Okay, Dems, What Went Wrong? And How Can We Fix It?

The following is kind of an older article and it is not really proof of anything. The reason I offer it is because it articulates what a lot of people mean when they talk about Bush and his messiah complex.

If people don't agree with the article, it's ok. I just happen to find it very good and put into words what I have hard time putting into words.

http://bushwatch.org/evangelist.htm

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Lets take a look at how the "Religious Vote" compares 2004 vs 2000.

Exit poll question: "Do you attend religious services more than weekly, weekly, monthly, seldom, or never?"

2004 More Than Weekly (16% of total voter ID): Bush 64% Kerry 35%
2000 More Than Weekly (14% of total voter ID): Bush 63% Gore 36%

2004 Weekly (26% of total voter ID): Bush 58% Kerry 41%
2000 Weekly (28% of total voter ID): Bush 57% Gore 40%

2004 Monthly (14% of total voter ID) Bush 50% Kerry 49%
2000 Monthly (14% of total voter ID) Bush 46% Gore 51%

2004 Seldom (28% of total voter ID) Bush 45% Kerry 54%
2000 Seldom (28% of total voter ID) Bush 42% Gore 51%

2004 Never (15% of total voter ID) Bush 36% Kerry 62%
2000 Never (14% of total voter ID) Bush 32% Gore 61%

2004 Weekly or more frequently (42% of total voter ID): Bush Avg 61% Kerry 38%
2000 Weekly or more frequently (42% of total voter ID) : Bush Avg 60% Gore Avg 38%

2004 Monthly or less frequently (57% of total voter ID): Bush Avg 43.8% Kerry Avg 55.0%
2000 Monthly or less frequently (56% of total voter ID): Bush Avg 40% Gore Avg 54.3%

So, among the most frequent of church goers, there was insignificant change 2004 over 2000 for either candidate, while among less frequent attendees, Bush gained 3.8 percentage points, or nearly 10% share 2004 over 2000, while Kerry gained only 0.7 percentage points, or a bit less than 1.3% share compared to Gore. Clearly, there was no "Religious Zealot" boost for Bush; Kerry merely underperformed in this particular demographic. Nothin' special there; he had a lot of that goin' on across the board. That's why he lost.

Unrelated, but rather interesting none the less: 83% of those surveyed said they had voted in 2000. This election, Bush got the votes of 10% of the former Gore voters, Kerry got 90%. Those who had voted for Bush in 2000 broke 91% to 9% for Bush this time. To all practical purposes, the 2 samples exhibit a statistically insignificant difference, leading to no other conclusion than that new voters favored Bush this time around.

Data: CNN Election 2004, CNN Election 2000

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So Timber I guess that we can conclude that not all people who view/vote themselves christian attend church on a regular basis. I'm not really sure what to say or think about that.

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"Christian" was not mentioned, Dys ... just frequency of attendance of religious services.

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well yeah Timber I hear ya, but with 87% of the american populace reporting themselves as "christian" I kinda assumed.

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Here's the breakout for "Religious Affilliation:

2004
Protestant (54% of total voter ID, unchanged from 2000) Bush 59%, +3 over 2000, Kerry 40%, Gore 42%

Catholic (27% of total voter ID, +1 over 2000) Bush 52%, +5 over 2000, Kerry 47%, Gore 50%

Jewish (3% of total voter ID, -1 under 2000) Bush 25%, +6 over 2000, Kerry 74% Gore 79%

Other (7% of total voter ID) Bush 23%, -5 under 2000, Kerry 74% Gore 62%

None (10% of total voter ID, +1 over 2000) Bush 31%, +1 over 2000, Kerry 67% Gore 61%

Its a little trickier to compare "Fundamentalist Christians" election-to-election, as that was not a question asked in both elections.
However, there is this:

2004 question: "Are you Evangelical/Born Again?"
Yes (23% of total voter ID) Bush 78% Kerry 21%

No (77% of total voter ID) Bush 43% Kerry 56%

2000 question: "Do you consider yourself as among the Religious Right?"
Yes (14 % of total voter ID): Bush 80% Gore 18%

No (83 % of total voter ID): Bush 42% Gore 54 %

Which indicates there was no significant swing there, either.

All in all, voter religious attitude appears to have been insignificant among the factors determining candidate choice.

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didn't say there was, I only commented that peeps report being christian affiliated but don't seem to be church goers.

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Cool. I know. What I'm on about, however, is the notion "The Fundies came out in strength and swarmed to Bush". That just plain didn't happen.

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actually it did happen but not this election

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sozobe wrote:

That ain't right.

It's not going to get people fired up, get them to cross party lines. People DON'T actually know what they want. Stop thinking they're so damn smart, especially in aggregate.

Here's what I mean. Did anyone in the late 80's say, ya know, what I really want is a TV show about nothing? Just four neurotic Jewish characters nattering on about their boring lives. Yeah, I'd just love to see that.

No, Seinfeld came on and people didn't know what the heck it was. It had terrible ratings.

But NBC stuck with it, Jerry and Larry stuck with it, and it became a total phenomenon. People didn't know they wanted it, but once they saw it -- something with a vision, that stuck to that vision even in the face of cluelessness and antipathy -- they loved it. [..]

I want the Democratic party to do the grassroots stuff, stay grounded, stay relevant, while nourishing and encouraging the visionaries in their party. And when one emerges who has an especially strong and compelling message and way of delivering it, let that person guide voters' tastes rather than vice versa.

Heh. I appreciate the sentiment, but on the other hand, I know some Trotskyites here in town who have been telling themselves something along these lines for a decade or two now ...

'One day, the voters will recognize our vision and be so convinced by it that they'll realise that what they thought they wanted isn't really what they want ...'

<grins>

Points by Timber appreciated, by the way. So it wasnt extra fundies coming out to vote after all who done did it this time. 'Nother theory down the drain.

Did we find a good explanation yet then, apart from that Kerry didnt work and (according to the Reps) that the Dems are just wrong and will never get it?

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Please don't ask me for a link because I really don't want to dig one up, but what is being taught in Church management courses these days is that the Boomers are the first generation to not return to the Church....and the last of that generation was born in the early 1960's. It should not be assumed that these are largely non-believers as most were church goers in their youth. But once they reached adulthood, many became infrequent or non church attenders. (We're speaking generalities here, not absolutes. Yes, I know some boomers stayed in the church.)

Their children, therefore, frequently have no Christian (or other religious) memory and put little or no importance on religious belief. That pendulum will swing again....it always does....but the perception that there was a huge religious influence in this campaign I believe just won't hold up under close scrutiny especially among those 'new' voters.

A couple or three decades ago, the Christian Coalition headed up by folks like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson et al were strongly activist and experienced such an overwhelming negative backlash that they stay pretty quiet these days. We saw nothing comparable in the last several campaigns.

I do believe character and morality were factors in this last election, but it would be hard to tie them to any particular religious belief, fundamentalist or not.

I wonder though if the perceived nonstop verbal assault on the religious throughout this campaign actually energized that base somewhat though.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I wonder though if the perceived nonstop verbal assault on the religious throughout this campaign actually energized that base somewhat though.

Well, as shown a few posts back, 90% of the Exit Poll interviewees claimed some sort of religious affiliation, and 66% claimed they attended religious services monthly or more frequently.

I can't imagine dissin' 2/3 of the Electorate would be a recruiting tactic with a high likelyhood of success. At the very least, it would seem to be a bit counterintuitive.

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nimh wrote:

sozobe wrote:
That ain't right.

It's not going to get people fired up, get them to cross party lines. People DON'T actually know what they want. Stop thinking they're so damn smart, especially in aggregate.

Here's what I mean. Did anyone in the late 80's say, ya know, what I really want is a TV show about nothing? Just four neurotic Jewish characters nattering on about their boring lives. Yeah, I'd just love to see that.

No, Seinfeld came on and people didn't know what the heck it was. It had terrible ratings.

But NBC stuck with it, Jerry and Larry stuck with it, and it became a total phenomenon. People didn't know they wanted it, but once they saw it -- something with a vision, that stuck to that vision even in the face of cluelessness and antipathy -- they loved it. [..]

I want the Democratic party to do the grassroots stuff, stay grounded, stay relevant, while nourishing and encouraging the visionaries in their party. And when one emerges who has an especially strong and compelling message and way of delivering it, let that person guide voters' tastes rather than vice versa.

Heh. I appreciate the sentiment, but on the other hand, I know some Trotskyites here in town who have been telling themselves something along these lines for a decade or two now ...

'One day, the voters will recognize our vision and be so convinced by it that they'll realise that what they thought they wanted isn't really what they want ...'

<grins>

Points by Timber appreciated, by the way. So it wasnt extra fundies coming out to vote after all who done did it this time. 'Nother theory down the drain.

Did we find a good explanation yet then, apart from that Kerry didnt work and (according to the Reps) that the Dems are just wrong and will never get it?

What I think (and I realize that I am just one person giving an opinion) for the reason that democrats didn't more people to vote for Kerry is because after Dean the whole entire campaign became about Kerry instead of about Bush the way it was before the democratic primary. The Bush machine just get rolling and rolling and Kerry had to spend all of his time defending himself.

What I think people mean when they say "it was the moral factor" or some words to that effect is that "well, we sure don't Kerry who is a flip flopper and a male jane fonda who faked his way to get his medals and at least Bush is a christian so we will vote for him."

Like it makes all the difference in the world that now the definition of marriage is understood to be between a man and a woman.

Didn't a pretty good chunck of people just not show up, something like 40%? I seem to remember that from somewhere. So that tells me the rest of the people that fell for all that flip flopper business but didn't fall for all this holier than thou business just didn't vote when it came right down to it.

However I will give credit where it is due, some of the people really do believe in President Bush for whatever reason and voted for him for that reason. You put that together with those other things mentioned and that is why President Bush is actually President Bush. IMO

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Quote:

Did we find a good explanation yet then, apart from that Kerry didnt work and (according to the Reps) that the Dems are just wrong and will never get it?

'Twas rigged.

<And that's yet another myth that is soon to be exploded>

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I don't know. While I've heard a lot about religious voters after the election, I really don't remember anyone talking about it that much (other than maybe on A2K) during the campaign? I'm kind of puzzled by the 'perceived nonstop verbal assault on the religious throughout this campaign'. Can anybody clue me in? What exactly did the dem campaign say and do to religious voters during this campaign that so offended them?

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FreeDuck wrote:

I don't know. While I've heard a lot about religious voters after the election, I really don't remember anyone talking about it that much (other than maybe on A2K) during the campaign? I'm kind of puzzled by the 'perceived nonstop verbal assault on the religious throughout this campaign'. Can anybody clue me in? What exactly did the dem campaign say and do to religious voters during this campaign that so offended them?

We opposed the Same Sex Amendment and support a woman's choice.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Such questions as abortion and the organized harvesting of embryonic stem cells from human zygotes do indeed raise moral, ethical, and legal questions quite independently of religion, Christianity - even of the Evangelical kind. I find the shrill secular rejection of any kind of debate or discussion of these matters to be intolerance of a degree to make even Savonarola proiud.

Surely the "rejection of any kind of debate" does not come from the secular side? Nothing is shriller than a guy with a gun outside an abortion clinic ready to do a doctor to death rather than advance any argument in support of his case. Now that, to me, is intolerance.
And there is an anti-science ethos among many christians which must bode ill for scientific research, even scientific education, in America should their influence spread as it now seems likely to do.

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FreeDuck wrote:

I don't know. While I've heard a lot about religious voters after the election, I really don't remember anyone talking about it that much (other than maybe on A2K) during the campaign? I'm kind of puzzled by the 'perceived nonstop verbal assault on the religious throughout this campaign'. Can anybody clue me in? What exactly did the dem campaign say and do to religious voters during this campaign that so offended them?

That's right. We heard reps complaining about all the "hate" being spouted by the "liberals"- yet Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter were working for them.
Same with this "attack on the religious". I don't think there is any basis for that. I can do it, sure, but that's just me. It would be a surefire vote-loser in any campaign, for one thing.

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As far as I've been able to notice, not much one way or the other has been said by Republicans re "The Religious Issues". Seems to me the whole deal is pretty much a favored meme among those mired in The Party of Decline. And I really gotta say the anger and vituperatin of the past few campaigns seems to me to have been while not exclusively at the very least preponderantly from The American Left. And I think a large part of the current fortunes of The Democratic Party may be laid squarely at the feet of those on The Left who perpetuate that and other such memes.

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timber, ever since wednesday I've read on just about every thread, including this one (just scroll up) about how the democrats turned off the majority of the electorate by attacking religion. I'll give you one guess which side of the spectrum those comments (mantras at this point) are coming from. And, while I've heard complaints from the losing side about the marrying of fundamentalism and republicanism, I've yet to see where the democratic party, in any way shape or form, even vaguely attacked religion. Especially during the campaign.

So, I'm asking for examples. If they're there I'll own it. Show me the nonstop verbal assault. Show me when and where democrats made fun of or otherwise disparaged the religious people of this country during the campaign.

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Okay, Dems, What Went Wrong? And How Can We Fix It?

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