(FSB Magazine) -- Although Scott Hauge and
Grafton Willey are both entrepreneurs, they have
little in common when it comes to politics.
Hauge, 57, runs Cal Insurance, a regional
brokerage based in San Francisco (cal-insure.com).
A registered Democrat who faces a double-digit
increase in his $140,000 annual premium to
insure 32 employees, he argues that health-care
reform should be our next President's first
domestic priority. "Small-business owners just
want health insurance off their backs," he says.
Willey, 58, describes himself as a
Republican-leaning independent, and what he
wants off his back is the federal government.
"America's entrepreneurial spirit makes us
unique in the world," says Willey, part owner of
the Providence accounting firm Tofias PC (tofias.com)
and chair of the National Small Business
Association (nsba.biz), an advocacy group based
in Washington, D.C. "I'm concerned when
government tries to overtax and overregulate the
goose that lays the golden egg."
Like many of their fellow small-business
owners, Hauge and Willey haven't yet made up
their minds about the candidates. A plurality
(28%) of the respondents in a recent FSB/Zogby
International (zogby.com) survey of
entrepreneurs chose "None/Not sure" as the
candidate most likely to help small business,
followed by Republican Mitt Romney (21%), and
Democrat John Edwards (19%).
While it's not unusual for many voters to be
undecided half a year before the first
primaries, the current high rate of skepticism
reflects a consensus that the candidates are
making little effort to court Main Street
voters. "The importance of small business is not
on the table this time," huffs Willey.
Our poll suggests that more formerly centrist
small-business owners are leaning leftward
nowadays. The party affiliations of the
entrepreneurs in our survey (37% Republican, 35%
Democrat, 28% independent/minor party) still
tilt more Republican than the overall
population, which polls indicate has been
favoring the Democrats since 2006, but 30.4% of
respondents describe their politics as
"progressive" or "liberal," up from 24% in a
similar FSB/Zogby survey in 2004.
The proportion of moderates shrank to 22.9%,
down from 30.5%, with conservatives and
libertarians flat at 46.6%.
This liberal shading shows up starkly in
attitudes toward health-care reform, which
ranked as the top policy concern of
entrepreneurs in our survey, followed by taxes
and immigration.
When asked what type of health reform they
wanted the next President to pursue, a plurality
(34%) chose universal health insurance
administered by the feds, while 29% favored
consumer-driven solutions such as health savings
accounts.
"Small-business owners normally fear and
loathe the government," says pollster John Zogby,
who has surveyed entrepreneurs regularly since
2000. "But in this instance we could be at a
tipping point caused by health-care insecurity."
That ought to be good news for Senator Hillary
Clinton and her Democratic rivals, given that
most voters tell pollsters they trust Democrats
more than Republicans to deal with health-care
reform. However, 36% of our survey respondents
picked Clinton as the candidate who would do the
least for small business.
As we went to press in late August, Clinton
had not yet proposed a detailed health-care plan
but was working hard to distance herself from
the disastrous "Hillarycare" plan of the early
1990s - defeated in large part by small
business. Still, many remember the First Lady
who in 1993, when asked about the burden her
plan would place on small employers, was widely
quoted as saying that she couldn't "go out and
save every undercapitalized entrepreneur in
America."
While only 39% of those surveyed rated
President Bush favorably, down from 54% in 2004,
the tax breaks he initiated remain popular. Only
40% listed tax reform as one of their two top
issues - down from 49% in 2004.
In the wake of the failed immigration bill,
reform remains a top concern among 32% of
entrepreneurs. That's up sharply from 13% in
2004, with more Republicans than Democrats
seeing illegal immigration as a problem.
Overall, our poll shows entrepreneurs
concerned about law, order, and the bottom line
- and still searching for a candidate they can
trust to deliver meaningful reform. 
