Mankiw on the economist vote.

Greg Mankiw's article today covers how to get the economist vote.

If you're not familiar with Professor Mankiw, he was the Chairman of the council of economic advisors in the Bush administration, and has written what is probably the best selling introductory economics textbook. He is unusually (at least for someone employed by the Bush administration) fair and measured, and is if nothing else always pithy in his writing. Thus, he gives credit where credit is due to each of the current presidential candidates.

He covers in this article one thing which I have personally found confusing about the political divide: how a typical republican platform includes both anti-immigration and pro-free-trade policy, and the typical democrat platform is the opposite, despite the fact that the selections made in each platform are opposite positions in the wider discussion of globalism.

Some models predict the peak of oil production to occur as early as the next president's administration, thus, of all the positions he supports in his article, it would be reasonable to suggest that "tax the use of energy" might be one of the more important ones to consider. Adding to that issue's importance: decreasing the country's oil demand decreases the administration's (perceived) need to occupy oil-rich nations.