Tiimely and informative overview of what professional economists think of the Obama and McCain plans. It's interesting to note that a large majority favor the Obama plan -- even economists whose political viewpoint is on the right. Though the Economist acknowledges this is not a scientific poll, it is based responses from 142 professional economists, of which 44% do not side with either Democrats or Republicans.

This is a well written and interesting story from a respected economic magazine. Their methodology and openness about potential bias is sound and refreshing.

With the economy an important issue for the election, the opinion of professional economists is newsworthy and important to know. A large effort was made to be fair and to identify bias in the economists surveyed but no matter how they looked at the results, Obama's economic plan and the advisors he relies on rated substantially higher than McCain. Links were provided to the results and broken down to economists who identified themselves as independent, democratic and republican.

Not really. What does it all mean? This is not discussed. Then it is the opinion of economists, who opinion often means nought. When the economy doesn't respond to economic stimuli the economists will say that people do not follow the rules of economics, when economics is supposed to be about understanding people. It's the old story, blame someone else.

This story presents unique information gathered through the Economist's resources. The views and political preferences of the respondents are identified, and the case for (and against) both candidates' economic policies are well presented. At the same time, anyone who has followed the economic debate might well have arrived at the conclusions this survey describes based on the disastrous policies followed by George Bush, which are essentially the same that McCain advocates.

As is the case with the Economist, this article offers analysis that comes from a financially conservative bent. That said, it does a great job of breaking down both candidate's views on health care, their proposals, what implementation of their proposals would probably look like and what the likelihood of success for both are.