Gallup: Religious Whites Disproportionately Shift Away From GOP

[Mark E. Smith]

Change could reflect impact of Foley situation

PRINCETON, NJ -- An analysis of USA Today/Gallup poll trend data indicates that while
Democrats have made gains across the board on the generic Congressional ballot in
the latest Oct. 6-8 survey, the change has been greater among religious whites than
among non whites. At this point, religious whites are equally as likely to say they will
vote Democratic or Republican, a marked change from their strong tilt towards the
Republicans in surveys conducted June through September.

http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=24946

[Freedom_from_Chains]

1. This might be potentially encouraging. n/t

[Lerkfish]

2. religious peeps not likee the pervert.

or the covering for the pervert.

[Captain Hilts]

3. Or the Perv's enablers. nt

[apnu]

5. but they seemed to like torture

This is why I boo any Dem that says we need to make in roads with fundies.

[NaturalHigh]

19. Why is is that when...

someone is described as religious and white, they're automatically assumed to be a "fundie"?

[apnu]

27. 'fundie' as in evangelical.

Last year, many Dems (including my Obama) suggested that Dems make inroads into the fundie-evangelical movements. That's what I'm talking about, I never mentioned anything about religious and white.

[Demeter]

4. Run Away! Run Away! --Monty Python Holy Grail

Or from "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"---


Unclean! Unclean!

[acmejack]

9. Favorite line...

"Come back you coward!"

[BootinUp]

15. Whats your favorite color?

blue no no green.

Sorry!


AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

[C_U_L8R]

6. There are republicans who aren't white ??

you'd never know

[YOY]

18. Their names are Colin, Kenneth, Alberto, and Condoliza

Of couse many pure aryan Pebs consider Scalia, Alito, and Guliani to be in that category as well.

[ClintonTyree]

7. It's a shame that........

a sex scandal was the impetus for this epiphany among "Religious Whites". Torture, a war based on lies, the shredding of our Constitution, illegal spying, outing a CIA Operative, massive budget deficits.....these and MUCH more didn't even cause a blip on their radar screen. But a sex scandal, especially a sex scandal involving a GAY man............well, they just can't have that now, can they!
I'm stunned. I really don't know what else to say. What is WRONG with these people?

[xchrom]

10. tremendous energy has been spent on describing in great detail the threat

of The Gays through the years.

now ''religious''{not talking about liberal episcopalians, huh?} whites find out The Gays are every where.

what to do with all that manufactured anger and fear drummed up by the white ''christian'' leadership?

[conscious evolution]

33. Thou shall not steal?

what to do with all that manufactured anger and fear drummed up by the white ''christian'' leadership?

[spooky3]

11. my thoughts exactly

[rodeodance]

12. Gallop speculates that Foleygate is the reason also:

...The data reviewed here suggest that the Republicans have lost -- at least temporarily -- some of the disproportionate advantage in voting preference they have enjoyed among religious whites. This group continues to be much more likely than less religious whites or nonwhites to support the Republican candidate in their House race, and is currently as likely to support a Democrat as a Republican Congressional candidate. But, the difference between religious whites and these other two groups has narrowed somewhat as of the Oct. 6-8 poll.

One plausible explanation for the broad drop in Republican support in the most recent poll is the Mark Foley scandal in Congress. Since this situation involved issues of morality on the part of Foley, and allegations of a cover-up on the part of Republican leadership, it appears plausible that religious whites may have become disproportionately disillusioned with the Republicans and as a result lost more of their fervor for voting Republican than others in the population.

[Oak2004]

21. What's wrong with these people is what is wrong with all of us

Lets say tomorrow a Republican announces that they have conclusive proof a terrorist group is about to attack the Sears Tower. Almost all of us here would go, "yeah, right", right? We've heard this one before. But what if they were right this time (and, when you think about it, it's not an implausible scenario)? We wouldn't believe them until smoke started to rise from the building, and even then some percentage of us would be talking MIHOP and LIHOP. Because we don't trust them already, we will doubt everything they say.

Well, Religious White (until recently) Republicans do not trust Democrats or liberals. They have gotten their news from Fox, which has been confirmed through commission or omission by their other news sources, and these news sources have told them not to trust Democrats or liberals of any stripe. Unless people were fortunate enough to have countervailing influences (such as active participation in politics prior to the propaganda exposure, or personal acquaintance with liberals and liberalism, or exposure to trustworthy alternative information sources) that kind of propaganda works. Most people who haven't actually studied persuasion grossly underestimate its power and grossly overestimate human rationality, but I guarantee you, even we here have been subtly influenced by the propaganda barrage.

Democrats (and liberals in general) have until now not had a clue how to respond to the Republican propaganda machine. We've tried to act as if we had a functional democratic dialogue in place, and have continued to talk about issues. But we have not had such a dialogue in place since the rise of Atwater (Atwater is who I learned these techniques from, myself). I don't know that we yet have a strategy in place to deal with propaganda. Overt propaganda such as the Republicans and Murdoch use (as opposed to ordinary rhetorical techniques) isn't compatible with the democratic process, and it can't be countered with more of the same.

However that old friend of ours, reality, has a way of eventually biting those who ignore it in the ass (no pun intended, but since it just sort of "came out" )

As a consequence Democrats and liberals have screamed to high heaven about things like torture, and these people have dismissed it with a "yeah, right". They don't necessarily not care about these things, they just don't take news of them seriously, just as we don't not care about terrorism, we just don't believe the administration anymore.

But the Foley affair, while not so important in and of itself, opened a lot of eyes. The Republicans it turns out (not to my surprise as a former Republican, and not to the surprise of the vast majority of us here) are not more moral than the rest of us. And if they aren't... then could the other things people say about them be true? Like say, lying about a war? Torture? Fiscal madness? Corruption?

Once someone's faith in something has been cracked, then the rest of the truth can trickle in (for some people) or pour in (for the earliest of the defectors, no doubt). It's that -- that the matter struck at the trust the Republican base placed in their leaders -- that makes it so serious an issue. If the breach can be worked, and the doubters shown the rest of the truth of the people they believed in, they will not go Republican again in our lifetimes. Every time a Republican opens his or her mouth, they'll go "yeah, right".

[SquireJons]

26. A very interesting post

I think you're right on a lot of what you say. My question is, if pentecostal protestants and conservative catholics (etc) lose faith in the republicans, where will they turn? More extremism? It seems unlikely that they will turn to the Democrats, who, as you pointed out, have already been discredited in their eyes. What we need is a new, religious based political party that will siphon off the wing nut vote from both parties. Then we will be left with raw republican conservatism (free market, screw everybody else) and raw democratic progressivism (fair market, regulation oriented). Now that's a fight we can win. If you add God to the equation, everything gets skewed.

[spotbird]

30. Thank you for that

wonderful insight.

It's the same process I went through with the Roman Catholic Church, but I've never seen it articulated so well.

What follows the understanding you describe is guttural anger. That anger may take a generation for the Republicans to undo.

[w4rma]

31. You nailed it, Oak2004. (nt)

[BadGimp]

34. This reponse to this post is WHY I am a DUER

I can read news anywhere. But DU has gives me something I could never get by reading news stories and in fact most blogs.

Oak2004 my felow traveler, your reponse to this post was as enlightening and insigtful and as any I have read on this forum.

I am so inspired that I am going make a modest donation in your name.

THANK YOU!

[juajen]

23. Actually, I don't agree with you

The pubs that I know who are disgusted with * say it's an accumulation; the sex scandal was just the tip of the iceberg. Only the ones with abortion and gay issues are stubbornly sticking; of course that doesn't count the ones who "vote their pocketbook". Those really disgust me.

[LostInAnomie]

8. I'll believe it when I see it on Nov. 7

Until then, they and the 4 non-white repubs can't be trusted.

[gratuitous]

13. People have figured this out on their own

It will indeed be interesting to see if this translates into an electoral gain for Democrats. But consider that some people are figuring out GOP corruption all on their own; they're not being told about GOP misdeeds without a healthy dose of GOP whining and excuse-making in all of the major media. People are drawing this conclusion all on their own, without any assist from the major media, which is addicted to the "some say, but others say" line of "balance."

[BootinUp]

14. I guess they figure to teach Rove a lesson

in the power of stupidity.

[The Count]

16. It'll be the soccer uncles this time (some explanation for Diebold will be

made up , repeated everywhere and bought by part of the DU as well)

[robbibaba]

17. It may be more than sex scandals....

Seems these folks have a new cause: "creation care"

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101106O.shtml

<snip>
In fact, when it comes to broadening the reach of the environmental movement to red state America, the real savior turns out to be the Rev. Richard Cizik of the National Assn. of Evangelicals, America's most influential Christian lobbying group, representing 45,000 churches and roughly 30 million believers across the country. According to two new documentaries, it is evangelicals like Cizik who may do more to make global warming a front-and-center issue than hundreds of white-wine fundraisers in Bel-Air and Manhattan's Upper West Side.

<snip>
For liberals, it seems hard to imagine the GOP, home of Jack Abramoff and Rep. Mark Foley, has the high ground on morality. But for evangelicals, what matters most is hearing the word from their pastor, not a politician. As Cizik puts it: "When evangelicals hear their pastor speak out of the Bible, they respond. Never mind what Rush Limbaugh says. If their minister says this is an important issue, they'll listen and they'll act."

Moyers believes that evangelicals, who've been in the forefront of many social issues, from the 19th century fight against slavery to 20th century battles for women's suffrage and civil rights, were held back on the environment by the influence of religious leaders such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. "They decided that the Grand Old Party would become God's Own Party, so they used the accumulated influence of their followers to give them unprecedented political influence," Moyers says. "They also went about using political propaganda to demonize the environmental movement and doubly demonize Hollywood celebrities fighting for the environment."

[w4rma]

32. I agree. I think they're waking up and seeing what Democrats have to offer

Democrats support being good stewards of our environment. Republicans do not.
Democrats support helping the meek. Republicans do not.

I think that the sex scandal was the catalyst that enabled them to look at options other than the Republican Party. And I don't think this is in any way temporary.

[OnionPatch]

20. Dare we hope

that the current trend of religious extremism here in America has reached its peak?
Being a Christian, it's been so frustrating watching the words of our prophet be twisted into weapons of hatred.

[carzen]

22. Good thing some Christians are finding their conscience

[damntexdem]

24. But what we really need is a shift in the voting intentions of ...

Diebold.

I'm in a city where no paper ballots will be available -- only a machine with no paper trail.

[Raine]

25. It's about time!

FINALLY (hopefully) these people are seeing what hypocrites the repukes are!

[Renew Deal]

28. Because jobs and wars are normally more important abortions and gays

You can't protest abortions if you are dead or homeless.

[KittyWampus]

29. Outstanding news