Redstate...
Posted by Leon H. Wolf
Those
Divisive Social Issues
Thursday, September 15th
I
think it is painfully obvious to
everyone who is paying attention to anything that is happening in
America that
the economy will be the deciding factor in the 2012 elections, absent a
major
terrorist attack or other unforeseeable game-changing event. I don’t
know of
anyone who thinks at this stage of the game that 2012 ought to be
primarily a
referendum on abortion. That having been said, the claim has been made
by some
who purport to represent the TEA Party movement that social issues are
divisive
and should be avoided completely in favor of massive slashing of
government
spending. These individuals typically push the argument that if the GOP
would
just adopt wholesale Randianism, the GOP would be primed for electoral
success.
CNN just released a new poll (.pdf warning) which shows that these
beliefs are
not only untrue with respect to the American population at large, but
also
untrue of the TEA Party rank and file.
In
the first place, CNN asked of all
adults whether they favored eliminating the Department of Education, a
stump
speech staple of so-called TEA Party candidates and leaders. The
American
public overwhelmingly rejects this idea by a whopping 24-74 margin.
That is not
to say that eliminating the Department of Education wouldn’t be a good
idea;
the point is that it’s a surefire electoral loser in all 50 states. If
we are
going to talk about an issue that should be backbenched for the sake of
electoral expediency, the “eliminate the Department of Education”
rhetoric
would be a good place to start.
By
way of contrast, CNN’s poll reveals
that the American public is broadly supportive of vastly more
restrictions on
abortion than are currently in place today. Only 37% of respondents
indicated
that abortion should be either “legal in all circumstances” or “legal
in most
circumstances.” 62% of respondents indicated that abortion should be
either
“legal in a few circumstances” or “illegal in all circumstances.” Given
that
abortion is effectively “legal in all circumstances” in America today
(a
position supported by only 25% of respondents), the idea that imposing
additional restrictions on abortion would doom the GOP is completely
unsupported
by anything other than the fatuous projections of people who want to
appear
smart and enlightened before the media.
The
most interesting part of the poll
was the examination of self-identified TEA Party supporters vs. “all
other
Republicans.”
TEA
Party supporters (35%) were far
more likely than other Republicans (16%)
or the public at large (21%) to think that
abortion should be “illegal
in all circumstances.” TEA Party supporters (73%) were also more likely
than
other Republicans (55%) or the public at large (46%) to state
unequivocally
that gay marriages should not be recognized. TEA Party supporters (34%)
were
also less likely than other Republicans (42%) and the public at large
(47%) to
say that religion should have “no influence” on government policy. The
idea
that TEA Partiers are rabid libertarians (or at least rabidly opposed
or
indifferent to socially conservative causes) as compared to other
Republicans
is clearly false.
The
most important area where I think
the TEA Party rank and file go astray from the American public, at
least with
respect to the next election, is overemphasizing the importance of the
deficit
at the expense of the overall economic health of the country. By a
50-41
margin, TEA Party supporters think reducing the deficit is more
important than
job creation, which if I had to guess is exactly backwards. Non-TEA
Party
Republicans believe that jobs are more important by a 55-37 margin, a
question
that was sadly not asked of the public at large. Ultimately I guess
time will
tell who has the better half of this argument, but my guess is that
while
unemployment hovers around 10% and underemployment significantly
higher, swing
voters in this country are not going to be as concerned with massive
cuts to
government spending (or, if the question on the Department of Education
is any
indicator, actively opposed to it) as they are with the fact that
millions of
people are out of work. While an argument can certainly be made that
the
deficit in the long term has an effect on the economy, that is a harder
sell in
the context of an economic problem that exists in spades right now.
Read
it at Redstate
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