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Political Death, Thy Name Is Foley

The Democrats made gains across all groups in the October poll compared to the averages in previous months. But the Democratic gain (or Republican loss depending on how one looks at it) is more significant among religious whites than among the other two groups. Religious whites went from an average Democratic disadvantage of 23 points […]

The Democrats made gains across all groups in the October poll compared to the averages in previous months. But the Democratic gain (or Republican loss depending on how one looks at it) is more significant among religious whites than among the other two groups. Religious whites went from an average Democratic disadvantage of 23 points across the June through September months, to dead even in October. Less religious whites shifted only seven points across these two time periods, while the group of “all others” shifted 9 points.

A comparison of the September average to October shows a 22-point gain for the Democrats among white frequent churchgoers, a six-point gain among white less frequent churchgoers, and a 14-point gain among all others.

The comparison between religious whites and less religious whites is particularly revealing. The gap between these two groups averaged 42 points in the June through September period, and is now down to 26 points. ~Gallup

Via Andrew Sullivan

This is pretty stunning.  The Democrats have been banging the “progressive Christian” drum and talking about the importance of “faith” for the past two years, but this hadn’t moved the numbers significantly among frequent church-goers.  They have moved back and forth by a few points here and there, but never made any substantial gains.  Barack Obama could give speeches about how the Democrats needed to reconnect with “people of faith” (note to Democratic speechwriters: when you want to appeal to “people of faith,” don’t use weasel language like “people of faith”), but nobody seemed to be listening.  They talked among themselves on their blogs and journals: “How can we trick enough Christians into voting for us with the kinds of cynical rhetorical appeals that have always worked for the Republicans?”  For some reason, this kind of talk did not inspire enthusiasm for the Democrats. 

Then came Mark Foley, the grinning pederast of Palm Beach (I’m sorry, I mean “virtual pederast”), and the bumbling GOP response to the scandal (“Uh…blame the Democrats!  No, blame the media!  No, blame the terrorists!”).  In a recent conversation I made a remark, “This Foley thing seems like some kind of divine retribution.”  Apparently the faithful saw the sign and believed that there was some sort of punishment being sent down from the Most High, because if this Gallup poll (+/-3% margin of error) is correct many of them are fleeing the GOP this cycle at a simply stunning rate in the last two months.  Between August and the first week of October the GOP dropped 15 points among “religious whites” (defined as “whites who self-report attending church weekly or almost every week”) at the same time the Dems gained 14 points, bringing them to a neck-and-neck 47%  Does anyone know of the last time something like this sort of rapid collapse happened this close to an election among one of a party’s most reliable groups of supporters?  It seems pretty unusual to me, and I have followed elections pretty closely for at least the last eight years.  So much for the great “theocratic” juggernaut that was coming to destroy us all. 

Update: The Wall Street Journal reports a poll that includes this interesting item:

When asked about recent Capitol Hill scandals involving charges of corruption and sexual improprieties, 64% said they believed those activities were the just the “tip of the iceberg,” compared with 25% who believed they were “isolated incidents.”

Whether or not it really is the “tip of the iceberg,” a sizeable majority thinks that it is, and perception is reality.  Tellingly, the “tip of the iceberg” folks included 49% of Republicans.  Tony Blankley and other Republicans who called on Hastert to resign are looking pretty smart right now; Hugh Hewitt (he of the “donate now to the RNC to fight the vast left-wing conspiracy” approach to this scandal’s politics)…well, Hugh Hewitt remains Hugh Hewitt.  After the Year of Corruption it would be hard to credit that the latest scandal does not represent a deeper disorder in Congress.  In any case, the Goppers made no real effort to stop the political bleeding; they wasted so much of their energy and attention freaking out about George Soros’ evil designs that they put almost no effort into damage control and making amends.  So confident were they that their voters would blame Foley and only Foley for the mess that they missed something important about their voters: these people aren’t stupid and they don’t follow blindly, whatever GOP elites may think about them, and they actually hold people in positions of authority responsible for their failures.

Hastert’s speech in front of a cemetery was a fitting statement on the whole mess.  He might as well have been saying, “I come not to praise the mighty GOP, but to bury it.”  Indeed, the inept handling of the scandal has very likely buried them.

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