmative action will be ruled unconstitutional and banned nationwide.

The Obama administration has filed a brief in support of University of Texas’ affirmative action program. But neither the president nor Romney has not discussed the issue in detail. Would they favor class-based preferences for universities if race is not allowed to be used in admissions? If race cannot be considered, should universities still be allowed to offer preferential treatment to the children of alumni, commonly known as legacies?