Pollsters have for years asked people to list what they consider to be the “most
important problem” on the national agenda. Such problems tend to track very closely
with media coverage of important problems, but these results are fascinating snapshots
of changes in public thinking and attitudes. The data shown in Figure 2.9 are
from the “Agenda Project” database, a project of the Universities of Washington
and Texas. The researchers found the “most important problem” (MIP) question in
a series of Gallup polls, and have normalized the data to make them comparable
over time. This figure reflects the historic problems people were thinking about
in these years. In 1965 civil rights matters dominate the agenda; by 1974, in the height of the energy crisis, energy concerns dominated political discussion. Over
half the respondents in 1984 isolated economic issues as the key issues. Defense
was also a major concern during this important era in the Cold War. Defense was
an even bigger concern during the height of the Vietnam War in the mid 1960s.
In 1994, health issues dominated in ways that they never had before, due in large
part to President Clinton’s attempts at health care reform. Crime and economics
were equally high on the MIP list in part of the 1990s. By 2004 macroeconomics
concerns were very important, but defense and health also gained a lot of attention.
And in 2004, international affairs was listed as an MIP more often than any time
since 1964, a result of greater international attention paid to issues like terrorism
and the wars being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.