Take that, GOP! A newly released poll, “Moral Dilemma: Which Morals?”, conducted by Westhill Partners/The Hotline should give pause to those who fear having the Democratic Party push a “values-oriented platform” in upcoming election cycles.
Democratic: 44%
Republican: 40%
And there’s plenty more to be pleased about in the results, some surprising, others less so. There’s definitely stuff here that can be gainfully exploited to prevent the GOP from trying to ram through a social agenda which the American people do not support.
More below.
I won’t attempt too much of a detailed analysis, since the poll results should basically speak for themselves. Analysis was conducted by Ed Reilly (Dem) and Ed Rollins (Rep), so there shouldn’t be any overt partisan bias in the presentation. In addition to the written summary linked to above, there is also a series of graphical representations available, as well as the full questionnaire, showing the complete percentage breakdowns. If anything, the poll sample was slightly biased in favor of self-described Bush voters (a 9% edge over Kerry).
I’d encourage everyone to go look at the results for themselves, but for those who may not have the time or desire to do so, here are some of the items that jumped out at me. From the summary:
How that plays out on what was supposed to have been a defining issue for the GOP can be seen here:
Gay marriage: 12%
Poverty: 86%
Interestingly, there was no statistical difference by party affiliation in the response to this question.
When asked of different values that our nation’s leaders should promote, “promoting ethics and honesty” was by far the one most often selected by respondents, with 86% naming it as “very important” (all other choices came in between 54% and 60%). Democrats were perceived as better representing this value by a margin of 10% ahead of either Bush or the GOP. For another value deemed very important by 54%, “encouraging greater tolerance”, Democrats held an edge of over 40%. Not too shabby.
I’m sure some could find a lot more to be happy about here, while others may be rather skeptical about the usefulness of these results. Feel free to comment, kvetch, laud, etc., not only on these results and on the non-values sections of the poll (more bad news for Bush and the GOP, as expected), but also on values issues more generally.
The values that the GOP excels at are the values of advertising, self-promotion, and flattery.
Or as the old Hollywood saying goes, “Sincerity is the key. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
Don’t forget hard work.
In fact, it’s too exhausting. I’m too lazy for that. It’s easier just to work hard.
Like the bumper sticker says ‘Jesus is coming everyone look busy.’
What’s key is that the values that favor Rethugs don’t rate as high as those that favor Democrats. I’ll take tolerance, equality, concern for the less fortunate and honesty over any “values” package they try to throw at us.
Our whole message on values could be effectively integrated with John Edwards’s “Two Americas” theme (which he’s been pushing once again in recent speaking engagements), especially when we talk about Democrats valuing work. The segue virtually writes itself.
Putting it in terms of “framing”, we could put together something along the lines of
Democrats: Standing Up for Values That Matter to You.
Thank you Maven. I always said the values thing was hooey – by that I mean, they didn’t choose GOP for values. It was that stupid check in the mail.
concerning economic justice than are the Republicans (even if most of them have a long way to go).
So why oh why was this not reflected in the 2004 election results?
With many, I do think there was fraud, perhaps enough to swing the results–but even so, it was too close in the polls beforehand!
Has the public wised up since November? What’s going on here?
That’s a good question.
I do agree that it was simply too close. I’d love to see us run someone in 2008 capable of hitting 60%. If someone had the audacity to steal an election with margins that wide, we’d have our very own Orange Revolution.
I’m here in “Battleground” MN. We came out on the Dem side (thankfully), but it was never ever a sure thing.
In my red part of the state, it was mistrust of the past. Folks didn’t trust Kerry to do the right things with their tax dollars. And George bribed them with foolish tax-cut kickbacks for their votes.
Thats not to say they wouldn’t willingly give up those tax cuts if they felt the money was “spent wisely”, but they honestly didn’t feel they could trust Kerry to do so. Now, his early campaign mistakes of promising different groups he’d spend the GWB tax cut money on their favorite programs, and being accused by the press of spending the same money 3 or 4 times didn’t help in the slightest.
If ya tell folks what they want to believe, they’re less inclined to think you’re lying. That’s why GWB’s nonsense was accepted while Kerry’s pragmatism was rejected, I think.
The same thing holds for the values issues, but rather than recite the litany, I’ll sum it up:
They do trust the Dems, in abstract. But when they try to pin the Dems down on the particulars, they’re put off by the sloganeering and unwillingness to take a strong meaningful stand. They want something stronger than “spend your money wisely”, but not necessarily as crisp as “read my lips, no new taxes”. A website with a detailed position paper doesn’t cut it. If you can’t come right out and briefly say what you’ll do (beyond ‘invest in education’), it won’t fly. Maybe something at the level of detail of “Contract for America”.
A candidate who sets himself up as an agent of change on a particular measurable agenda is more credible. And if you’re credible in one area, you get the benefit of the doubt on others. And if you happen to say what the voters want to hear, you’re doubly-set.
The voters around here can’t cite examples of Democratic politicians they trust or respect, and even when they can, they know darn well that they can’t extrapolate that individual to the whole party. Its a reputation thing from the Reagan years or something.
But unfortunately for us, we’ve set precious few counter examples in the interim.
That’s why Dean’s 50 state strategy and focus on the states is so encouraging. Its simple logic, if you’ve got a good respect for the Democrats you know locally, you’re more inclined to trust the national ones, and less likely to buy into “all Democrats are fire-breathing baby eaters who want to steal your money and give it away to the undeserving”.
I think the progress we’re making in polls like this says less about our party moving forward than it does about the Republican party moving out of America’s comfort zone.
We can wait for them to implode and reap the benefits. Or we can go out there and improve our own product and sell the hell out of it and win in our own landslide.
Aww, how sweet that would be. Take back the white house with a 70% (electoral) landslide, and use that as both a mandate and a repudiation of all the Bush policies.
Restore the environment, rebuild alliances, seriously address govt and national economies, restore privacy and reproductive freedom. Dismantle our budding police state built to counter the threat of 19 guys with airline tickets and knives.
Its a nice dream, eh?
We can wait for them to implode and reap the benefits. Or we can go out there and improve our own product and sell the hell out of it and win in our own landslide.
Correct.
either time. Not fair and square as we say.
but that doesn’t explain why it was as close as it was in the pre-election polls, and even in the exit polls, compared to the polls of today.
Not that much has changed. The Rs are just doing what they’ve always done. So my question is, for those voters who have shifted, what caused the change?
I think understanding that could be valuable as we go forward.
While I don’t have access to research on this available to me right now, I recall seeing studies that showed that this kind of switching sides happens all the time — it’s sort of a retroactive “bandwagon effect”. (I remember seeing polls in 1993 that suggested that 55% of voters claimed to have voted for Clinton; the real figure was more than a dozen points lower.) The same can also be seen in allegiance to sports teams: after a team wins a championship, lots more people claim to have been fans all along.
It’s common for people to want to associate themselves with others’ success and with popular events. Folks convince themselves that this was the outcome they’d really wanted — it’s just another example of the kind of self-deception we see in everyday life.
Note also that in this Westhill/Hotline poll, 85% (!!) of the respondents — including 91% of Republicans (see question 32 at page 15) — claim to have voted last November. Unless we’re willing to consider the possibility of over 50 million uncounted votes (and undercounts in every single election precinct in the country), that’s not even remotely close to reality. But it’s useful to know to be able to discern potential skewing of the poll results. In my opinion, if anything, this pushes the results of the poll even more in our favor, albeit only slightly.
should push the margin in the opposite direction, no? I.e., more people endorsing Bush, who won?
Instead, it seems the poll shift has gone in the opposite direction, making it even harder to explain!
Survey also says independents are much closer to democrats than republicans, and the difference was + or – 3% last time out. Democrats are also a numerical majority, but an electoral minority. Also note that a full 35% of those questioned identified themselves as “born-again” or evangelical Christians.
Like you wrote above, not so much supporting democrats as repudiating the republican agenda. How to go forward? Start with the basics. Do the democrats want to eradicate poverty? How? It’s a complicated question that the leadership hasn’t yet answered.
The democrats are currently suffering from the “Platt River Syndrome” – the agenda is a mile wide and a foot deep. Start there. Fix that. It’s broke.
One of the biggest problems facing the Democratic Party — as well as liberals/progressives — is exactly what you point out: answering the complicated questions surrounding the issues we want to tackle (especially those where we’re far more trusted to deal with the issues than Republicans are) requires complex answers. I’ll disagree somewhat with your statement that “the leadership hasn’t yet answered” these questions; I think that they have, only the answers tend to be in the form of a 78-page briefing book.
What most Americans want, for the hard questions as well as the simplistic ones, are clear and concise responses. Bush and the GOP are generally good at providing these, since they typically view the entire world and everything within it purely in black and white. Democratic politicians, their supporters and analysts, on the other hand, tend to have a much more finely nuanced view, noting the fine distinctions and thus seeing most things in varying shades of gray. But most voters can’t really appreciate nuance, and reward decisiveness over careful consideration. Even when the answer would appear to be relatively straightforward, the Democratic response is often, “Yes, but . . .”
So what, then, is the solution to this? Do we call out the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge a deep-water channel for us to pilot our issues through? Do we even know precisely where to set that channel to ensure that we don’t end up draining off the breadth of our support? Remember that 20-25 years ago, the Republicans began having great success in painting Democrats as the “party beholden to special interests”, which drove a wedge between activists and the broad base of our natural support, the latter (falsely) coming to see themselves as alienated from the goals of the party.
For issues such as alleviating poverty, what we need to do is convince the American public that, no matter what we do, the solutions are as complicated as the question. But we need a simple way to describe the framework, which in turn needs to be internally consistent and coherent.
Absolutely agree. But what if, to get the complexity, the party stated flat out:
The third item on the list is a page long; the fourth an article; and finally that white paper. Repeat as necessary for each issue/item on the agenda, and make damn sure it’s on their (seriously lacking) website. It ain’t rocket science.
Here’s a couple of practical suggestions from two days ago:
Going forward the party needs to reach out with the best tools at the lowest cost/hit, and provide clear communication to the public. The fifty state concept resonates, but the online presentation seriously lacks. The old “three-click” rule applies to political websites even more than commercial, and is a project that can be done without spending a ton of cash.
I also think that it would put the lie to consultant claims that only “professional” fundraisers have the ability to raise cash. Establishing a central access point as I’ve described may substantially reduce costs while raising contribution levels. Also reduces the time we spend bouncing around the web trying to find information.
Seriously, you should at least be Deputy Director of Strategic Planning, or something along those lines! These are all excellent suggestions and really should be brought to the attention of people who need to put them into action. And if those people fail to listen, well, that’s a large part of the reason why we’re stuck as a electoral minority these days.
I think there are plenty of people out there who think the same way – including you. It’s that “failure to listen” part. “-)