Think your vote doesn't really matter in the upcoming presidential election? Think again.
Moms are expected to be a crucial swing vote this November, and both the Obama and Romney campaigns are hoping to win their approval.
Since the campaigns are listening, we've decided to come up with a few questions for the candidates that characterize what the moms of America care about most.
This week, we'll be asking our political bloggers to choose three questions they'd most like to ask the presidential candidates. Next week, we'll let you vote on your number one question from their list. After that, we'll do our best to make sure that question is answered for you.
Check out some of the issues we found moms care about most in our Moms Matter survey after the jump -- then tell us in the comments what you'd like to ask the candidates.
After surveying CafeMom members, we've found that moms overwhelmingly care most about the same thing the rest of the nation cares about: the economy.
Specifically, moms are concerned about the short-term challenges Americans are facing right now, of paying for groceries and gas and making mortgage payments. They want a president who understands what they're going through and will work to make these difficulties a little easier to bear.
Moms also want more jobs to be created as soon as possible. We've heard from many families with moms and dads who are underemployed or unemployed. They want to work and they want to use the skills they've worked hard to learn.
Health care also ranks high on moms' lists. A majority of the moms we surveyed believe that health care costs will go up over the next five years, and that the quality of their health care will decrease. For moms who make most of the health care decisions in their families, this is a major concern.
Many moms I've talked to also rank the candidates' positions on education as a priority. Whether they're still paying off their own student loans, struggling to pay for their children's college tuition, or ruing the condition of their district's public school system, they want a candidate with policies that make education better and more affordable for American families.
Foreign policy, energy, and social issues rank far lower on the lists of the moms we've heard from.
Here's what our political bloggers have to say:
3 Questions for the Presidential Candidates to Get a Good Conversation Going
3 Questions for Presidential Hopefuls Obama & Romney
Questions for Candidates Obama & Romney From a 'Bitter Clinger'
3 Questions for Obama & Romney From a Republican Mom
3 Questions I'd Like to Ask President Obama & Mitt Romney
This Hot Dad Wants to Do Your Ironing
KStew Refuses to Shower
This Hot Dad Wants to Cook You Dinner
This Hot Dad Cooks AND Does the Dishes
Comments 26
Stop running for president. Get some one else, you did not get to win the races for the past few presidencies because we did not want you to begin with so why do you contiualisly run when people did not want you before? We need new faces who know what the heck they are doing.
My questions:
1) If elected president would you be willing to donate your income to fund your homestate's food banks and also offer the presidential pension in your homestate as a college scholarship? If you really want to serve the best interests of this country this would prove your dedication.
2) Would you raise the tariffis on all imported goods so that we can start promoting our own goods again and help cut our import budget?
3) Will you put a plan into action that will utalize our unskilled labor so that they can be trained to repair our crumbling infrastructure?
4) Will you make it mandatory that public service ( litter pick up, food bank distrubution, and other "volunteer" activities) be part of being allowed to be on ANY government support? (From NACCRA, SNAP, Welfare, SSI, or whatever). (And yes that means I would be doing it as well).
5) Will you not pass any law that supports your religion in any way?
How long until we can repeal Obamacare?
What I'd like to ask isn't on the list. Actually, two things:
1. There has been several clashes between federal law and religious liberty in recent years: examples including the issue of Catholic institutions being made to cover birth control under the new health care law, and challenges to the ministerial exception (which allows religious institutions exemption from some federal employment legislation in regards to ministerial positions). How do you interpret the first amendment's application to these types of cases.
2. What are your plans, and what have you done in the past, to eliminate unessicary red tape for small businesses? And do you have any plans for changing certain regulations for microbusinesses (very small businesses, usually run in the home) in regards to regulations? Some regulations which make perfect sense for larger business (such as the batch reporting requirement of the CPSIA) don't make sense for handcrafters working from home making one of a kind crafts.
4) Will you make it mandatory that public service ( litter pick up, food bank distrubution, and other "volunteer" activities) be part of being allowed to be on ANY government support? (From NACCRA, SNAP, Welfare, SSI, or whatever). (And yes that means I would be doing it as well).
OK, I'm not running for anything...but just had to comment on this. This doesn't make sense for some forms of public support, like disability or medicare. If people need support because they are too sick to work, making them volunteer doesn't make sense. And what about the elderly? Someone with alziemers, or advanced parkinsons, or someone going through chemo, or someone who is on a feeding tube,doesn't exactly have a way to volunteer.
Now, I could see this for unemployment! If you're unemployed, making volunteering a requirement sounds like a good idea.