Examining the candidates (The Economist's poll of economists)

On October 2, 2008, The Economist posted an article on a survey of economists and how they viewed the economic policies of McCain and Obama.  Someone posted a link to it on message board on November 1, 2008.  On November 2nd, I responded with this:

I know I learned about Keynesian economics, but I don't remember much about it. I recently heard that it was more socialist and that surprised me. For one of my classes we read a book by Greg Mankiw, who was an adviser to President Bush. Most of my economics professors were foreigners. One of them told me that 999/1000 economists would agree on a certain point, but I don't remember what. I also heard that the professors ranged from liberal to conservative but had some common principles. I don't think all economic policies pursued by Republicans are the best. They are definitely terrible at talking about the economy and I think that is why the general public thinks the Democrats are better at handling it. I tend to think that governments, both foreign and domestic, should try not to harm economic freedom and just let the system play out. I am also greatly influenced by the Laffer curve on the relationship between taxes and revenues.

Scott Adams who writes Dilbert did his own survey and found similar results of Democratic majorities. Here are the posts from his blog:

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102544280181/dilbert-survey-of-economists

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102544350196/my-views-on-the-dilbert-survey-of-economists

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102544355661/dilbert-survey-of-economists-did-anyone-pay

There is definitely the problem in economics that macro policies could hurt individuals. Foreign trade is overall great for the world economy, but some people might lose their job, so it becomes hard to argue with reason when emotions start becoming involved.

As a novice to the subject it seems like the field of economics is a mixture of hard and soft sciences. There is definitely a strong mathematical and theoretical element, but there also seems to be a subjective area dealing with human behavior.