Economy could trump Iraq as campaign issue

Candidates’ top advisers see middle-class concerns deciding election

Gene Sperling, economic adviser to the Clinton campaign, tells MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer that it hasn’t been a good five or six years for working-class families.
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The war in Iraq may be foremost in voters’ minds right now, but when it comes time to vote for president late next year, pocketbook issues such as taxes, jobs and health care will be what makes the final difference, top advisers to the leading contenders said Friday.

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, released Wednesday, found that the war was, by far, the top concern of voters, cited by 34 percent. But when taken together, four economy-related issues — health care, job creation, energy costs and the rising federal deficit — were cited by another 33 percent.

In interviews with MSNBC, the economic advisers to the six leading presidential candidates agreed Friday that the results bore out James Carville’s famous dictum, issued in 1992 when he was a top adviser to Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, that “it’s the economy, stupid.”

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19210158/

...will be a major hole to climb out of