Posted on 04/01/2007 10:48:20 AM PDT by FairOpinion
White evangelicals made up one-third of the electorate in Iowa in the 2004 presidential election, according to exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks. Two-thirds of them voted for George W. Bush.
Nationally, evangelicals were 23 percent of the electorate in 2004 and they voted overwhelmingly for Bush.
Republicans suffered a dramatic setback in Iowa in the midterm elections with a Democrat winning the governor's office and Republicans losing two seats in Congress. In addition, both chambers of the state Legislature rolled to Democratic control, and Scheffler acknowledged that a main reason was that religious conservatives sat it out.
According to AP-Ipsos polling in March, white evangelical Christians look like Republicans generally in terms of their support for the current field of candidates. Giuliani leads McCain 37 percent to 18 percent among evangelical Republicans nationally. Support for all other candidates was in the single digits
. "I think they are looking at electability and they are looking at people who are fiscally and socially conservative," Popma said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I don't think this is accurate...most analysis shows it was the middle third of the electorate that the Republicans lost ground on. Now that may be for the reasons you outlined but I even doubt that. What happened between 2004 (when Bush won) and 2006 wasn't spending and a change on illegal immigration...it was the loss of an agenda and record as a majority that made sense to the middle. That doesn't mean that only a middle of the road candidate can win...it just means the middle of the road voter has to be won over too.
Do you find this comforting? So you are saying that the GOP had no CHANCE to hold on to Congress? What was the point of even campaigning? Should we even bother to defend our the Republic? Afterall, historical trends show that it will inevitably fall. Why bother?
Because they believed the Democrat campaign promises. The biggest group to move democrat was voters who turned 18 since Bush assumed office and thus do not remember the tax increases that accompanied the start of the Clinton presidency. These voters also do not remember the excesses that led to the repudiation of Dem politics in 1980 or 1994. The press will not acknowledge the degree to which Dems were repudiated in 1980.
It hurt republicans at all levels that Bush has seemed to be determined to repudiate all aspects of the Republican brand upon which Republicans ran on in 1994.
I hate to say this, but in the '06 elections it was OUR GUYS (like Duke Cunningham) sent to prison for corruption. It was OUR GUYS (like Tom Delay) who tucked tail and ran because of being under investigation and cost us a safe seat. It was OUR GUYS who spent like drunken sailors and put our chldren's future in hock. It was OUR GUY, Mark Foley (R) FL, who was the pedophile.
C'mon grandma. Denial will not solve the problems we have in the GOP. When we are more corrupt, crooked and immoral than the diabolical Dems, we deserve to get our rear ends beat. I have to think that maybe morals and character do count.
See my post #64.
I will not deny that Bush had a lot of help in ruining the image of the Republicans. Some of your points have merit others do not. The spending problem is because Bush refused to put his foot down anywhere and say enough. Those who did like Coburn got the cold shoulder from both the Congressional leadership and the white house. The lack of border enforcement may not have been completely Bush's fault, however, when he made comments like "jobs Americans won't do" he made it look like it was directives from the top. I think part of it was simple incompetence, and low priorities for mid level people. When Bush and the Congressional leadership pushed that post facto legalization scheme, they drove many Republicans away.
Delay has not had a trial yet, because he has not broken the law (over six grand jurys refused to indict in less than a week). What happened to "Cold Cash" Jefferson?
I will NEVER agree that Republicans were more corrupt, crooked and immoral than the diabolical Dems. Never!!!!
If this were true, I would agree with you but it's simply not true.
Another MSM paper trumpeting a New York liberal as the answer for religious conservatives. Can’t wait till Fred Thompson gets in the race.
And as a result, the GOP has decided not even to pretend to court the “base” anymore. The Dems will win, big, in 2008 if this keeps up, because people will not vote socialist lite if they can get the full strength version.
Like I say: Denial will never fix the problems we have in the GOP.
This article is garbage. Bush has governed as an evangelical and that is what cost Republicans the election.
Just because you slap a R by his name does not mean I will vote for it. And the scare tactic of vote rino or you get a rat is losing its power due to how bad the reps have been of late.
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