Last night before entering that elusive dreamland my husband and I turned our TiVo to the McLaughlin Group ^[1].We are a little behind on our TV viewing preferring to spend our evenings outside in the last of the warm Portland summer so we were surprised to find instead of mocking the extreme characters on last week’s episode we were actually driven to a real conversation about one of their topics.

McLaughlin asked the panel what the top Domestic Policy issue will be in the 2008 Presidential Election. We started to tease and joke a bit but then hit the back button to hear the choices he presented:

A. Healthcare
B. Infrastructure
C. The Economy
D. Crime
E. None of the above

In my way of thinking most of the panelists dodged giving a direct answer. All except the guest panelist answered more than one of the topics. It seemed in the end obvious what the answer was for the Washington DC crowd but it caused us to wonder: What’s the answer for Portland, for Oregon? What are the most important issues to us in the election that looms on the horizon?