Values Voters and Vanderslice: The Big Lie

post from TalkLeft on 27 December 2006 05:01:17 PM. © TalkLeft

Again we are regaled with stories about "Values Voters" and how to get them. Self proclaimed Dem values voters guru Mara Vanderslice has a good publicist and was able to have this story placed in the NYTimes:

Party strategists and nonpartisan pollsters credit the operative, Mara Vanderslice . . . with helping a handful of Democratic candidates make deep inroads among white evangelical and churchgoing Roman Catholic voters in Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Exit polls show that Ms. Vanderslice’s candidates did 10 percentage points or so better than Democrats nationally among those voters, who make up about a third of the electorate.

Sounds impressive right? It is a load of crap. I'll explain on the flip.

So Ms. Vanderslice's candidates did 10% better than Dems nationally did they? So what does that mean in round numbers. It means that they won about 38% of the white evangelical vote, as Dems nationally did about 28% with white evangelicals. Nationally Dems won 38% of folks who attend church more than once a week and 46% of those who attend at least once a week. Nationally, Dems captured 50% of white Catholic voters. It is hard to er, slice and dice what Vanderslice is supposed to have done. But I will look at one race in Ohio involving a so called Vanderslice candidate - Sherrod Brown, and see if Vanderslice actually did something worthy of an article. Here is Brown's performance in the same segments:

VOTE BY RELIGION TOTAL DeWine Brown
Protestant (59%)48% 52%
Catholic (25%) 46% 54%
Jewish (3%) 22% 78%
Other (4%) 20% 80%
None (9%) 18% 82%
VOTE BY RELIGION AMONG WHITES
TOTAL DeWine Brown
White Protestants (48%) 54% 46%
White Catholics (22%) 47% 53%
White Jewish Voters (3%) 22% 78%
Whites - Other (3%) 27% 73%
White - No Religion (7%) 19% 81%
Non-White Voters (17%) 23% 77%

VOTE BY CHURCH ATTENDANCE
TOTAL DeWine Brown
More Than Weekly (16%) 62% 38Weekly (30) 52% 48Monthly (13) 41% 59%
A Few Times a Year (27%)31% 69%
Never (13%) 26% 74%
VOTE BY CHURCH ATTENDANCE
TOTAL DeWine Brown
Weekly (45%) 56% 44%
Occasionally (39%) 34% 66%
Never (13%) 26% 74%

Hmmm. It looks like Sherrod Brown outperformed Dems nationally as well, and by about 10 percentage points it looks like on the frequent church goers line. Did Vanderslice work that one? Why yes she did.

So let me get this straight, Mara Vanderslice is the reason why Sherrod Brown did that well? Are you shitting me? Sherrod Brown was preaching the gospel is the storyline now? My gawd, for a person of faith, this Vanderslice person is quite the liar. Who else did she work for?

* Bob Casey for U.S. Senate * Ted Strickland for Governor
* Sherrod Brown for U.S. Senate
* Michigan Democratic Party
* Jennifer Granholm for Governor
* Kansas Democratic Party
* Kathleen Sebelius for Governor
* Democratic Party of Oregon
* Heath Shuler for U.S. Congress

Now we have something to compare. She worked for Granholm but not for Stabenow apparently. Let's see what a difference maker Vanderslice was in Michigan:

VOTE BY RELIGION TOTAL Stabenow Bouchard
Protestant (54%) 52% 46%
Catholic (27%) 55% 43%
Jewish (1%) * *
Other (7%) 73% 27%
None (12%) 70% 21%
BORN-AGAIN OR EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN?
TOTAL Stabenow Bouchard
Yes (33%) 45% 53%
No (67%) 63% 34%

VOTE BY RELIGION AMONG WHITES
TOTAL Stabenow Bouchard
White Protestants (43%) 45% 53%
White Catholics (24%) 53% 44%
White Jewish Voters (1%) * *
Whites - Other (4%) 73% 27%
White - No Religion (9%) 66% 24%
Non-White Voters (18%) 81% 18%

WHITE EVANGELICAL/BORN-AGAIN?
TOTAL Stabenow Bouchard
Yes (23%) 33% 65%
No (77%) 65% 33%

VOTE BY CHURCH ATTENDANCE
TOTAL Stabenow Bouchard
More Than Weekly (14%) 39% 61%
Weekly (29%) 46% 51%
Monthly (13%) 68% 31%
A Few Times a Year (25%) 67% 30%
Never (14%) 69% 26%
VOTE BY CHURCH ATTENDANCE
TOTAL Stabenow Bouchard
Weekly (44%) 44% 54%
Occasionally (38%) 67% 31%
Never (14%) 69% 26%

How did Granholm, Vanderslice's candidate, do?

VOTE BY RELIGION TOTAL Granholm DeVos
Protestant (54%) 53% 47%
Catholic (26%) 56% 43%
Jewish (1%) * *
Other (7%) 71% 28%
None (12%) 72% 24%
BORN-AGAIN OR EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN?
TOTAL Granholm DeVos
Yes (33%) 47% 53%
No (67%) 63% 35%

VOTE BY RELIGION AMONG WHITES
TOTAL Granholm DeVos
White Protestants (43%) 46% 54%
White Catholics (24%) 55% 44%
White Jewish Voters (1%) * *
Whites - Other (4%) 68% 32%
White - No Religion (9%) 68% 26%
Non-White Voters (19%) 80% 19%

WHITE EVANGELICAL/BORN-AGAIN?
TOTAL Granholm DeVos
Yes (23%) 35% 65%
No (77%) 65% 34%

VOTE BY CHURCH ATTENDANCE
TOTAL Granholm DeVos
More Than Weekly (14%) 37% 63%
Weekly (29%) 51% 48%
Monthly (13%) 64% 36%
A Few Times a Year (25%) 65% 33%
Never (14%) 72% 27%
VOTE BY CHURCH ATTENDANCE
TOTAL Granholm DeVos
Weekly (43%) 46% 53%
Occasionally (38%) 64% 34%
Never (14%) 72% 27%

Wow!!!!!!!! What a brilliant strategist that Vanderslice must be. She got ONE WHOLE POINT more for Granholm among white evangelicals!!!! A genius is born!!! Sheesh.

But wait, the story is not over. Were there any losses resulting from the Vanderslice genius for Granholm. I am afraid there were:

VOTE BY PARTY ID
TOTAL Stabenow Bouchard
Democrat (40%) 94% 5%
Republican (33%) 11% 89%
Independent (27%) 57% 36% VOTE BY IDEOLOGY
TOTAL Stabenow Bouchard
Liberal (21%) 85% 13%
Moderate (47%) 64% 34%
Conservative (31%) 24% 74%

Compare to Granholm:

VOTE BY PARTY ID TOTAL Granholm DeVos
Democrat (40%) 93% 7%
Republican (33%) 13% 86%
Independent (27%) 57% 40% VOTE BY IDEOLOGY
TOTAL Granholm DeVos
Liberal (21%) 85% 14%
Moderate (47%) 66% 33%
Conservative (31%) 23% 76%

Stabenow did 3 points better among Democrats than Granholm. So maybe that one point squeezed out from white evangelicals cost Granholm 3 points from 40% of the electorate. MAYBE not good political strategy.

Let us be serious for a moment. My microanalysis is facetious. I have no idea why there are slight variations in the results of Granholm and Stabenow. But the New York Times pretends they do. The idiot Mike McCurry is quoted as saying:

The midterm elections were a “proof point” for arguments that Ms. Vanderslice had made two years before, said Mike McCurry, a Democratic consultant and former spokesman for President Bill Clinton who worked with Ms. Vanderslice on the Kerry campaign. For the Democrats, Mr. McCurry said, Ms. Vanderslice and her company “were the only ones taking systematic, methodical steps to build a religious component in the practical campaign work.”

What a load. Ms. Vanderslice had no impact and proved absolutely nothing. I hate these idiots in DC. They are just the worst.

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Chickens Coming Home To Roost

post from TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed on 27 December 2006 04:57:50 PM. © TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed

Josh's question about the genesis of Bush's rapid political decline, and Jo-Ann's and Todd's answers, revolve around the plausibility of a Single Bullet Theory of what happened between 2004 and 2006.

My own hunch is that the Bush collapse was a bit more complicated: a tale of two cities, Baghdad and New Orleans, where events unravelled the myth of Bush as the wise and resolute leader who had somehow kept America safe despite the questionable nature of so many of his decisions. And then the Bush-Rove polarization strategy imploded, sending the administration and the GOP into a downward spiral of ever-more-fruitless base-tending, even as their non-base support evaporated.

I'm not sure how well Democrats (particularly those who thought a stronger anti-war Democrat would have won) have ever understood the role Iraq played in Bush's 2004 re-election.

If you remember the run-up to the Republican Convention of that year, a lot of us were mystified about why the GOP continued to emphasize the bogus links beteween Iraq and 9/11. In retrospect, it's reasonably clear the Bush-Cheney campaign understood something about the public attitude toward Iraq that the pollsters and the opposition never quite figured out. Again and again, the GOP reinforced a simple if fatally flawed line of "reasoning:" some Arabs came over here on 9/11 and killed a lot of us. Then George Bush went over to the Middle East and killed a whole lot more Arabs, and lo and behold, we were not attacked again. As I heard countless regular folks say as they made up their minds about how to vote in 2004: "Bush must be doing something right."

Sometimes this false syllogism was made explicit, as in the "flypaper" theory that suggested Bush had brilliantly lured al-Qaeda into confining its terrorist activities to Iraq, keeping America safe. More often the appeal consisted simply of portraying Bush as a serene and uncomplicated leader who was indifferent to all the endless debates over the nature of the terrorist threat, and somehow got the right results, in sharp contrast to a Democratic opponent who was full of complex, nuanced aguments that might be right or might be wrong, but weren't proven the way skies empty of terrorist-piloted planes seem to prove Bush's policies. And thus, Bush was re-elected by creating an impression of confidence that implied competence.

The magic obviously began to fade as conditions in Iraq deteriorated, and the lies and stubborn refusals to admit mistakes became more visible. And then came Katrina, a domestic occurrance strikingly similar in its scope to a second 9/11, and the confident and competent commander-in-chief suddenly looked pigheaded and clueless, just as Democrats had always said he was. Bush and the GOP never recovered from that rude national awakening from enchantment.

Moreover, the Rovian polarization strategy made a recovery vastly more difficult. It gave the GOP virtually no margin for error, when errors were mounting every day. And its key tactic of selective initiatives that would not offend conservatives while peeling off targeted swing voter categories--younger voters with Social Security privatization, seniors with a Rx drug benefit, and Hispanics with a generous immigration reform effort--backfired across the board, leaving swing voters cold and requiring ever-more-aggressive measures to hold the conservative base.

If you had to pick one initiative that wreaked the most damage, it would be the Social Security initiative, the first cookie on the plate in Bush's second term. I suspect the Bushies were misled by their success in pushing tax cuts in early 2001, when they had even less of a mandate for radical policymaking. Then, of course, the federal budget was running a huge surplus, and that probably had more to do with Bush's success than with the White House's audacity or the apparent cowardice of the handful of congressional Democrats who went along with it. No such objective factor created a wind behind the Social Security proposal, and it wound up not only uniting Democrats and the public against it, but angered conservatives who felt the administration had blown its post-electoral honeymoon and any real chance to gut Social Security.

The bottom line is that 2006 represented a predictable blowback from the very strategy and tactics that made the GOP's 2002 and 2004 victories possible in the first place. In every direction, chickens were coming home to roost. American political history is full of electoral defeats that were accidental or at least circumstantial. But the humiliation of George W. Bush and Karl Rove last month can best be characterized by one word: "Justice."

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The Conference Committee Two-Step

post from Ezra Klein on 27 December 2006 04:56:00 PM. © Ezra Klein

by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math I read the news that Pelosi will allow the loyal opposition more opportunities to offer amendments and legislation with some trepidation. On the one hand, compromises are things to look for after the opposition...[...]

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Gotta Wait For the Decider To Decide

post from Eschaton on 27 December 2006 04:29:00 PM. © Eschaton

According to the White House, no one is allowed to comment on hypothetical plans for Iraq until the Decider has Decided.

We are ruled by children.

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In Nevada, Governor's Off the Hook

post from TPMmuckraker on 27 December 2006 04:22:39 PM. © TPMmuckraker

Ah, the cover-up is worse than the (alleged) crime. A local district attorney announced today he won't seek to indict the Nevada governor-elect for drunkenly assaulting a cocktail waitress in a parking garage in the middle of the night, AP...

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Purr-spective

post from Firedoglake on 27 December 2006 04:15:46 PM. © Firedoglake

(Photo of Rep. Dan Burton via Salon.)The next time some reporter unquestioningly writes up some dreck that spews forth from the mouth of Mark Corallo or Barbara Comstock — I want you to write that reporter with two words: Dan Burton. [...]

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Midday Open Thread

post from Daily Kos on 27 December 2006 04:10:31 PM. © Daily Kos

Swing State Project has a rundown of the Narrowest Dem House Incumbent Performances in 2006. Gives a good idea of where some of our danger zones may be in 2008.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court gives Mitt Romney a "symbolic victory" but an actual defeat on gay marriage.

As BarbinMD describes it, this "bizarro world 'best of times, worst of times' column" from the National Review can be read for humor value.

Two stories from the TPM empire: TPM Cafe reports that Rudy Giuliani is recruiting the relatives of 9/11 victims to support him in his presidential run. And TPM Muckraker reports on possible ties between a major Republican lobbying firm and dirty tricks robocalls made in some districts immediately before the November election.

Digby voted for Gerald Ford.

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Idiots

Corner morons.

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Afternoon Thread

Enjoy.

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John Edwards and the Electoral Map

by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math Same questions as before, only for John Edwards rather than Barack Obama. What blue states turn a deeper shade of blue? What red states turn a lighter shade of red? Is there any backlash...[...]

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