Religion and Guns in small-town America

[Kidlicious]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Religion and Guns in small-town America

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


RCP is an averaging of polls and does not account for latest swings due to Obama's gaffe. Another words wait for it it padawan, the effects are coming due.

The polling was done from Wednesday through Sunday, so part of it came after the news broke Friday that Obama had said some small-town voters are "bitter" about the direction the nation is headed. Quinnipiac says there was no noticeable change in voters' attitudes in the polling it did on Saturday and Sunday compared to previous days

http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics...new-new-p.html

[KrazyHorse]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Religion and Guns in small-town America

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


RCP is an averaging of polls and does not account for latest swings due to Obama's gaffe. Another words wait for it it padawan, the effects are coming due.

That latest poll (conducted mainly AFTER "bitter") shows Obama up in Indiana and flat in PA

[Imran Siddiqui]

Speaking of interests, I think this NY Times commentary more eloquently says what I've been trying to.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/right-fight-wrong-word/

April 15, 2008, 6:08 pm

Right Fight, Wrong Word

By Dan Schnur

Dan Schnur was the national communications director for John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2000. (Full biography.)

Ever since Barack Obama’s comments about small-town Pennsylvania voters first surfaced in the public sphere late last week, the scions of the political community have talked of little else. Both the Clinton and McCain campaigns focused on the word “bitter” — allowing Senator Obama’s supporters to engage in a largely semantic discussion about whether economically disadvantaged Americans were “bitter” or “angry” or “frustrated.” But this is a meaningless series of distinctions even in this super-charged political environment. It’s safe to say that people without jobs are not particularly happy about that situation, regardless of the adverb in question.

The more important issue than Senator Obama’s choice of words, though, is the world view underneath them. By using a voter’s adverse economic circumstances to rationalize his cultural beliefs, Barack Obama has reintroduced what has been a defining question in American politics for more than a generation: Why do so many working-class voters cast their ballots on social and values-based issues like gun ownership, abortion and same-sex marriage rather than on economic policy prescriptions?

These voters — known as “the silent majority” in the 1970s, as “Reagan Democrats” in the ’80s, and as “values voters” during the last two election cycles — have long been one of the most sought-after prizes in national elections. But with the exception of the occasional Southerner on the ticket, Democratic presidential candidates and their advisers have been continually vexed by the unwillingness of blue-collar Americans to more reliably vote their economic interests.

In his book “What’s the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America,” Thomas Frank articulates essentially the same case that Senator Obama has made in recent days. Mr. Frank complains that Republicans have deceived blue-collar Kansans — and their colleagues in other states — into voting against their own economic interests by distracting them into a conversation about traditional values and cultural concerns. Both Senator Obama and Mr. Frank seem to be saying that economic policy should be more important to voters than social and cultural questions.

For many people, that’s certainly true. But there are plenty of other voters who don’t necessarily base their votes solely on jobs and taxes, and many of them are quite financially successful. They have determined their political affiliations largely as a result of the same continuing battles over abortion, guns and same-sex marriage that have drawn so many working-class voters to Republican candidates over the years. The only difference is the side of the fight they’ve chosen. It’s hard to argue that a wealthy pro-choice Democrat is any less of a values voter than a pro-life construction worker who votes Republican.

Perhaps Mr. Frank’s book would benefit from a sequel. We could call it: “What’s the Matter With the Upper East Side?” or perhaps “What’s the Matter With Beverly Hills?” or “What’s the Matter With Martha’s Vineyard?” The answer is that there’s nothing wrong with these voters at all, nothing more than there is anything inappropriate about blue-collar Kansans or Pennsylvanians who have decided that economic issues are not the most important influencers on their vote.

The mistake that Senator Obama and Mr. Frank both make is that they assume that only the values of culturally conservative voters require justification. An environmentally conscious, pro-stem cell bond trader who votes Democratic is lauded for selflessness and open-mindedness. A gun-owning, church-going factory worker who supports Republican candidates, on the other hand, must be the victim of partisan deception. This double standard is at the heart of the Democratic challenge in national elections: rather than diminish these cultural beliefs as a byproduct of economic discomfort, a more experienced and open-minded candidate would recognize and respect the foundations on which these values are based.

So the more problematic language choice for Senator Obama was not the word “bitter,” it was his use of the word “cling,” which he seemed to use as a pejorative to describe why small-town voters prioritize their opinions on cultural matters like religion and gun ownership over economic issues. And when he lists religion and guns in the same sentence as his reference to racist and anti-immigrant sentiments, it becomes much more difficult for him to establish the emotional connection with working-class voters that he has forged with the more upscale and academically oriented portions of the Democratic primary electorate.

The current uproar is unlikely to prevent Senator Obama from winning his party’s nomination, although it certainly breathes new life into the Clinton campaign and probably extends the primary battle that much further into the summer. But like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. controversy that preceded it, Senator Obama’s tendency to erect cultural barriers between himself and this critical block of swing voters will become more of an obstacle in a general election campaign.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Religion and Guns in small-town America

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


RCP is an averaging of polls and does not account for latest swings due to Obama's gaffe. Another words wait for it it padawan, the effects are coming due.

Yeah, RCP's snapshot number is a bit deceptive that way. OTOH, Pollster.com shows 5 polls taken since Obama's comments, with spreads of 5, 9, 9, 14, and 20 points. Crudely, that averages to an 11-12 point spread; throw out the 20 and the 5 as outliers, and it averages to just under 11 points. If this has hurt Obama, it's hurt him mostly by stopping his momentum in PA and stopping Hillary's downward slide (both of which were pretty pronounced as of last week), but I don't think Hillary's gained much of anything.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Oh, and as for the "elitism" argument we've been having, a great Dowd editorial (Dowd has basically been cheerleading for Obama for months now).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/opinion/16dowd.html?hp

I’m not bitter.

I’m not writing this just because I grew up in a house with a gun, a strong Catholic faith, an immigrant father, brothers with anti-illegal immigrant sentiments and a passion for bowling. (My bowling trophy was one of my most cherished possessions.)

My family morphed from Kennedy Democrats into Reagan Republicans not because they were angry, but because they felt more comfortable with conservative values. Members of my clan sometimes were overly cloistered. But they weren’t bitter; they were bonding.

They went to church every Sunday because it was part of their identity, not because they needed a security blanket.

Behind closed doors in San Francisco, elitism’s epicenter, Barack Obama showed his elitism, attributing the emotional, spiritual and cultural values of working-class, “lunch pail” Pennsylvanians to economic woes.

At match points, when Hillary fights like a cornered raccoon, Obama retreats into law professor mode. The elitism that Americans dislike is not about family money or connections — J.F.K. and W. never would have been elected without them. In the screwball movie genre that started during the last Depression, there was a great tradition of the millionaire who was cool enough to relate to the common man — like Cary Grant’s C.K. Dexter Haven in “The Philadelphia Story.”

What turns off voters is the detached egghead quality that they tend to equate with a wimpiness, wordiness and a lack of action — the same quality that got the professorial and superior Adlai Stevenson mocked by critics as Adelaide. The new attack line for Obama rivals is that he’s gone from J.F.K. to Dukakis. (Just as Dukakis chatted about Belgian endive, Obama chatted about Whole Foods arugula in Iowa.)

[Colon™]

Why did Dukakis chat about Belgian endive?

[DanS]

I don't remember that one. Dukakis did so much that was inane, but it's hard to remember anything past the Dukakis-in-tank picture.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Speaking of interests, I think this NY Times commentary more eloquently says what I've been trying to.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/right-fight-wrong-word/

Pro-lifers are swing voters? I think some people, like this guy are confused on who exactly would be offended by Obama's remarks.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Colon™
Why did Dukakis chat about Belgian endive?

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110010406

Michael Dukakis's advice to Iowa farmers in 1987 that they start growing Belgian endive

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Colon™
Why did Dukakis chat about Belgian endive?

Classic example of what Frank talks about. Dukakis, who was and is a serious, serious wonk (i.e., detail guy), was running during the farm crisis and was well-informed about potential alternative crops in spite of not being from an agricultural state. Belgian endives were actually an interesting idea -- it could be grown on the margins of corn and soy crops, was les resource and labor intensive than traditional US agricultural products, and could feed the market for alternative greens that was taking off in the 80s.

But did anyone hear that? No, they just heard GOP talking points that said "Belgian Endive" = "fruity European food that no real American would even know about."

Dukakis did plenty wrong that election, but the only thing he did wrong with the Belgian endive idea was mention it in front of a press corps more willing to channel Homer Simpson than Edward R. Murrow.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Pro-lifers are swing voters? I think some people, like this guy are confused on who exactly would be offended by Obama's remarks.

Not all gun owning, church going folk are single issue voters.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Not all gun owning, church going folk are single issue voters.

No, they are two issue voters, guns and abortion.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious
No, they are two issue voters, guns and abortion.

And we wonder why Democrats don't do so well in small town America after statements like these?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
And we wonder why Democrats don't do so well in small town America after statements like these?

Um.. What I'm trying to tell you is that voters in small towns who aren't pro-life gun fanatics aren't going to care much about what Obama says about those that are pro-life gun fanatics.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Um.. What I'm trying to tell you is that voters in small towns who aren't pro-life gun fanatics aren't going to care much about what Obama says about those that are pro-life gun fanatics.

And what I'm trying to tell you is that voters in small towns AREN'T all pro-life gun "fanatics".

There is a reason they called them Reagan DEMOCRATS.