Posted on 04/21/2009 12:31:02 PM PDT by lewisglad
Excuse me, but you can shove your little lecture.
I have read criticism of The American Voter that points out the exact things I said, so don’t try and act like the political science community is all in agreement here. The point is that things change in politics. While F=ma may not change, countries and trends do. It is simply not the case that what holds for a relatively small period of time must hold for eternity. Such conclusions are based on too many assumptions to be treated as sacred. There’s a reason that the natural sciences look down on the social sciences. An appropriate response to my post would have been something like, “Here are some more recent studies that show and give more weight to the conclusions found in The American Voter.”
BTW, I used the word ‘faith’ intentionally. Your response to its use was exactly what I expected it to be.
I'm not surprised at all that you used faith. Apparently, that's all the basis you have for your opinions. Where you criticize me for not adding MORE citations, I see how you've conveniently fail to mention any published studies that support you "belief". There's a reason for that - they don't exist.
Wait, are you serious? You really dispute that political scientists don’t all follow the Michigan model and that there have been scholarly articles and studies that dispute it? Nevermind, I gave you too much credit. When is the last time you took a polisci course? Your point of view is a little out of date.
Putting any animosity aside for the moment and touching on a topic that is at least somewhat more relevant to the purpose of this thread...
What is your take as to what position the GOP should take with regard to same-sex marriage and gay rights in general? Not being a self-loather, I am obviously in support of such things, but it’s a rather difficult issue for the GOP. The numbers support the GOP keeping strong on some social conservative issues (like abortion), but they certainly do not support the party opposing gay rights (at least in the long ). How the party should handle the gay issue when supporting may lose a lot of the conservative vote and lead to fracture, but opposing may doom the party in the longterm is beyond me.
Also, I apologize for my iinitial post. Yes, I used faith and was dismissive intentionally just to ruffle your feathers, but with all due respect, you’ve been quite critical and dismissive of this forum in the short amount of time you’ve been here [despite the fact that you yourself are not perfect (e.g., the comment you made in the 2A thread the other day)] , so the old taste of his own medicine routine seemed appropriate. I should’ve just stated my concerns directly to you instead of baiting you, so again, I sincerely apologize for my puerile taunting.
Add. to 86: Faith as in my use of the word faith.
Old line regarding her dad at the CMAs one year.
What? YOU never posted a typo?
“To discount it because of it’s age is like discounting Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica because it was printed the first time in the 17th century.”
To be fair, who the heck reads the Principia anymore?
No one is discriminating against gays. They can get married. They only need to find someone [of the opposite sex] who will marry them.
From time to time I can be combative. It stems from two things, first my personality and second my life experience, especially the last 6 years. I graduated from college in the early '80s (Yes, that's the last time I read "The American Voter in my last PoliSci class). After college, I spent 20 years as a Marine officer. After retirement (and then a recall trip to Iraq) I became very active in the Republican part, primarily as college adviser to on-campus Republican groups.
This is why I'm so passionate, and sometimes abrasive especially in the area of the youth vote - a youth vote which far too many here are way too dismissive. Why is the you vote important? There have been several political scientist that have done post-election analysis that have concluded that Obama would have one, even without the financial meltdown, because of the youth vote. Or, put another way, Barack Obama enjoyed a little more than a 2% advantage because of his better than 66% showing in the 18-29 year old voter block. The youth vote is that important.
Look at these statistics for party performance with respect to varying demographic groups...
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/national-exit-polls.html
It shows that the last four Presidential elections, the GOP has been getting stomped in the youth vote. The coup de grâce came in 2008 when Obama had 34 point advantage.
People who think that this won't be a problem going forward are either deluded or haven't read the research - research that indicates people who vote for the first time when they are first eligible to vote, usually maintain a party loyalty of anywhere from 56% (as concluded by the American Voter) to over 60% (check out research from Beck and Billlingsly & Tucker). But, even if it's the low end, that means that the Dems are going to keep 56% of their 34 point advantage as this demographic ages. Essentially, there's a reasonable possibility that the GOP will be spotting the Dems somewhere in the neighborhood of 19 points with these particular set of voters.
In fairness, there's some hope for the GOP in so much that this only applies to the 18-29 voters that actually vote in the first or second election. The people that don't vote for the first time until they're into their late 20's or early 30's are essentially up for grabs.
I think many conservatives (especially here) are dismissive of the youth vote because the perception is they don't turn out. This is not necessarily accurate. They don't turn out in the same percentages as their older voting colleagues, but their impact is by no way insignficant.
Since 1996, the percentage of of eligible voters (in the 18-29) that have actually voted is increasing. In 2004, it was around 54% (compared to over 70% for the over 40 crowd). But, in 2008 many pollsters believe that the number is somewhere around 56%, which rivals the 1972 election, which was historic for young voter participation.
The best post-election analysis I've read so far about this topic comes from Pew. The report can be read below...
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1031/young-voters-in-the-2008-election
Lastly, people are always so eager to share anecdotal evidence, so allow me to share mine. When I was in college, the College Republicans were incredibly visible, active and effective in generating turnout for the GOP. Reagan actually won the youth vote in '84 (by 20 points) as did Bush in '88 (5 points). Those young Reagan voters (like me) are now in their mid-to-late 40's - essentially one of the most reliable, active and passionate conservative supporters today in any demographic. This is the advantage that Dems, not Republicans will enjoy when these new, young voters are in their 40s.
I hope you've found this post, lest personal, less snarky or judgmental and more analytical as that was my intent.
We’re essentially in agreement on the youth vote. I have been advocating similar things here for a few years . While there are some areas where the party is going to have major problems (e.g., the gay issue that I mentioned in post 85), it’s also true that there are many areas where the party can improve its outreach without changing the platform. It doesn’t take sacrificing belefs to get with the program on social networking and the Internet in general or to present a conservative message in a way that makes it seem full of “hope” and “change”. And I think there are areas where the numbers favor the conservative viewpoint, such as abortion and affirmative action, where inroads cn be made provided that the message is presented in a reasonable way.
And yes, your latest post is the kind of post that betters this forum. Sorry for just about losing it earlier, but not everyone here is a simpleton who needs the basics recited to him. It’s not like we all have degrees in communications or women’s studies or some other easy field from podunk university after all. Some of us went to an “ Ivy Plus” school.
BTW, your thoughts on 85?
I wonder what Hannity will have to say about her now. He’s telling everyone to take their kids to her movie because it is so wholesome and just plain good fun.
For the love of God, my two year old daughter wants to see the movie. This will just have to be one of those disappointments that she will eventually get over I guess, because I’m not showing my daughter anything from hannah montana when she aligns herself with the likes of perez.
They should handle it exactly like Barack Obama did - he stood in opposition of so-called gay marriage, but supported some kind of civil unions. That will probably be unpalatable to many here, but to do otherwise is to be on the wrong side of the political trend.
Where most people in the country are against gay marriage, as the ballot issues have shown the last four years. As equal number of people are for domestic partnerships of some kind.
Beyond that, the GOP should become agnostic on "gay rights". In fact, they should become agnostic on these identity politics specialty group "rights". As soon as they're forced to address Hispanic rights, or black rights or Asian rights or gay rights, they've lost.
The GOP, like in 1964, needs to get back to the days of talking about the primacy of individual rights. They've for too long allowed the Dems to control the civil rights issue by segmenting the population into groups which they can then pit against the party of the old, white, male Christians. It's a winning strategy for the Dems and a losing one for the GOP.
That was a very enlightening post. It just so happens we’ve been discussing “generations” and voting patterns on another thread, and your college experience sounds very much like mine, which I wrote about in post #55:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2234499/posts?page=55#55
You might be interested in the discussion on that thread, too. Even the author of the article signed up to reply on that thread.
I’m going to link to your post above on the other thread because it fits into the discussion there, too.
I just want to be more specific with the word I used - “enlightening”:
I’m enlightened by the information. But, I do find the state of politics in our country and the voting pattern of the younger demographic very worrisome. I just want to make sure that’s clear.
Yes. I certainly didn't take anything else from your post.
My TV set is 10 years older than her. If Pixie, my black cat, didn’t pass away last October, Miley would be as old as Pixie.
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