When it comes to polls, I am the most skeptical about them when they measure public opinion on issues rather than candidates. We will probably never have an election to decide whether or not to overturn Roe v. Wade, so we’ll never know if a poll saying that people support overturning the ruling was accurate or wildly off the mark. We learned that Gallup and Rasmussen were smoking crack all last year only because we had an actual election for president that proved that their models were as flawed as they looked. So, grain of salt and all that.
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows support for abortion rights and Roe v. Wade to be at an all-time high. And it shows most of the movement is coming from blacks, Latinos, and women without college degrees.
If their findings are accurate, it seems to be an example of people adopting the values of the home team. The president is pro-choice and blacks are fiercely loyal to the president. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that public opinion in the black community is moving to reflect the president’s values. We saw a large uptick in black support for gay marriage after the president came out in favor of it, despite the fact that a backlash was predicted.
Latinos and blue collar women aren’t so much loyal to the president as completely alienated by the Republicans’ rhetoric about immigration and/or contraception, rape, fair pay, reproductive rights, etc. As large numbers in these groups have moved into Obama’s coalition, they are beginning to adopt the values of that coalition. It probably isn’t limited to abortion rights. They are probably becoming better disposed to unions. They may be growing more environmentally conscious.
The flip side could be seen in the amazing rapidity with which the Republican base embraced climate change denialism once Al Gore made it his signature issue.
This isn’t so much an argument that people don’t have free agency to make moral decisions for themselves as it is a demonstration that leadership can change people’s minds. Bad leadership can turn people into opponents of science and logic. Good leadership can lead people to embrace more enlightened positions.
But, yeah, if you can rope someone into the party on one issue, there is a good chance that before long they will be with you on many issues. It’s the team mentality.
I commented before, and I’ll say it again, polling is pointing towards an America that is moving Left and the joke on the TParty followers may be that come primary time, they may find themselves primaried by other candidates not more right, but instead more left. Not all gerrymandered Rep secure districts are in the hardcore 24% Conservative league.
Yes, the Republicans will move Left as the Democrats continue to move Right. Sometime in the future we may see the spectacle of a Republican candidate criticizing the Democrat for being too close to Wall Street.
As every community organizer knows, politics is as much about affinity and relationships as it is about logic and policies. Or to put it in marketing terms, once you get people in the door with some special offer heavily discounted items, there is a good chance they will stay to have a good look around at what else the shop offers that they can find a use for. Many consumers go for the leading brand even when it is objectively no better than the competition.
Democrats have put it out there that they are on the side of women, gays, minorities, science, education, health care, jobs, – and now public safety and tax reductions for the middle class. What’s not to like? (Unless you are an older, richer, whiter, machoer, anti-science guy).
Hating guns? Liking Unions? pro-Immigration? Those seem to be the issues Illinois suburban Republicans are pushing.
BTW, for your amusement: Joe Walsh has announced that he wants to run for Governor.
I’ve long thought and argued that Gore was used in the manner described.
Had he been a Carl Sagan type instead instead of a despised political figure to the right, it’s doubtful we’d have seen their reaction to the science we’ve observed.
Did you ever just step back and look at the campaign photos and videos from the Romney and Obama campaigns side by side?
On one side you had these predominantly older, white, and angry looking crowds. On the other side you had diverse, happy crowds–people of all ages and races enjoying each other.
This may seem superficial but we have never seen a movement so diverse before. When you build a movement on Respect, Empower, Include–the result will be an affirmational experience. I think it pulled a lot of people in.
Good observation. From personal experience I can add that when I am angry or fearful, the first thing I lose is the ability to recognize solutions. Anger just slams the door.
How about The Rainbow Coalition?
OK, then how about “a movement of significant size?”
I’m not sure it’s about people adopting the values of the home team. It might be, but the home team has had these value for a long time.
What’s changed in the last two years have been a lot of state-level GOP laws making reproductive rights more difficult and a national attack on Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood offers a massive amount of medical services, of which abortion is a small and financially separate part, aimed primarily at people with lower incomes. And Planned Parenthood has been very vocal about making their clientele aware of the attacks.
So, I’m totally not surprised that the gains on these issues are among these groups: blacks, Latinos, and women without college degrees. Previously it was possible to get all kinds of help from Planned Parenthood and still say you were anti-abortion in surveys because abortion is icky and no one wants to think about the reality very much.
Now it’s much harder to do that. In addition to the Planned Parenthood attacks there have been literally thousands of stories about hardships women have endured due to the craziness from the anti-abortion wingnuts and their new state-level laws.
No, to be honest, I think this is probably another example of how the GOP is shrinking their appeal by having had the Teanuts take control of the party.
I agree that Obama is melding the Democratic coalition together, but I think it’s broader than what you’re saying. The Democratic coalition has always been a little prickly. Blacks have historically been somewhat conservative on some social issues, and while white liberals are less racist than society in general, there’s still some racism about, particularly of the soft they’re-ok-but-not-as-okay-as-my-all-white-social-group kind. Unions in particular were often racist, sometime in nastier ways. The coalition has held together because white conservatives have been viciously hostile to all the components of the Democratic coalition and put them into a “hang together or hang separately” situation.
The polls show that Obama’s approval has brought African-Americans closer to the Democratic consensus on social issues, but I suspect he’s having some effect on soft racism among white liberals as well. Unions made the decision to put racism behind them some years back, so that’s not his doing. But having a black President, and a good President, not just any President, will I suspect reduce soft racism as well. This could go on a while, as Obama’s likely to be a symbol and leader for the Democratic Party even after he leaves office. All our previous post-war Democratic ex-Presidents had major policy failures except Clinton, and he had baggage from NAFTA and the Lewinsky scandal.
The nastiness of the opposition also has an effect. I now feel somewhat uncomfortable when I’m in an all-white crowd, and coming from a white Southerner (by birth) that’s quite a change. Overt racism now feels like a danger to me personally as opposed to just something I don’t approve of. On the whole I think Obama is making all the elements of the Democratic coalition feel more like part of an “us” than an alliance of necessity.
Was Health care not a policy failure for Clinton?
Yes, it was. I was thinking in terms of something they actually did that worked out very poorly, like Truman and Johnson’s wars, and inflation and the failed hostage rescue with Carter. But negative policy failures count too. Still, I don’t think the failed heathcare reform was nearly as traumatic as the 70’s inflation or the Vietnam War.
This is an important dynamic to highlight.
The Republicans’ habit of alienating minorities who might agree with them on certain issues doesn’t just fail to capture those voters today; it makes it less likely that they will agree with them on those issues tomorrow.
This isn’t anything new. Political science has long known that most people (the general public, not us junkies) join a party based on one or two issues, and then they learn to adopt the rest of the platform.
It’s why I’ve been nervous about the Democrats not embracing gay marriage (that’s fixed, luckily), and why I’m still nervous of the Democrats not addressing prisons and drugs, and perpetual war. Libertarians are waiting to scoop those fish up, and then you’ll have a bunch of people who subscribe to the rest of their bullshit because their stopped clock happened to be right on one or two issues.
Speaking of drugs, Marc Ambinder says that officials have still told him that Obama wants to address drugs in some way:
Will Obama ignore the Drug War?