Values voters show dismay (Florida)

[seafan]

Values voters show dismay

By SHERRI DAY
Published November 5, 2006

About 4 million Floridians are considered values voters. Thirty-seven percent of the state's registered voters consider themselves "born again" or "evangelical," according to Schroth/Eldon & Associates, a Washington company.

Marilyn Peeler and Terry Kemple are exactly the kind of voters who worry some Republicans.
Self-described values voters, they support candidates whose positions on social and moral issues match their own. Much of the time, they favor Republicans. But not always.
In this year's race for governor, they're both undecided.
"Neither the Republican or the Democratic candidate is standing solidly on Christian values," said Peeler, a retired teacher's assistant who lives in St. Petersburg. "Most people I've talked to have said they don't feel they really have a choice."

Kemple, a longtime Christian activist in Brandon, feels the same way.

snip

According to national exit polls, members of the overwhelmingly white evangelical and Roman Catholic block made up about one-fifth, or 23 percent, of the electorate in 2004. Seventy-eight percent of the bloc voted to re-elect President George W. Bush, according to the Pew Research Center.

A St. Petersburg Times poll conducted last month revealed that nearly 37 percent, or about 4-million, of Florida's registered voters consider themselves "born again" or "evangelical," according to Schroth/Eldon & Associates, a Washington firm that conducts polls for the Times.
This year, many state and local ballots are missing the kind of social issues such as gay marriage and abortion amendments that pushed such voters to the polls two years ago. In the absence of hot-button issues, some election watchers predict that values voters may stay at home.

snip

"This is not a situation like we had in 2004 when you had mass gay marriage and John Kerry and this sense of terrorism and 9/11," said John Stemberger, a Christian conservative leader who ran Florida's marriage amendment campaign. "We've heard a number of people say that they're frustrated, and they want to sit out.
--snip
Some scholars predict that values voters will slowly peel away from the Republican Party as evangelical leaders begin to shift their focus to more traditionally Democratic issues such as the environment, AIDS and poverty.

Welcome to the light, people. We've missed you.

[eliphaslevi]

1. Why can't people vote for what is best for the country?

Rather than their petty self interests.

[Dob Bole]

3. Actually, evangelicals tend to vote against their self-interests...

They're one of the poorest groups of people in American society, but many of them vote for strictly pro-life candidates.

[Vorta]

6. This is going to sound snotty

......but, I don't remember these people even being a presence until fairly recently. Was the abortion issue always their priority or was it assigned to them by political process and promotion? It's almost like they have "risen up" in a sort of class pride movement. Mind you I was young when abortion was in the courts, but it seemed back then that the opposition to abortion (and birth control) was coming from Catholics, not evangelicals and nondenominationals.

[Jai4WKC08]

13. There's been a rise in religious fundamentalism worldwide

Probably for the last 50 years. It's happened in Christianity and Judaism every bit as much as Islam. I believe it has something to do with the difficulties of the modern world, where TV, movies, transportation, marketing and world trade have thrust people together who really aren't well equipped emotionally to accept anything new or different from themselves.

That's why people with real education (as opposed to job training which is all most of our universities produce) tend to be more liberal. They are used to new ideas and people from different backgrounds.

I remember when Falwell started his "Moral Majority" back in the '70s. Even Republicans joked that it was neither moral or a majority. Moderates pretty much controlled the GOP then, Nixon (for all his ethical faults) being MUCH more liberal than even many Democrats are now. Ford chose Rockefeller for a VP. When Roe v. Wade was decided, some 80% of Americans were in favor of it.

But then came the Reagan revolution. That was mostly marketting too, using an affable old actor as a figurehead, but somewhere in the bowels of the GOP, they figured out there was a growing religious reaction to modernity that they could tap. They grew the Christian Coalition as a way to reach socially conservative (and terrified) voters, and invented right wing media to help them make the sale.

[mitchum]

21. In the past, these lunatics were rightly marginalized for their craziness

makes me long for the good old days...

[ret5hd]

5. Hell, if we could convince them to vote for "their petty self interests"...

we'd be doing just fine:

* minimum wage
* national healthcare
* outsourcing
* social security
* unemployment
* job safety

etc, etc, etc

[eliphaslevi]

12. Self-interest was the wriong word

I should have used 'commonalities'.

[Dob Bole]

2. 30 years ago these people voted for Carter...

The Democratic party needs to find conservative Christians (on Theology, not ideology) and run them. That's the key to winning in many areas of the South.

[Vorta]

4. 37%

Thirty-seven percent of the state's registered voters consider themselves "born again" or "evangelical," according to Schroth/Eldon & Associates, a Washington company.

This always amazes me. There are actually four Floridas: north, south, coastal, and inland. I have virtually no contact or connection with north or inland Florida, and it's easy to forget that these places are loaded with the NOKD. The repubicans who live on or near the beach tend to be more reasonable, with many exceptions of course.

[tsuki]

8. In the panhandle, they are mostly Fundamentalists. Hard to find

an evangelical.

[eliphaslevi]

9. Florida has Benny Hinn

Benny Hinn - False Prophet!
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Doctrines/benny_hinn.htm

[tsuki]

14. And also, Pensacola Christian College,

http://www.pcci.edu/, the ones set up as a polling place in 2004 and their thugs tried to run Democratic voters off with threats of violence. Also Christian International, http://www.christianinternational.com/, A.K.A. The Big Scary on US 98. We got 'em.

[DuaneBidoux]

10. I'll always remember my experience: I had traveled to the Miami/Dade area

including Ft. Lauderdale and all that area up and down the southern Atlantic coast and then suddenly I had to go to Tallahassee. I was absolutely astounded. Compared to the Miami area Tallahassee was like steping back into time and into a Third World country.

I have also been to Austin many times. I found it interesting that Jeb was from Tallahassee and George Jr. from Austin--total opposites in the spectrum of national capitals. Whereas Tallahassee seemed to be the most redneck, uneducated, red areas I had ever been to Austin was cosmopolitan, educated, high tech and a fortified island of blue in a sea of red. It's just kind of ironic.

[Vorta]

11. There's a name for north Florida...............Alabama. eom

[retread]

18. Jeb is NOT from Tallahassee. His home is in the "enlightened" area of Miami/Dade.

With two major universities in a town of around 150,000, I would hardly call Tallahassee uneducated. Maybe you got lost and wound up in Thomasville, GA or Wakulla County.

[DuaneBidoux]

22. I can only speak for the people I met while there for 3 days...

My experience wasn't on any university campus so yes, it was a limited exposure.

[Vorta]

25. True but not by choice

JEB! had to live in Miami because that where the gangsters are, and they were his business partners.

[sandnsea]

19. Leon County went Kerry 62%, Castor 65%

Tallahassee is Democratic. That's where BBV went to test the DRE machines.

This is why we have such a hard time in rural America. All Democrats don't think life is measured by how many nightclubs or boutiques are available in a 10 block radius.

http://www.co.leon.fl.us/elect/?page=Elections%20And%20Results/2004Elections/2004GEElectionSummaryReport.htm

[DuaneBidoux]

23. I sympathize with progressives who live in the rural South

or the South generally. I have traveled by car over much of the South as a salesman. Maybe there are progressives but it is damn hard to find them...and my reality is that on all my car travels across the South I was pounded over and over on the head with conservative ignorance (you should try being an on the road salesman. It's amazing what people will share with you when they think "nobody is looking or that you are "one of their own.")

I know there are other people there but they must be a distinct and extremely small minority. I can't believe the anecdotal evidence I put together over years means nothing. I could be wrong and may well be, but either way it must be damn tough to be a progressive in the South.

[sandnsea]

24. You would be amazed

at how many white males make a stupid racist joke on a hunting trip and then go vote Dem because they know Democrats work for the people. When you talk about a 50 state strategy, that's part of the reality that has to be dealt with. While you may be amazed at what people share with you, others are amazed at the judgment you have unknowingly passed on them when you label them all a bunch of redneck fundies when they're actually rank and file Dems.

[msongs]

7. This article is BS- BS- BS! I am a values voter ->

to say that only christofascists have values is pure unadulterated BS and propaganda.

we have a 2000 year record of what that mob considers to be family values and that record is ugly to the core.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[CitizenLeft]

15. LOUD applause, Msongs

...I totally agree. While I don't go to church, and belong to no denomination, my "values" are based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, and if Jesus were living today, he'd denounce those fundamentalists and evangelicals who follow George Bush and throw them right out of the temple.

[Nimrod2005]

16. k

[featherman]

17. I was living in coastal Brevard at one time but travelled to do an art show

in Pensacola. When people asked us where we were from both my wife and I answered "From Florida" without really thinking.

I guess it didn't seem like "real Florida" there... at least in our minds. Even the locals refer to it as "South Alabama".

[mitchum]

20. They should just stay at home and talk to Jaysus on Tuesday