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 | Concentrated economic power vs. the average citizen (rhetorical framing) | Take power from the 'economic royalists': the mandate of 1932 is to end economic tyranny |
| 0.46 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Overall role and scale of the federal government | Preserve 'ordered freedom' and equality of opportunity; reject a state-controlled or state-directed economy as 'tyranny' |
| 0.46 | 1936 | Alf Landon | Neutrality, arms embargoes and staying out of foreign wars | Promote peace by all honorable means; no League, no World Court, no plan that could involve the U.S. in a war it had no part in beginning |
| 0.43 | 1936 | William E. Borah | Antitrust and concentration of economic power | Drive monopoly and price fixing out of the system or face governmental regimentation |
| 0.43 | 1932 | Norman Thomas | Federal responsibility for relief | A $5 billion federal appropriation for immediate relief of those in need |
| 0.43 | 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 |
| 0.42 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Federal responsibility for relief | Federal leadership in distress relief — federal credit to states whose resources are exhausted |
| 0.41 | 1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Farm prices and agricultural surplus | Restore purchasing power to the farming half of the nation |
| 0.41 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Balancing the federal budget | Balance the budget within a year or two out of rising national income, without new taxes |
| 0.40 | 1932 | Newton D. Baker | League of Nations and international organizations | Do not make the League of Nations a party issue; no entry until a majority of Americans approve |
| 0.40 | 1936 | Alf Landon | Equal rights and opportunity for Black Americans | Equal opportunity for colored citizens: protect their economic status and personal safety; further their employment |
| 0.40 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Direct relief for the unemployed | Provide useful work at prevailing wages for the needy unemployed rather than a dole |
| 0.40 | 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 |
| 0.40 | 1936 | Alf Landon | Overall role and scale of the federal government | Restore confidence by 'unshackling initiative': steady, open, non-partisan administration that stops 'fumbling with recovery' |
| 0.39 | 1936 | Alf Landon | European war debts and reparations | Use every effort to collect the war debts due from foreign countries |
| 0.39 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Policy toward Latin America and the Western Hemisphere | The Good Neighbor: no armed intervention, no territorial expansion, reduction of armaments |
| 0.39 | 1936 | Norman Thomas | Public ownership of major industries | The New Deal 'has not worked'; build the cooperative commonwealth |
| 0.38 | 1932 | Herbert Hoover | Philippine independence | Gradual Philippine independence — economic independence first, with duty-free sugar cut from 600,000 tons downward every year |
| 0.38 | 1936 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Working hours and labor standards | Revive the NRA's principles 'by one device or another' (imputed; the President would not say) |
| 0.38 | 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 |
| 0.38 | 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) |
| 0.38 | 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 |
| 0.38 | 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 |
| 0.37 | 1936 | Norman Thomas | Communism, radicalism and "alien isms" as a political issue | Keep the Socialist vote independent; chide the La Follettes for handing Roosevelt 'everything on a silver platter' |
| 0.37 | 1936 | Alf Landon | Politics and patronage in relief administration | Relief will continue, but purged of politics, administered locally on merit, with economies taken from 'the political exploiters' |