Mon Sep 11, 2006 at 08:39:21 AM EDT
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(Tell it, Brother - promoted by jay lassiter)
Leaving aside for the moment the impossibly obvious fact that the real Whoopi Goldberg and a Cher look-alike have absolutely NOTHING in common insofar as their potential to offend – at least on a political level – (I’ll take real Whoopi over a Cher-a-be any day) — and that Ms. Legriede’s issues re: the Cher impersonator at the LBGTI caucus was based solely and entirely upon her own personal discomfort with men who look fabulous as women – let’s look at WHY being so disrespectful to gay, lesbian, transgendered, intersexed and bisexual Democratic Voters is such a REALLY bad idea for the Democratic Party.
I’m referencing a 1994 poll, since the question at hand is whether one Cher look-alike at a NJ political event two years before 2008 can skew the entire country into another four years of Republican rule.
The whole poll can be found here.
A disclaimer: Nearly 8,000 GLBT people completed the annual Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census study this summer (2004). “Drawing a true random sample of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people is highly problematic," said Dr. Beth Barnes, fellow researcher of the original GLCensus survey, and now a consultant to the project and Director of the School of Journalism & Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky. "The GLCensus approach of providing an anonymous Internet-based means of expressing opinions is not projectable to the entire GLBT population in the U.S., but does represent the largest single respondent panel from all 50 states and provides a snapshot of the GLBT voter pool."
What the pool says in brief is this:
88% of GLBT respondents are registered to vote
9 out of 10 GLBTs will cast their votes to Kerry
Kerry’s strength grows in gay and lesbian households as age and income increases, and with those who are partnered, legally coupled or married.
(Sounds like a good reason to get behind marriage equality and PUSH, doesn’t it?) |
| denniscmcgrath :: Why Diane Legriede is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG |
Among those who said they are registered as Republicans, 50% of male respondents say they will vote for Kerry and 17.3% are undecided. Among female registered Republicans, 49.1% say they will vote for Kerry and 26.8% are undecided.
Of the survey respondents, 88% said they were registered to vote. In the last presidential election, according to the U.S. Census, 70% of Americans were registered to vote.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersexed and transgendered people (and their families and friends and supporters) constitute as much as 10 percent of the American population – it’s hard to say for sure how many, but as voters we have as much clout as other ‘special interest’ groups.
Did middle America vote for Bush and against QueerNation? Someone show me the figures! Prove it!
I think they voted for Bush and against Kerry. John Kerry lost because his campaign was rudderless and the Bushies beat him like a red-headed step-child, up one side and down the other. If Kerry had show some backbone maybe he would be president.
But voting “values” isn’t solely or even mostly a straight-gay dichotomy. And I resent the implication that in order to save America, I and my ‘peeps’ need to sit in back of the bus and for god sakes SHUT UP.
Baloney!
After the election, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force conducted polls to determine what impact "values had on the elction. What they concluded was this:
These data lead us to conclude that it is likely that core Republican Party loyalists learned President Bush’s message in the campaign and, when asked to rationalize their vote in terms of position on an issue, they cited an issue that President Bush emphasized in his campaign.
Rather than choosing candidates on the basis of issues, voters often learn what to think about the issues from the candidates and parties they already prefer. These data indicate that saying that “moral values” was the most important issue often was a consequence of holding pro-Republican positions on the war and on the economy and of general approval of the Bush Presidency.
The Republican campaign energized and mobilized its core constituency by emphasizing “moral
values” in their campaign. These data indicate that the use of this issue was more likely to
reinforce pre-existing preferences among the Republican base and to activate others who already leaned toward the Republican Party than it was to convert Democrats. |
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