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Friday, July 23, 2010

Whiny White Guys Still Ruining Things

Public Policy Polling:
[N]et approval of Congressional Democrats… [is] 16 points better than that of Congressional Republicans…. Yet… the generic ballot [is] a tie. The reason… is that Republicans are cleaning up with a voting bloc that accounts for 26% of the country and could end up being the most important group of people at the polls this fall: voters who hate both Congressional Democrats and... Republicans. The GOP has a 57-19 generic lead with this group of voters that could perhaps be described as the angriest segment of the electorate. Their support is fueling the GOP's success right now…. 44% are Republicans, 34% are independents, and 21% are Democrats. They're largely male (60%) and white (82%). I think it's very accurate to say that angry white males are the key to GOP prospects this fall. One interesting thing about these folks is that only 35% of them identify as Tea Partiers.

I must say that I find it rather terrifying that as many as 35% of these whiny white guys identify as Tea Parters inasmuch as to identify as a Tea Partier is more or less to declare proudly that you are a white racist christian-talibanist greedhead gun-nut.

I will add that if it really is the case that 21% of these folks identify as Democrats and are being lumped together in their declared hostility to both parties as fueling GOP success, this seems to me likely to yield skewed expectations, since I think that many Democrats who hate both parties hate them both for different reasons than Republicans who hate both parties hate them for and that when all is said and done many of these Democrats will vote for Democrats over Republicans anyway. This is rather like the error made by many who treated as identical those who were angry about HCR because it was Socialism! and those who were angry because it wasn't single payer… the already softening negativity of the ignorant conspiracists and impatient radicals should have been no surprise but the treatment as monolithic of HCR opposition yielded misreadings of the terrain -- perhaps this is happening again with the whiny white guys.

Finally, I don't see why this group is supposed to be "the most important group of people at the polls this fall" when they are actually probably a stratified minority many of whom are as likely to be ambivalent or demoralized non-voters as passionate activists for mainstream party candidates -- although I suspect a high proportion of whiny white guys among pundits and pollsters may have something to do with the attention they get.

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