Work in progress — cycles are added one at a time. Every quote is machine-verified against an archived source; follow the links to read it.
| Score | Cycle | Candidate | Issue | Position |
|---|
| 0.38 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Right to organize and bargain collectively | Collective bargaining by representatives of the employees' own choice, 'without the interference of any one' |
| 0.37 | 1932 | Albert C. Ritchie | Federal responsibility for relief | States' rights and business-led recovery — no federal intervention in relief |
| 0.36 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | National economic planning | National economic planning on the model of the 1917 war mobilization |
| 0.36 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Balancing the federal budget | Balance the federal budget annually within revenues |
| 0.34 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Reorganization of the executive branch | A long-range plan consolidating the federal government's scattered public-health and welfare agencies |
| 0.33 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Tariff levels | Revise the tariff downward through reciprocal trade agreements |
| 0.32 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Overall role and scale of the federal government | "A new deal for the American people" — work and security through liberal, planned government action |
| 0.30 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Railroad regulation and consolidation | Six-point railroad program — conditional federal support, receivership reform, ICC regulation of trucks and holding companies, consolidation |
| 0.30 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Balancing the federal budget | Balance the budget within a year or two out of rising national income, without new taxes |
| 0.30 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Level of federal spending | Cut the cost of the federal government by at least 25 percent |
| 0.29 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Overall role and scale of the federal government | Remove government from private enterprise except public works and natural resources |
| 0.29 | 1936 | Alf Landon | How to finance old-age and unemployment insurance (contributory reserve vs. pay-as-you-go) | Repeal the compulsory old-age insurance plan; pay every needy citizen over 65 a pension from a direct, widely distributed tax |
| 0.29 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Public works as employment policy | 'Employment for all surplus labor at all times' through self-liquidating public works (the Shearon letter, as Hoover read it) |
| 0.28 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Public ownership of electric power | Federal regulation of interstate power; opposition to government operation of the power business |
| 0.28 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Income and inheritance tax progressivity | Taxes levied according to ability to pay; lower taxes for 99 percent, higher at the top |
| 0.28 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Civil service and patronage | Keep the merit system 'unassailable' |
| 0.28 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Concentrated economic power vs. the average citizen (rhetorical framing) | 'I welcome their hatred': a second term in which organized money meets its master |
| 0.28 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Local government consolidation and the tax burden on land | A national review of federal-state-local taxation to relieve farms and homes of property taxes |
| 0.28 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Public ownership of electric power | Public development of hydro-electric power on the St. Lawrence model, with national control of interstate transmission |
| 0.27 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Benefits for disabled and service-connected veterans | Full relief for service-disabled veterans and dependents; review existing veterans' laws to remove inequalities and effect economies |
| 0.27 | 1932 | Alfred E. Smith | Overall role and scale of the federal government | War on any candidate who makes 'demagogic appeals to the masses' setting class against class |
| 0.27 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Tariff levels | Preserve the bipartisan Tariff Commission's flexible power to adjust rates without congressional log-rolling |
| 0.27 | 1932 | Norman Thomas | Unemployment insurance | Compulsory unemployment insurance funded by employers and by higher income and inheritance taxes |
| 0.26 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Old-age pensions and social insurance | Old-age insurance under state laws |
| 0.26 | 1936 | William Lemke | Public control of the central bank and money creation | 'Drive the money changers out of the temple': public control of money and credit, further inflation of the currency |