Misdirection

[phantom power]

From Digby's "Hullabaloo" blog. I'm not a big fan of "it's hopeless" arguments, but sometimes I find them pretty compelling. Below are just teasers from a longer post, worth reading the rest of.

In an effort to find out how we can win back the independent rural and red state Bush voter, Democracy Corps did some focus groups (pdf). They found that while there was deep dissatisfaction with the country's direction, they still blame Democrats because Democrats are immoral. Or something like that.

(...)

They don't care about issues --- indeed, they think that moral values are the issues. Republicans are for (the right kind of) Christians therefore they are better at defending the nation and the economy. It's a simple formula that doesn't require much investigation and is validated and emphasized constantly by the predominant political influences in rural red states: churches and talk radio. (Re-read this most insightful article by Christopher Hayes from last year to more fully understand the fact that these people don't even know what political issues are.)

(...)

Something about (Paul Hackett) was able to transcend the christian right influence with the country folk. I suspect it was style, which when you think about it is the one thing that might just be able to pull some of these people away from their preacher proxy model. They have, after all, already demonstrated that they are entirely hueristic decisionmakers who are discontented with the direction the country is going but can't rationally put that together with who is in charge. Hackett looks and sounds like a mans man who wasn't "weak" --- the constant refrain. (Good work Rush.) Maybe that's all it really takes.

(...)

The Republicans are not fucking around here. They are building an impermeable, corrupt political machine made up of cronies, employees and hangers-on the likes of which we haven't seen since the 19th century. They are court-packing, gerrymandering, impeaching and recalling --- not to mention electronically stuffing ballot boxes and throwing disputed elections to their handpicked Supreme Court judges. They control the DC lobbying process and own a rather large piece of the media landscape. They are not building their "permanent majority" through a civil, democratic process.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_08_07_digbysblog_archive.html#112369832168850921

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Kick !!!

[phantom power]

2. A slightly different take on the same data...

Here's the key paragraph, and this should be tacked onto the wall of every Democratic candidate, operative and ally in the country:

With most voters expressing little understanding of the differences between Democrats and Republicans or the relative merits of their positions on economic policy, health care, retirement security, and other issues, they felt it safe to assume that if a candidate was 'right' on cultural issues – i.e. opposed to abortion, but most importantly opposed to gay marriage and vocal about defending the role of faith and traditional Judeo-Christian values in public life – that candidate would naturally also come closest to their views on these other issues.

Thomas Frank couldn't have said it better. If you don't advertise that you have an alternative, then the default position becomes love of 'God and country.'

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200532#2069