Two politicians soon will be starting their campaigns against each other for a certain political office. Each must now select the main issue she will emphasize as the theme of her campaign. Each has three advantageous issues from which to choose, but the relative effectiveness of each one would depend upon the issue chosen by the opponent. In particular, the estimated increase in the vote for politician 1 (expressed as a percentage of the total vote) resulting from each combination of issues is as follows:

However, because considerable staff work is required to research and formulate the issue chosen, each politician must make her own choice before learning the opponent€™s choice. Which issue should she choose?
For each of the situations described here, formulate this problem as a two-person, zero-sum game, and then determine which issue should be chosen by each politician according to the specified criterion.
(a) The current preferences of the voters are very uncertain, so each additional percent of votes won by one of the politicians has the same value to her. Use the minimax criterion.
(b) A reliable poll has found that the percentage of the voters currently preferring politician 1 (before the issues have been raised) lies between 45 and 50 percent. (Assume a uniform distribution over this range.) Use the concept of dominated strategies, beginning with the strategies for politician 1.
(c) Suppose that the percentage described in part (b) actually were 45 percent. Should politician 1 use the minimax criterion? Explain. Which issue would you recommend? Why?

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Issue for Politician 2 2 Issue for 0 Poician 13