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 |
|---|
| 0.52 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Balancing the federal budget | Balance the budget within a year or two out of rising national income, without new taxes |
| 0.52 | 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 |
| 0.50 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Level of federal spending | Defense of the eight-billion-dollar deficit as an investment in America |
| 0.49 | 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 |
| 0.48 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Philippine independence | Independence for the Philippines; ultimate statehood for Puerto Rico |
| 0.47 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Level of federal spending | Cut federal spending $1.5 billion below fiscal 1932 and reorganize the executive branch |
| 0.46 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Federal responsibility for relief | Relief through voluntary mobilization and local responsibility, with RFC loans to exhausted states — no federal dole |
| 0.44 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Concentrated economic power vs. the average citizen (rhetorical framing) | Take power from the 'economic royalists': the mandate of 1932 is to end economic tyranny |
| 0.44 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Level of military spending | An adequate Army and Navy without a near-billion-dollar peacetime burden |
| 0.44 | 1932 | Norman Thomas | Public works as employment policy | A $5 billion federal public-works program — roads, reforestation, slum clearance, workers' housing — and idle factories and land turned over to the unemployed |
| 0.43 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Farm prices and agricultural surplus | Raise staple farm prices by a tariff-equivalent benefit plus voluntary production control, at no cost to the Treasury |
| 0.42 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Local government consolidation and the tax burden on land | Presidential leadership to consolidate local governments and lift the tax burden on land |
| 0.41 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Regulation of banks and securities | The RFC and the 'shield of Government credit' saved 5,000 institutions and must continue — but no direct government lending to everyone |
| 0.41 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Tariff levels | Preserve the bipartisan Tariff Commission's flexible power to adjust rates without congressional log-rolling |
| 0.41 | 1936 | Alf Landon | European war debts and reparations | Use every effort to collect the war debts due from foreign countries |
| 0.41 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Farm prices and agricultural surplus | Farm prices can be restored only by general recovery and markets — no production control, no subsidies; repeal Farm Board stabilization |
| 0.40 | 1936 | Alf Landon | Antitrust and concentration of economic power | Use the full power of the federal government to break up private monopolies and enforce the antitrust laws 'without fear or favor' |
| 0.40 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Naval arms and disarmament | Cut world armaments by one-third through the Geneva conference while keeping forces strong enough that 'no foreign soldier will land' |
| 0.40 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Gold standard and currency basis | Hold the gold standard and the 'honest dollar'; no fiat money, no 'rubber dollar' price-fixing |
| 0.39 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Level of federal spending | Cut the cost of the federal government by at least 25 percent |
| 0.39 | 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 |
| 0.39 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Balancing the federal budget | Balance the federal budget annually within revenues |
| 0.39 | 1936 | Alf Landon | Balancing the federal budget | Balance the budget by cutting expenditures, not by raising taxes |
| 0.39 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Planned use of land and retirement of marginal farmland | A national policy of planned land use — economic soil survey and retirement of marginal farmland |
| 0.39 | 1932 | Albert C. Ritchie | Federal responsibility for relief | States' rights and business-led recovery — no federal intervention in relief |