Poll: Character trumps policy for voters - Yahoo! News

Poll: Character trumps policy for voters - Yahoo! News: "By RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers WASHINGTON - For all the policy blueprints churned out by presidential campaigns, there is this indisputable fact: People care less about issues than they do about a candidate's character. A new Associated Press-Ipsos poll says 55 percent of those surveyed consider honesty, integrity and other values of character the most important qualities they look for in a presidential candidate. Just one-third look first to candidates' stances on issues; even fewer focus foremost on leadership traits, experience or intelligence. 'Voters only look at policies as a lens into what type of person the candidate is,' said Ken Mehlman, chairman of President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign. That campaign based its voter targeting and messaging strategies on the character-first theory. The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,001 adults, conducted Monday through Wednesday, found honesty was by far the most popular single trait — volunteered by 41 percent of voters in open-ended questioning. The results might have been different had respondents been forced to choose between either issues or character. But this survey allowed people to volunteer any 'qualities or characteristics,' and a minority seized on issues."