Over at the Huffington Post, Susan Blumenthal and coauthors discuss the importance of biomedical research and provide charts outling the positions of the major presidential candidates on issues related to research.
The analysis is written for a lay audience--most of our readers don't need to be convinced of the importance of research--but the candidate chart is interesting. The positions of the leading Democratic candidates--Clinton, Obama, Edwards--are far more detailed than those of the other candidates, Democratic or Republican. The authors came up with virtually no information on the positions of the Republican candidates on research-related issues, except that all of them support restrictions on stem-cell research. (The only Republican candidate with any information on a topic besides stem cells is Mitt Romney, who says he is "committed to curing diseases through research.")
Among the candidates--all Democrats--who have laid out detailed positions, but Clinton's positions are the most detailed. Obama wants to double the federal research budget over 5 years; Clinton proposes a smaller expansion, but over a longer term--which is good. Clinton wants to increase the NSF grad-student stipend to $40,000. Clinton, Edwards, and Obama all want to expand the scientific-workforce.
There's no evidence that any of the candidates understand the current complicated labor situation in science.
