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 |
|---|
| 0.54 | 1936 | Frank Knox | How to finance old-age and unemployment insurance (contributory reserve vs. pay-as-you-go) | The Social Security Act is 'unworkable and unsound' -- 'lip service to security'; a Republican administration would offer its own legislation |
| 0.49 | 1932 | Norman Thomas | Sickness and health insurance | National health insurance |
| 0.45 | 1936 | Alf Landon | Crop insurance and storage reserves | Give crop insurance 'the fullest attention' |
| 0.45 | 1932 | Norman Thomas | Unemployment insurance | Compulsory unemployment insurance funded by employers and by higher income and inheritance taxes |
| 0.45 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | How to finance old-age and unemployment insurance (contributory reserve vs. pay-as-you-go) | Defense of the payroll-tax financing: the employer pays an equal share and the reserves are safe |
| 0.42 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Working hours and labor standards | Shorter hours, higher wages, end child labor and sweatshops |
| 0.40 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Restriction of immigration | Continue immigration restriction to protect labor, but end abuses against individual families in enforcement |
| 0.39 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Short-term and marketing credit for agriculture | Restore short-term farm credit through the new agricultural credit corporations, RFC loans to processors and financing of export sales |
| 0.39 | 1932 | Norman Thomas | Working hours and labor standards | The six-hour day and five-day week without reduction in wages |
| 0.38 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Working hours and labor standards | Spread employment by substantially reducing hours of labor, starting in government service |
| 0.37 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Federal responsibility for relief | Relief through voluntary mobilization and local responsibility, with RFC loans to exhausted states — no federal dole |
| 0.37 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Benefits for disabled and service-connected veterans | Full justice and generosity for veterans disabled by actual wartime service — silence on the bonus |
| 0.36 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Public works as employment policy | Expand self-sustaining public works and temporary federal work (forests, flood control, waterways), with advance planning |
| 0.36 | 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 |
| 0.36 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Right to organize and bargain collectively | Collective bargaining by representatives of the employees' own choice, 'without the interference of any one' |
| 0.35 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | National economic planning | Industry leaders to organize cooperatively for the common good; government regulates only as a last resort |
| 0.34 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Child labor | No return to sweatshops or children working in factories |
| 0.34 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Civil service and patronage | Immediately extend the merit system to all non-policy-making federal positions |
| 0.34 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Regulation of securities issuance and exchanges | No federal 'blue sky' law — securities regulation belongs to the states, and the President should not police booms |
| 0.34 | 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 |
| 0.33 | 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) |
| 0.33 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Overall role and scale of the federal government | An "economic declaration of rights" — the right to make a living and the right to safe savings |
| 0.33 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Public works as employment policy | Federal construction at three times normal and $1.5 billion of RFC loans for self-liquidating works — but no pork-barrel or non-productive projects |
| 0.33 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Right to organize and bargain collectively | Guard the worker's right to organize and bargain collectively |
| 0.33 | 1932 | Norman Thomas | Federal responsibility for relief | A $5 billion federal appropriation for immediate relief of those in need |