<p>I think the explanation is simple. The Republican vote is overwhelmingly southern, white and male. Thus, if you have a borderline Republican/Independent who is disgusted with the Republicans and looking to “throw the bums out”, Edwards is the knee-jerk choice because he’s the southern white male in the race. I don’t think any of those voters are actually paying attention to Edwards’ campaign messages at this early stage. He has low negatives because he’s simply not known very well.</p>
<p>You also get into the whole electoral college map. Edwards is probably picking up a lot of deep south swing voters in the head-to-head matchup polling. The problem is that those deep south swing voters are irrelevant in the real election because the Democrats cannot carry any of those states. Those swing voters would simply make an overwhelming Republican margin of victory in those states slightly less overwhelming.</p>
Calmom, I haven’t been following the dem candidates at all this year, and I’ll admit that I don’t have a clue where he stands on the issues. In the last election, I just remember that when he talked it sounded like he was making sense and not just spewing a lot of talking points. I respect someone who can articulate a well thought out point of view, even if I personally disagree with it.</p>
<p>So, it may be the trust issue that you mentioned. A Republican may feel that he/she knows where Edwards stands and what he will do. There is a huge distrust of HC and Obama is just an unknown quantity.</p>
Hereshoping, why do you talk about overestimating the power of the evangelicals? At first I thought it was a typo, but you used the term twice in your post.</p>
<p>Yes, they vote overwhelmingly Republican, but I don’t think they vote lock-step for the candidate Democrats necessarily predict they will (so far here–Thompson). Maybe I’m wrong, but even though certain key figures (Dobson, etc.) are anti-Giuliani, do you think they’ll stay home and not vote at all in a race between Rudy and Hillary (also predicted here)? Thompson has no chance against Hillary in a general election; Giuliani does. Hillary, after all, is not just any Democrat. :)</p>
<p>Well, as you know, calmom, I am hardly the category of person to whom you addressed your question, but this is apparently a rare case of my agreement with interesteddad (Post 281). <faints></faints></p>
<p>I would think they would way more identify with him than with HRC or Obama. Identity, and family values mucho. His positions may say liberal; his background says traditional.</p>
<p>Of all the evangelicals I know…and I know quite a few when you count online acquaintances…<em>none</em> of them will vote for Rudy or Hillary. They will not vote for a pro-choice candidate…period. Some would cave at the last minute and vote for “the lesser of 2 evils”, I’m sure. Most, I believe, will not vote or (more likely) will vote for a 3rd party candidate.</p>
<p>Fwiw, I like Mike Huckabee and Duncan Hunter but realize they don’t have much of a chance. I don’t sense any excitement at all about Thompson, but if he were the Republican candidate, I expect that evangelicals would support him, though half-heartedly.</p>
<p>“Yes, education is one of Hillary’s issues, but for those of us on the other side, that’s the main reason many of us will vote against her. We understand her education agenda all too well.”</p>
<p>What’s your objection to Hill’s education agenda?</p>
<p>Hillary’s state-run universal pre-k program is very controversial.</p>
<p>$28 billion over 5 years to states to incorporate the country’s 120,000 preschools now run privately and by churches into a government-run system.</p>
<p>I am not an evangelical, but from what I’ve read, they are dead-set against handing over their kids to the state at age 4 and possibly (read carefully) younger. I totally agree with their position on this.</p>
<p>Interesteddad, I appreciate your answer to my question, but the reason I addressed it to Timely is that I wanted to hear the perspective of a real Republican – I already know what the northern/coastal liberal stereotype of southern Republicans is, so I wasn’t looking for more of that. </p>
<p>I mean… I really am more interested in the perspective of some Red state voter who may be faced in 2008 with a Clinton/Obama/Edwards v. Guliani/Romney/Thompson choice – let’s say, Edwards v. Romney (since I was posing a question about Edwards). Do they vote for the white southern baptist-raised guy with the leftist/progressive platform, or the white Morman from Massachusetts who was for abortions before he was against them? (or sit out the election? – would they make an effort to come out to vote against Edwards in that scenario? Would they make an effort to come out to vote against Clinton? </p>
<p>Again… I’m not particularly interested in the speculation of liberal/progressive voters. I grew up in Texas so I know that contrary to popular belief, everyone white person who lives south of the Mason-Dixon line is not a racist redneck waving a confederate flag. </p>
<p>I’m wondering if the strength that Edwards has in polls now would persist through the general election, or if that is likely to dissipate once the Red-staters start listening to what Edwards is saying. </p>
<p>And again – I’m interested in hearing from the conservatives who are currently feeling some level of trust or comfort with Edwards, as they are the potential swing voters who might enable one Democrat to win while another will lose.</p>
<p>Just from putting two and two together from some hints, I suspect that the Clinton campaign plans to roll out a major anti-abortion plank in the general election…a program to reduce the number of teen pregnancies and abortions in the United States. </p>
<p>The reason I say this is that:</p>
<p>a) It is clear that the Clinton campaign has been planning ways for a Democrat to appeal to the evangelical Protestant community.</p>
<p>b) She has mentioned, on occasion, statistics about a significant reduction in abortions during the Clinton administration from 1992 - 2000.</p>
<p>c) It would be a pragmatic, widely popular campaign platform with appeal to both pro-choice and non-choice constituencies. I think everyone would agree that reducing the number of abortions would be a desireable goal.</p>
<p>I would caution, however, that it is awfully early to predict head-to-head matchups. The public perception of the two nominees will be very different in Fall 2008 than it is today. It’s a whole new ballgame after the conventions.</p>
<p>“The maturing part of the evangelical movement is growing more secure in both its intellectual moorings and also in its willingness to make common cause with an array of ad hoc allies to advance its values.”</p>
<p>“That erosion {2006 election} will be reversed, I believe, if the Democrats’ nominee is Hillary Clinton. In that event, the Democratic outreach to white evangelicals will immediately self-destruct.”</p>
<p>“For the overwhelming majority of evangelicals a vote for Hillary Clinton, despite her authentic Methodist credentials, would be a vote for Satan.”</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton, however, has a real talent for self-reinvention. She has shown an almost uncanny ability to morph into the kind of candidate that formerly adversarial voters might give a second look. Increasingly, she’s managed to posture herself as “centrist”, as opposed to the far left position she formerly held in the minds of more conservative voters. Anyone with a brain can see she’s extremely intelligent and shrewd (not undesirable traits in a President, I might add). If she can continue to sculpt her image into that of a thoughtful, capable, moderate with a viable plan to improve things both at home and abroad, she will get a lot more votes than anyone—except maybe Idad— could possibly imagine at this point (especially since the Republicans don’t have anyone to get excited about).</p>
<p>I’m not greedy. I believe that any Presidential election will come down to a 50/50 vote, plus or minus 2%.</p>
<p>I do agree with you about Clinton’s positioning for this race, however. She has been focused like a laser for seven years in staking out a centrist record to run on in 2008. Fiscal responsibility. Pay as you go budgeting. Strong defense credentials. Her entire domestic program is pitched to the “middle class”, which – of course – includes 75% of the electorate. </p>
<p>It actually hurts her in the Democratic primaries where the party is pushed left, especially in the early dating phase. The lefty lefts in the Democratic netroots think she’s a conservative.</p>
<p>It led to one of the more fascinating pieces of political maneuvering I’ve seen earlier this week. Even though Clinton is thoroughly despised at the ultra-liberal blog Daily KOS (she gets between 5% and 8% in their straw polls; they favor Fidel Castro and Ralph Nadar with a smidgeon of support for moderate Dennis Kuchinich), her campaign has been the only one of the Democrats defending DailyKos against Bill O’Reilly’s jihad. Her spokesman Howard Wolfson appeared on O’Reilly monday, arguing to O’Reilly that DailyKOS is simply free speech in action, hundreds of thousands of politically interested liberals (most of whom don’t like Clinton) stating their opinions and Clinton is happy to appear at their annual convention. O’Reilly read a sampling of DKOS posts to his audience, all expressing displeasure for Clinton because she’s not liberal enough; yet in the same fell swoop, Clinton gets credit with the lefty-lefts for having the chutzpah to stick up for their community against the vast right wing noise machine. Nice daily double: using the hatred of the right and the left for each other to gain a positive media impression from both. And, they called Slick Willie slick…</p>
<p>non-choice? ok. Anyway, Protestant evangelicals don’t tend towards pragmatism. May I illustrate? Let’s say we had a law that allowed border patrol agents to shoot on sight anyone they saw coming across the border from Mexico. Many good Americans would oppose this law and hope to see it overturned. So, along comes a presidential candidate who has voted in the past to keep this practice legal. During the campaign she unveils a platform that will introduce some new laws that would try to keep those immigrants from making it to the border. That means fewer of them will be shot, so that’s a good thing, so you’ll vote for her, right? Wrong.</p>
<p>They (we) are well aware that all of the Democratic candidates would nominate Progressive Supreme Court justices, would restore federal funding for stem cell research (there is some division among Protestant evangelicals on this, but I have the feeling that most are still against it), and would likely even lift the ban on partial-birth abortion. </p>
<p>Protestant evangelicals will overwhelmingly not support a pro-choice (non-life?) candidate under any circumstances.</p>
<p>Calmom, I’ll take a little survey on some of my conservative email lists about the Democratic candidates and post here any interesting comments I find.</p>
<p>Then Rudy and Mitt and Fred are toast, right? McCain’s finished. Who the heck are the Republicans going to nominate? Is Mr. Family Values himself, Newt Gingrich, going to come to the rescue?</p>
<p>Us republicans would reelect GW for a third term. But we know that would be unconstitutional. However GW can declare an emergency, WAR, and continue as President until he decides emergency has past. Previous emergencies had the President suspend the Constitution and/or parts of It.</p>
<p>If this is how the evangelicals are describing Hillary’s plan, they’re bearing some very serious false witness about it.</p>
<p>From the site hereshoping linked: </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nothing about forcing people to turn their kids over to the state at 4 or younger. Nothing about forcing private and parochial day cares under the banner of the state.</p>
<p>Voluntary. Meaning you can use it if you want but you don’t have to.</p>
<p>It’s not even necessarily going to steal customers away from the evangelicals’ day care businesses, any more than public schools steal customers from parochial ones or public hospitals steal business from private oones. The main point is to make pre-K available for kids who don’t have access to it now.</p>
<p>How on earth does it hurt evangelicals for children from high poverty homes to have access to pre-school? </p>
<p>And why distort it to make it sound like participation is forcible and not voluntary?</p>
<p>The pre-school program is intended to reduce the need for prison guards a few years down the road. So, I suppose that, if a lot of evangelicals are prison guards, it could hurt.</p>
<p>The math on this program is pretty straight forward. We currently spend $30,000 a year to house a prisoner. There is apparently a significant correlation between lack of pre-school and early childhood interaction/reading and high school completion and incarceration rates.</p>