First, partisan theories stress the difference of fiscal and monetary preferences between parties.
Recall how the president tweaked them in his 31 December 2012 speech, announcing the partial and temporary deal to avert the "fiscal cliff": "My preference would have been to solve all these problems in the context of a larger agreement, a bigger deal, a grand bargain, whatever you want to call it … But with this Congress, that was obviously a little too much to hope for at this time".
Politicians interpreted the vote as a sign of frustration with the state's endless fiscal mess and its preference for debt over accountability.
But the broader point -- in case you didn't know it -- is not only that the wealthy disproportionately influence policy makers.* It's that on some critical fiscal and economic issues, their preferences show less willingness to invest in public education, jobs, and social insurance.
In response Moody's cut the island's credit rating, warning that the law signals "a new preference for shifting fiscal pressures to creditors" that could lead to defaults.
Because she has a strict preference for expansionary fiscal policies, it is a dominated strategy for her to vote for any of the two mainstream candidates.
Fiscal conservatives recognize that their preference for austerity over stimulus requires many marketing tools in order to sell painful budget cuts to the public.
In a speech last week, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, made clear his preference for a "centralized fiscal authority, with political independence," comparable to that of the European Central Bank.
Second, "ideological" changes, stemming from philosophical reasons, such as a preference for a lower fiscal pressure.
Otherwise, all voters had a preference for the expansionary fiscal policy, so whether there is one or two groups of voters is irrelevant for the results.
