The most American candidate

If we were to design a candidate who could speak to the majority of Americans today, an interesting intellectual exercise could determine the political positions of a presidential candidate who could win their first election with ease. This candidate would not be a centrist but would adopt policy positions which the majority of Americans agree with. These are based on the most recent poll on the issues I have looked at.

1. Most Americans pay about the right amount of taxes. Pew
2. Wealthy people pay less than their fair share in taxes and the tax system is too complicated. Pew
3. Support our military actions against ISIS. Pew
4. Grow the amount of renewable energy used to produce electricity in the United States. Pew
5. Oppose Vladimir Putin's actions in Ukraine and other countries. Pew
6. Do not send troops to Ukraine. Pew
7. China is a threat to America. Pew 
8. Legalize Pot. Pew
9. People with mental illness should not be able to buy guns. Pew 
10. Support most of the NSA's actions. Pew
11. Dealing with global warming needs to be a top priority for our government. Pew
12. Reduce carbon emissions. Pew
13. In favor of birth control and abortion. Pew 
14. Increase the minimum wage. Pew
15. Oppose bailing out large institutions. Pew
16. Social Security should be maintained as it is. Pew 1 and Pew 2
17. Oppose the Iran deal. Pew
18. Police and firefighters should be allowed to unionize. Pew
19. Police should wear body cameras. Pew
20. Foreign aid is an important tool in fighting terrorism. Pew
21. We must reduce the role of money in politics. Pew

There are a few major issues where America is almost evenly divided. The candidate would have to pick a side on these based on their conscious as opposed to popular opinion:

1. Health care
2. Whether banks need more or less regulation. 
3. Guantanamo Bay Pew
4. Military spending Pew

The NSA however is an outlier. Part of this is probably due to how the media reports on the NSA, mostly avoiding it, and the corporate media being unanimously against Edward Snowden. I think that if the mass media was more fair and balanced on their reporting on the NSA's actions we would see the majority of Americans change their opinion and call for a major change in public opinion against mass surveillance.

When it comes to the Iran deal, I think the opinion on this is going to change as time goes on, for reasons I have already explained here which will become apparent to most people very soon.

Pew hasn't been asking about the opinions on police brutality yet, and I think this needs to be part of their research.

Most Americans mostly agree with the Democrats on policy issues. This demonstrates a clear liberal swing to the average American voter, meaning that if the Democrats put forward very strong liberal candidates there is no reason they should not gain power in Congress and maintain the Presidency. Hopefully they will do this at the local and state level this next year to help move this country in the direction the majority of people want us to go in. They have a major advantage on policy this election cycle, and if they take advantage of this and get people out to vote than we could see some very amazing changes very soon. This of course will only happen if they fight hard this election cycle.