Month: May 2006

Drudge Lies about Gore’s Use of SUVs in Cannes

Jon Ponder


The rightwing just cannot resist lying about Al Gore. This time it’s Matt Drudge who retracted a story on his website saying that Gore and his party drove SUVs 500 feet from their hotel to a screening at the Cannes Film Festival because it proved to be untrue:

ThinkProgress contacted Gore’s representatives, who unequivocally confirmed that Al Gore and his associates walked from the Majestic Hotel to the screening at Cannes. Further, Paramount has committed to making the entire tour promoting the film carbon neutral.

Poll: Most Don’t Support Amendment to Ban Gay Marriage

Buck Banks

Mea culpa: Okay, okay, so I was a little wrong in my last post — the Senate is debating a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between a man and a woman, not gays or lesbians. But as today’s National Journal PollTrack notes, a majority of Americans don’t support changing the Consitution.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week passed a bill proposing the amendment 10-8 on a party-line vote and sent the bill on for debate in the full Senate. But analysts suggest the bill is unlikely to pass. A new Gallup survey suggests that although opposition to gay marriage still enjoys majority support among the public, the idea of changing the Constitution has lost popularity.

Asked if they would favor an amendment defining marriage in heterosexual terms, “thus barring marriages between gay or lesbian couples,” half said they would favor an amendment, and 47 percent said they would oppose one — statistically even.

Previous surveys showed a more substantial split— a spring 2005 survey showed 53 percent in favor and 44 percent opposed, and a March 2005 survey showed 57 percent in favor and 37 percent opposed.

The new Gallup survey found that nearly six in 10 respondents told pollsters that “marriages between homosexuals” should not be considered valid in the eyes of the law; 39 percent said they should be.

Support increases slightly when the phrase “same-sex couples” is substituted for “homosexuals,” with 42 percent saying the marriages should be recognized like heterosexual unions. But a 56-percent majority still said they should not be valid.

Gallup’s analysis found “no appreciable change over the past two years in Americans’ attitudes about legal recognition for same-sex marriage.”

But despite widespread opposition to same-sex marriage, the evangelical Bible-thumpers are still on the fringe, as I noted before.

Poll: Another New Low For President Bush

Jon Ponder

Just a week or so after President Bush’s approval soared two points up to 36 percent in the CNN poll, the latest results from the American Research Group shows that his approval rating is 32 percent, which is down two points from ARG’s results last month:

Among all Americans, 32 percent approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 61 percent disapprove. When it comes to Bush’s handling of the economy, 29 percent approve and 65 percent disapprove. Among Americans registered to vote, 32 percent approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 61 percent disapprove. When it comes to the way Bush is handling the economy, 29 percent of registered voters approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 65 percent disapprove.

Evangelicals Becoming Politically Irrelevant

Buck Banks

Do unto others: Right-wing Christian groups are losing their ability to drive the Republican Party’s agenda and, by extension, their ability to push policy in the mid-term elections. That’s the assertion of Nathan Gonzales, writing in the Rothenberg Political Report.

President Bush is an easy target these days. Two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the job he is doing and even Bush’s loyal supporters are taking the opportunity to pile-on. Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family and other evangelical leaders are criticizing the president for inaction on social issues dear to their hearts and threatening to withhold their support in the November elections.

While the threat seems intimidating at first glance, the concept of staying home in November carries little long-term consequences for President Bush and Republicans but virtually certain consequences for the very issues social conservatives wish to promote.

Note to evangelicals: it will be harder to get your agenda passed by exercising a strategy that allows political friends to be defeated for reelection.

Gonsales notes that Bush is not on the ballot in November, and while evangelicals took credit for re-electing the president, giving the GOP a majority in the House and taking over the Senate, their core issues remain marginalized to a great extent, at least on the national stage. While some states are passing legislation against gay marriage, neither Bush nor any Repugs in congress have pushed for a national gay marriage ban. But if the Christian rightwingers try to punish Bush for not strongly condemning gay marriage in November, they’ll really end up hurting their cause, noted Gonzales:

So, by attempting to punish Bush in November by staying home, evangelicals will actually punish conservatives like Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), Sen. George Allen (R-VA), Cong. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Cong. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), Cong. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO), and others who could be sent packing by voters instead.

Note to evangelicals: it will be harder to get your agenda passed by exercising a strategy that allows political friends to be defeated for reelection. Then you’re left with an uncooperative and unpopular president, minorities in Congress, and no friends in those minorities.

On a macro-level, Republicans are already in danger of losing their majorities, but dismal turnout by base Republicans will make Democratic takeovers near-certainties. Then, conservative evangelicals would have no hope of getting their issues passed and would be lucky to get a meeting with the new majority, let alone private nurturing.

Gonzales says that the Babble-thumpers have placed themselves in a political predicament that King Solomon probably couldn’t resolve. They put all their eggs in the Republican basket, but with Bush becoming increasingly irrelevant they have nowhere to turn, having long ago alienated centrists and liberals.

The current rhetoric of Dobson, Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, and others shows a complete misunderstanding of the political environment. President Bush is not broadly unpopular because he has failed to ban same-sex marriage.

Yet, conservative evangelicals continue to press him to do so.

With the War in Iraq and increasing threats from Iran, if President Bush were to spend all of his time and energy on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, he would simply look silly, and his job approval ratings would likely plummet even further.

The idea of “staying home” to punish the Republican Party is absurd. For conservative evangelicals to tout the fundamental need for freedom and democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, but simply ignore their own opportunity to vote here in America is hypocritical.

For too many conservative evangelicals, the message appears to be: if you don’t get what you want, stay home. Apparently, to some of these evangelical leaders, the best way to win the political game is to take themselves out of it. That makes little sense in today’s world, or in today’s politics.

Wingnut Leader: Bush Fooled Us

Jon Ponder

O! the Mighty: We’re beginning to see the leadership of the rightwing begin to distance itself from their Dear Leader. Just a few years ago, President Bush was a perfect vessel of God’s holy word who was incapable of error. Now we have Richard Vigurie, a Reagan era conservative fossil, offering excuse after excuse after excuse to explain why he and his fellow fantacists fell for the Bush’s deceptions and the do-nothingness of the GOP Congress:

As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a “compassionate conservative,” which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party’s spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: “He’s one of us.”

And…

[…]

Divorce Rate of Evangelicals Was Higher Than Non-Believers in Christian Study

Jon Ponder

The source for this post is the Baptist Standard, no less, and even though the data are six years old, these are stunning statistics — especially since these are the very people who are desperate to “save” “traditional marriage” from gays:

The Christian group whose adherents have the highest likelihood of getting divorced are Baptists.

“Born-again” Christians are more likely to go through a marital split than are non-Christians, according to a new study by the Barna Research Group.

Using statistics drawn from a nationwide survey of nearly 4,000 adults, the Barna data show 11 percent of the adult population currently is divorced but that 25 percent of all adults have experienced at least one divorce.

Among “born-again” Christians, 27 percent currently are divorced or previously have been divorced, compared with 24 percent among adults who are not “born again.”

Surprisingly, the Barna report said, the Christian group whose adherents have the highest likelihood of getting divorced are Baptists. The only group to surpass Baptists were Christians associated with non-denominational Protestant churches.

According to the company website, Barna Group, which is located in Ventura, California, provides research on Christian issues.

The Bush Effect: Pollsters Add More Vulnerable GOP House Seats to List for November

Jon Ponder

I’m starting to worry about all the high-fivin’ on the left over the likelihood the Dems will take back Congress this year. Still, it’s okay to dream:

The Bush effect now amounts to a drag of five percentage points or more in many districts.

Some veterans of the 1994 GOP takeover of Congress see worrisome parallels between then and now, in the way once-safe districts are turning into potential problems. Incumbents’ poll numbers have softened. Margins against their Democratic opponents have narrowed. Republican voters appear disenchanted. The Bush effect now amounts to a drag of five percentage points or more in many districts.

The changes don’t guarantee a Democratic takeover by any means, but they are creating an increasingly asymmetrical battlefield for the fall elections: The number of vulnerable Democratic districts has remained relatively constant while the number of potentially competitive Republican districts continues to climb.

Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of a political newsletter, now has 42 Republican districts, including Drake’s, on his list of competitive races. Last September, he had 26 competitive GOP districts… “That’s a pretty significant increase,” he said. “The national atmospherics are making long shots suddenly less long.”

At the Cook Political Report, Amy Walter has revised an analysis of the battle for control of the House, taking into account the sour mood toward Republicans nationally as a potentially significant factor in races that might otherwise turn on local issues, candidate performance or the size of campaign war chests.

“In a nationalized election, the typical laws of gravity get thrown out the window,” Walter said. “Under-funded candidates beat better-funded candidates, and entrenched incumbents lose to first-time challengers.”

It also becomes harder for Republicans to steal elections when the results are not evenly divided.