Question

If you were to run for Congress, what would be your three most important campaign issues? Why did you choose these issues? Whose interest do these issues reflect - your own, certain interest groups, or actual people in your district? If you say that the issue(s) reflect the interests of the people of your district, how do you know this? What would you do that could make a difference in solving these issues?

Answer 1

Three most important campaign issues

Female Leadership

• Across the country, female candidates are reshaping national politics, intent on making the next Congress look much different than the current one.
• The numbers are record-breaking and staggering. Today, 84 of the 435 House members are women. An eye-popping 239 women are on the ballot for House seats this November, including many races where multiple women are on the general-election value.
• While Republicans have some top-tier female candidates, the “pink wave” is generally also blue.
• The women running for Congress include former fighter pilots, intelligence officers, doctors, nurses, and nonprofit leaders. Their campaigns have already shed light on issues like paid family leave, minimum wage, health care and the #MeToo movement.
• While every candidate’s story is different, their diverse backgrounds reveal an urgency to get fresh and new ways of thinking into Washington.
• Their shared stories about why they were moved to act now point to common themes of opposition, and also vision.

How?

• Address women’s leadership challenges and needed competencies. Ensure female leaders have the experiences and the resources to learn what they need most.

• Leverage the power of choosing. Women need to be intentional about their careers and development as leaders.

• Rethink systems and challenge assumptions. Look for ways that unconscious bias in the organization affects opportunities and motivation for women.

• Consider a women-only leadership development experience. A female-only program or initiative doesn’t reflect the everyday world of work — and that’s a good thing.

• Create the right networks. The right relationships and ties are an asset in getting access to information, earning promotions, and gaining opportunities.Effective leaders rely on key networks and trusted partners to influence others and to get results.

Healthy measures

• Another national election could hinge on health care. In this big debate, the parties are talking past each other, often on purpose.
• Obamacare’s passage helped cost Democrats control of the House in the 2010 Republican wave. But its realities could now save Democratic incumbents and allow the party to be competitive even in conservative-leaning pockets of the country.
• In a remarkable turnabout, Democrats have got from defense to offense in messaging around health care. Incumbent Democrats in places like Missouri, West Virginia and North Dakota have made preserving preexisting-conditions protections central to their messaging, as have challengers in Nevada and Texas.
• Republicans are struggling under the weight of their own unfulfilled promises to “repeal and replace.” Many have rushed to offer personal stories about why protecting coverage for those with preexisting conditions is critical to their families.
• Meanwhile, GOP candidates led by Trump have sought to portray the Democratic Party as favoring single-payer coverage, with misleading portrayals of what it means to favor “Medicare for all.” That hints at some battles inside the Democratic Party that figure to dominate 2020 discussions.

How?

• Structural Measures: Structural measures give consumers a sense of a health care provider’s capacity, systems, and processes to provide high-quality care. For example:

• Process Measures: Process measures indicate what a provider does to maintain or improve health, either for healthy people or for those diagnosed with a health care condition. These measures typically reflect generally accepted recommendations for clinical practice. For example:

• Outcome Measures: Outcome measures reflect the impact of the health care service or intervention on the health status of patients. For example: