Originally
posted by
Pontius Pirate:
Originally
posted by
trumper:
Originally
posted by
Pontius Pirate:
Originally
posted by
trumper:
Originally
posted by
Junky:
all you have todo to get a clear view of what they are is watch them run against themselves... its pretty clear, a party that wants to control Homosexuality, women, and the general Populous<sp be it legal or not... has/will have problems with the Constitution.
Oh yes, control, no Democrats want any more government that already exists ;). You mistake one wing of the Republican Party to represent the whole the same way some folks make silly claims that Maxine Waters represents all Democrats.
umm the "religious right" which is trying to control homosexuality and abortion rights (probably what Junky was referring to) is the pre-eminent force in the Republican party right now.
By what measure are they most "pre-eminent force in the Republican Party?" Perhaps in press coverage, but they're really not the pre-eminent force. In fact, if they were, the nominee walking across the stage would not be Mitt Romney. For a more empirical perspective, I would suggest reading the breakdown of the Washington Post/Kaise Family Foundation poll about the five types of Republicans:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...-of-the-republican-party/ (You may note that "Old School Republicans," the least religious of the groups, actually outnumber the religious right "value voters").
From your link: Tea Party - 87% think abortion should be illegal, 94% think gay marriage should be illegal. Religious value voters - ditto.
49% of Republicans fit those two groups.
Even of your "old school Republicans", the least religious group (lol "only 60% regularly attend services") about half are against abortion and gay marriage.
Basically, with the exception of a small group of libertarians, his point about Republicans wanting to control homosexuality and abortion (or in his words, women) is completely validated by your link.
So are you saying the religious right is or isn't the pre-eminent force in the Republican Party? I still think you guys are missing the forest through the trees. Just because someone has an opinion on an issue doesn't mean that's motivating their vote. That's why the Post's spectrum broke them down into motiviational subsections. Ergo, why I said the religous right really isn't the pre-eminent force. Or, put more simple, correlation doesn't equal causation. (Especially in voting).
One of the most important parts of political polling is looking at your tabs to see what issues and messaging are motivating what groups. It's rarely static and single-issue voters are a far smaller subsegment of society than you may think. What always amazes me is the crossplay between folks saying an issue is very important to them and then the same results not reflecting in messaging crosstabs.
For instance, I have seen results with folks saying "I am opposed to same sex marriage," on a scale of 1-10 counting 8-10s who then gave poor marks to "Candidate X has worked tirelessly to maintain marriage as the union between one man and one woman." They two don't compute and that's because people sometimes want to see themselves as strong on an issue, but it's not relaly why they're voting.
Moving to back pre-eminent power structure. Power is really determined by voting. Who yells loudest is often who gets press, but rarely who wins. See: Howard Dean, Al Sharpton, Pat Robertson, or Herman cain.
Anyway, a long diatribe saying it's foolish to project upon those you disagree with the "pre-eminent" force based on your perceptions.
