Affluent men showed greatest disillusionment with GOP (14% less Rich Guy votes in 06')

[truthpusher]

Affluent men showed greatest disillusionment with

Published: Saturday, 11 November, 2006, 09:52 AM Doha Time

DAYS after US elections handed control of both houses of Congress to the Democrats, a poll showed that Republicans lost support from their traditional base, but the largest drop was among affluent men.

While 60% of economically privileged men chose Republicans in 2004, only 46% did so on Tuesday, according to the study conducted by a Democratic polling organisation.

The poll also confirmed widespread reports that displeasure with the war in Iraq drove most of the voters to the polls: 41% of voters in their study saw the Iraq war as one of the most important issues in picking a candidate. Among those who voted for Democrats, 75% listed the war as one of the deciding factors.

(snip)

link: http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=116954&version=1&template_id=43&parent_id=19

[darkism]

1. Not all rich people are ignorant asses, and more are coming around. n/t

[Irreverend IX]

10. I think they've figured out the Repubs are poor economic custodians.

I don't doubt they're any less greedy, but they understand that the monkey-on-meth approach to government won't create a favorable economic climate in the long run.

[Erika]

2. Yes, they have a conscience

The Iraqi war and tax cuts to the rich at the expense of the poor is neither hororable nor Christian.

Maybe America is starting to wake up?

[Name removed]

3. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. of course. this current administration is bad for the bottom line

in the long run. or the not-so-long-run.

[barb162]

5. This makes a lot of sense. The rich are concerned about their

money and we have deficit spent 3/4 of a trillion on Iraq so far. That could have gone into US infrastructure, social programs, paying down debt, etc.

[truthisfreedom]

6. I'm one of these men. I'm watching foreign markets and foreign prices, and

I can tell you that what bush has wrought is going to screw with my business plan for years to come. I was hoping to plan a retirement date but that's out the window now. I can't tell what's going to happen with the value of the dollar... it looks like shit to me. I'm about to pull some of my overseas manufacturing and beg someone here to take over at a medium price, just to save my company's ass when the crash comes. Hell, I'm turning my hobby into a business just to help cover the extra cash my business is going to need in a world gone south.

on edit: I didn't vote for bush at any point. I'm just one of those "affluent" guys.

[Hekate]

7. Well, good luck to you. Btw, on the issue of health insurance costs...

... do you think this idea will ever fly -- that major employers (who are complaining that health insurance for employees and retirees is causing them to move overseas) will decide to pressure the feds to supply national health care? It really seems like a win-win idea to me -- of course there would have to be some reciprocity, like a suitable tax on the businesses to help pay for it, but a whole lot cheaper for them in the long run than the mess we have now.

Or are the corporations and the Republicans too ideologically stuck to ever try this? :shrug:

Hekate

[area51]

19. "suitable tax on the businesses to help pay for it"

I don't think we need a tax on businesses to help pay for universal healthcare. For one thing, we need to divorce the idea that one's healthcare should be tied to one's job; that's a form of slavery. According to Dennis Kucinich, we already pay enough in taxes to have single-payer healthcare; we just have to divert some of the huge amount of tax $ flowing into military coffers so that the U.S. can join the civilized world & offer its citizens universal healthcare. To lurking Freak Republic members: a healthier workforce is a more productive workforce. We can't compete with the civilized countries because it's so much more expensive to do business here because of the expense of offering employees republican healthcare that is extremely expensive, and we have a sicker, less productive workforce due to not having universal healthcare.

[Hekate]

28. Sorry if I wasn't clear: I think health insurance should be separate from employment

I am in favor of universal health care.

But I'm also tired of the hugest corporations being given a free ride by this administration, and I think we need the reincarnation of FDR to remind them that if they want to be considered citizens of this country and feel entitled to the protections and privileges thereof, then they need to chip in their fair share for the cost of running said country.

It was after reading (again) that a major auto manufacturer was crying the blues over health care costs for workers and retirees and was threatening to move overseas -- that I had one of those midnight flashes: if they really mean that, why aren't they leaning on this administration to help them out by finally enacting universal health care so that businesses would have that burden lifted from them?

That's what I meant by win-win. The only losers would be the mammoth for-profit health insurance industry, which would mean that the Repubs would have to decide to hurt one of their major donors, which would mean....

Oh well.

Hekate

[truthisfreedom]

30. I think the argument could be made that our "massive military" is pretty much

useless for anything but getting us into deep doo-doo right now. Sometimes it's time to sell off the old gun collection and realize that all the guns in the world aren't going to protect you from your own bad attitude. Yes, I think we should divert money from the military to a program for one-payer health care that would make things more affordable (especially when combined with improved minimum wage.) The lowest wage i have ever payed anyone working for me is $12/hour full time, and only for a trial period until I was sure they'd work out.

[AndyTiedye]

32. We Had a Quarter-Trillion-Dollar Surplus Before Bush**

Universal health care would have barely made a dent in it.

[Eurobabe]

8. How are they defining affluent, what $$ cut-off, I'd like to know

[MrPrax]

18. Whoa Nelly!!

Don't get too upset; attempting use wealth as an indicator of political preference is probelmatic anyway.

How does income explain the 'rational' voting patterns of dirt poor people who vote overwhelmingly for parties promising tax cuts for every quantile but their own? For most interest group politics, the game is to get working people (poor or otherwise) to vote 'altruism', but appeal to the wealthy through their 'self-interests'.

Wealth is relative...if I make 20k a year and accuse someone of being 'rich' when they make 5 times my income. They and MANY others might conclude that 100k a year is not 'rich', MrPrax.

But those that make 100k a year might conclude someone else is being 'rich' if that person makes five times their income...or 500k. Here you start to aggregate a common meaning of being rich -- but that still doesn't change the 'perception' of being rich for each income level. Nor does it give you a solid 'demographic' to base any policy strategies upon, only fund raising opportunities.

Mind you being a leftist...I am not sure that crowing about 'capturing the 'rich guy' vote' is a strong selling point. ;-)

[Up2Late]

9. I think it was on Marketplace that a commentator said Upper Class warfare...

...is one of the main reasons Elliot Spitzer did so well in the N.Y. Governor's race. He said the Lower Upper-class ($400,000.00 to $5 Million per year) are very pissed off at the Upper-Upper Class ($5 Million plus).

I couldn't find that commentary, but here's the article he based it on:

<http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/30/8391806/index.htm>

Revolt of the fairly rich

Today's lower upper class is seething about the ultrawealthy.
FORTUNE Magazine
By Matt Miller, Fortune columnist
October 25 2006: 8:43 AM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) -- Not long ago an investment banker worth millions told me that he wasn't in his line of work for the money. "If I was doing this for the money," he said, with no trace of irony, "I'd be at a hedge fund." What to say? Only on a small plot of real estate in lower Manhattan at the dawn of the 21st century could such a statement be remotely fathomable. That it is suggests how debauched our ruling class has become.

The widening chasm between rich and poor may well threaten our democracy. Yet if that banker's lament staggers your brain as it did mine, you're on your way to seeing why America's income gap is arguably less likely to spark a retro fight between proletarians and capitalists than a war between what I call the "lower upper class" and the ultrarich.

Here's my outlandish theory: that economic resentment at the bottom of the top 1 percent of America's income distribution is the new wild card in public life. Ordinary workers won't rise up against ultras because they take it as given that "the rich get richer."

But the hopes and dreams of today's educated class are based on the idea that market capitalism is a meritocracy. The unreachable success of the superrich shreds those dreams. "I've seen it in my research," says pollster Doug Schoen, who counsels Michael Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton, among others. "If you look at the lower part of the upper class or the upper part of the upper middle class, there's a great deal of frustration. These are people who assumed that their hard work and conventional 'success' would leave them with no worries. It's the type of rumbling that could lead to political volatility."

(more at link) <http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/30/8391806/index.htm>

[1932]

14. Yes. The real threshold to me is whether you earn money from work or from having $

People who make a lot of money from earned income (like doctors and lawyers) are getting SCREWED relative to people who make money from buying and selling assets -- especially stocks they got from options -- like CEOs.

A docotr who pays 1/3rd of 90 percent of his income in tax should be pissed off at people who pay 15% on 90 percent of their equivalent and higher incomes.

The shift of wealth to the wealthy isn't just happening at the bottom of the income scale. It's happening with people in the middle and one level below the top who still labor for their wealth and their money is going to people who are at the very top and make money from having money.

[LizW]

11. The rich have grandchildren, too.

They may be affluent and white, and they may gripe and complain about taxes all the time, but they look at the gigantic deficit and at their grandchildren and wonder how they are going to pay it. I've also heard some of these men comment on how they could not get by with running their business the way Bush has run the government. They know it is all a house of cards.

[bloom]

12. That just goes to show you how statistics can be spun

I've also heard it spun like this:

"The only areas in where Republicans retained a majority of the voters were in people who earned over $100,000 a year and demographic groups among white Protestants and among men.

Women, overwhelmingly Democratic. African Americans, Latinos, Asians, all the demographic groups, Catholics, Jewish voters -- basically only people over $100,000 a year and also the elderly, people over 60 years of age, still voted majority Republican. But the younger you get in the population, the more Democratic its leanings. So that does suggest that there is a potential for more long-term changes in the air."

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/09/1444238


Like Bush said in his tuxedo - affluent white men are his "base". They still are.

[NOLADEM]

13. The rich are pragmatists

They were baited by lower taxes and less oversight, but have sinced remembered that Dems always result in a better economy, and thereby more money for them.

Dems are better stewards of the economy for the simple fact that protecting the average American's access to the American Dream is the single best economic stimulus package any party can come up with.

This is a good thing. We want the super rich support. We are already taking Evangelical support. What do the Pukes have left besides neo-cons and right wing social ideologues? NOTHING.

[tabasco]

15. Not rich enough to be part of the base, but they think they are.

The republicans exploit this particular demographic with the tax cut lies.

While super-rich war profiteers are raking in billions of dollars they steal from us, the run-of-the-mill rich person doesn't get much help. As the feds cut taxes, the states raise them. There ain't no free lunch in this country except for the corrupt upper crust, who are getting even more rich and more powerful under the corrupt republicans. The super rich elite have been robbing us blind and I'm glad to see some peole realize it.

[Zynx]

24. Actually, the mega-rich are no base. They have almost no votes.

Upper-middle and lower-upper income groups are the only ones with enough votes to actually matter.

The ultrarich are good for writing checks, but that's about it.

[tabasco]

29. Well, Bush told the mega-wealthy they were his base.

I believe that is who Bush serves.

The voting base is definitely a different group. That is the big disconnect with the republican party. They have to convince people, through lies and propaganda, to vote against their self-interests.

[zalinda]

16. My 2 cents, which is about all I can afford

I think it was the small business man who figured out their sales have gone down. For example: I started my business with 1 product in 1999. As the years went by I added more and more products, but my sales did not go up significantly. This year I'm doing less than last year by a lot. What this tells me is that the average joe has less money to spend. Less money to spend means that money gets spent on what's necessary. Just about everyone can see this trend. The high end businesses are making some money, but even they're not doing what they did in the Clinton years.

As I was talking to one of my suppliers, I said "just how many bibs do you think a multi-millionaire buys?" And there is the problem. I know a whole family of rich people, (family worth is about 250 million) who got tax breaks up the wazoo. This is a third generation rich, and not 1 of the 20 of them started a business or even owns a business. The family itself does own some large businesses, but none of them have even walked in the front door of any of them. The great grandfather started the businesses, the second generation (all girls)married professional men, the third generation basically did nothing. One became a dairy farmer, she married into it and I think one became a gym teacher. The rest worked everyday jobs for not much money, just to say they had a job. And now that the second generation are all dead, the third generation does nothing. I have no idea how the fourth generation is shaping up, but I think it's just about same as the third.

No, the pissed off ones are the ones who started businesses and worked 80 hours a week to see it grow and then sees all that work amounting to very little.

zalinda

[shrike]

17. I know two of them

Owners of international companies who believed we'd have an armed revolt in this country if things didn't change, and soon. But they were both born poor and haven't forgotten what that's like.

[JudyM]

20. All those tax breaks were for nothing, then? It'd be sweet irony if it didn't cost us so much. nt

[rainbow4321]

21. SamJohnson lost like 8-9% in my (TX) white repuke county

From like 75% down to mid 60%'s.
May not sound like a big deal but obviously some people are coming to their senses..plus our county is getting a bit more diverse..slowly, painfully slow, still wimpy compared to the strides that Dallas County has made over the last few years.
Seeing him and KBH get re-elected was a little less annoying knowing that they may have taken my county but the Dems took back the f'n COUNTRY!
The local repuke rag Dallas Morning news did it's typical post-election "Collin County still elects only republicans". Guess it's hurting them too much to keep reporting that Dallas County is now run by all Dem judges/lawyers and the US Congress is back in our hands.

[Zynx]

22. Republicans didn't deliver on the estate tax.

Instead, the top priority of 2005 was TERRI MUST LIVE!

[Odin2005]

25. Bingo, rich libertarian types are getting pissed at the fundies.

[The Backlash Cometh]

23. Well, that solves the Chinese riddle.

You can give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. You can teach a man to fish, and he eats forever; but if you give a man who knows how to fish more fish, he'll think you're a fucking idiot.

[Doctor_J]

26. I thought it was only terrorists who came over to our side

:shrug:

[yurbud]

27. greed is pragmatic not ideological--these guys won't go kamikaze with

the tard king.

[Lisa]

31. the financial/insurance sector was the first to worry about global warming

... and things like overseas conflict messing with supply chains and global markets. (Firms like Munich Re were getting concerned about this in the early 1990s, while the other sectors were generally oblivious.)

All the wealthy people I know (and interestingly, some of them are in our local progressive party) listen to their financial advisors. And when the bankers and brokers started saying that people had better think about the long-term view, and not dreaming about raking in impossibly-high payouts in a matter of months (which is what got a lot of folks into trouble with the '90s boom and subsequent bust) -- the more and more ill-advised Bush's policies appear.

A friend who works in the local Edward Jones office told me that they are getting a steady stream of inquiries about ethical funds, investments in sustainable resources, etc. -- he earned his licenses after a stint in the military, so he's not some kind of raving liberal hippie (!) and he has always been skeptical of BushCo's economics.