Change: What Does It Mean?

Every candidate in the presidential race is promising it. But what does "change" really mean to voters? Gallup asked them, in a poll out today, and found some interesting answers. The most significant one is that "change" is not a gauzy concept to voters, but rather, a to-do list:

First and foremost, it is clear from these results that when Americans look ahead to the "change" the next president could bring about, they think very topically and specifically about problems and concerns, not about more general changes in the structure or systems of government.

In fact, these results to a significant degree mirror those found when Gallup asks Americans each month to name the most important problem facing the nation. The top four problems Americans mention in our January "most important problem" update are Iraq, the economy, healthcare, and immigration -- matching the top four specific areas in which Americans want to see "change" take place from the Jan. 10-13 poll. This finding is significant. It suggests that when Americans say they want the next president to bring about change, they mainly are thinking about solving what they perceive to be the nation's significant problems. There is very little discussion in these open-ends of a desire to bring about more fundamental changes in the way Washington operates, in the process of governing, and so forth.