What Republicans Believe: A Few Surprises in Poll

I got into one of those endless sparring-match Facebook conversations with several people from the far right last week when one of the arguers--a relatively well-known Roanoke C-lister--posited the following:

"75% of the country think Obama is a disaster. He will get all of the black vote because he is black, no other reason. And he is not all black at that. Blacks vote race, not issues. If Bush was black they would love him. If Obama was white he would be taking up tickets at your local movie theatre. Obama will overtake Carter as the worst President ever."

My response, in part, was thus: "I would never have suspected you as being a hopeless racist, but your own words indict you. I'm really sorry to hear that." It seemed to annoy him, though from his statement, he'd be hard pressed to argue against the assessment. He responded, "I have a lot of good black friends ..."

Now, before we go painting conservatives and Republicans with the same brush, let's take a look at what a recent New York Times poll of Republican attitudes about current issues tells us--and there is a surprise or two in this. First, a third wouldn't vote for a Mormon for president. The poll does not say how many Republicans eliminate African Americans from consideration.

Eighty percent of Republicans polled want the national health care law repealed ("Got mine, screw you"). Half say illegal immigrants should be deported (should we make that retroactive and see how many of their white asses get sent back to Germany and England?).

"...in stark contrast to the positions taken by some presidential candidates, three-quarters of Republicans say global warming exists — either as a result of human activity, natural patterns in the earth’s environment, or both. Nearly 6 in 10 favor allowing same-sex couples to either form civil unions or marry. And only one-third of Republicans support a ban on abortion."

There are a few interesting counters to the Repub stereotype in that, most notably that only a third of them support a ban on abortion. I would have guessed it to be in the 90 percent range, judging from the way abortion opposition is reported. You might also remember that well over half of Republicans believe the Theory of Evolution is a load of crap and would prefer we teach "intelligent design" in our classrooms.

(Poster: bigdanblogger.blogspot.com)