Hi Pshaw.

I don’t just modify and edit issues. I actually create issues that I feel should be part of the campaign and that the candidates sometimes touch upon. For example, I created the issue “Federal Research Funding”. People have talked about how the last six years have seen a real-terms decline in money for federal research for the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, NASA, DARPA and the national laboratories because of resistance to higher spending from Republicans. The sequester has also negatively impacted R&D, especially in basic science.

I also created the mod “Defending Europe” because that is an issue that is tied with “Curbing Russian Might” and “A Strong Military”. It is an issue that is touched upon to some extent on the campaign trail but not enough. During the Bush years, the relationship with Europe was uneasy bordering on rancorous because of the Iraq War. During the Obama years, the US-European relationship has experienced different ups and downs. Poles and other Eastern Europeans are wary of Obama because they were alarmed by the advertised ‘Pivot to Asia’ and thought that America would be less ready to come to their defence against Putin. Traditional European allies are worried over the perceived sense of disengagement and Obama is wary of the Europeans over their slack in defence spending and their endless Euro-Crisis and the Brexit Crisis. The next President, and the outgoing one will both have to work to strengthen NATO.

It is becoming an issue because Trump is leaning towards dismantling NATO.

I have created other issues too. I will post my mods in due course. You are free to copy them.

I can’t remember what the top issues were for voters.