Hispanics Back Big Government (real news is NYT/CBS 54% Bush poll)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/politics/03POLL.html?pagwanted=all&position=

August 3, 2003
Hispanics Back Big Government and Bush, Too
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER


Hispanics view the Democratic Party as better able than the Republican Party to manage the economy, create jobs and improve the nation's public school system, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. But they admire President Bush and have embraced positions — from supporting tax cuts to opposing abortion and some gay rights — that have typically been identified with Republicans. <Snip>

<snip>The Times/CBS News poll also found that among the general electorate, President Bush's job approval rating has dropped to 54 percent, a 13-point fall, since May, reflecting growing concerns about the economy and doubts about the war in Iraq. The last time Mr. Bush's job approval rating was at 54 percent was in February, before the war. The poll was conducted by telephone from July 13 to 27, with 3,092 adults nationwide, 1,074 of whom described themselves as Hispanic. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for the entire poll and plus or minus four percentage points for Hispanics. Sample sizes for most Hispanic nationalities, like Cubans or Dominicans, were too small to break out the results separately....Mr. Bush won the support of 35 percent of Hispanic voters in 2000; in this poll, 21 percent of Hispanics who say they are registered to vote said they would vote for his re-election. Matthew Dowd, a pollster and senior adviser to Mr. Bush's re-election campaign, wrote a memorandum last year saying the president needed to win at least 40 percent of the support of Hispanic voters next year.

Still, Mr. Bush would appear to be in a fairly strong position with many of these voters; there are indications that his standing is stronger with Hispanics than his party's is. Hispanics approved of Mr. Bush's job performance 52 to 38 percent, while 54 percent said that he "cares about the needs and problem of people like yourself." By contrast, just 40 percent of Hispanics said they had a favorable view of the Republican Party, while 60 percent said they had a favorable view of Democrats. <snip>

<snip>There is also a sharp divergence of views on Iraq: 49 percent of Hispanics said removing Saddam Hussein from power was not worth the potential loss of American life and other costs of attacking Iraq, compared with 39 percent of all respondents.

On other issues, like abortion and gay rights, the responses clearly broke away from the Democratic model. Hispanics were evenly divided on the question of whether homosexual relations between consenting adults should be legal; among the general public, this position is supported by 54 percent to 39 percent. <snip>

but only 21 percent of those registered to vote say they'll vote for him? What an enormous dropoff.

Support for freedom of choice seems like it has been dropping. I think there needs to be a new campaign to explain to the public why choice is a necissary right.

Hispanics are very religious and mostly Catholic, and take more stock in what the church says than say, Northeastern white Catholics.

I've always thought that the hispanic vote will eventually be split between the parties, with a slight advantage going to Republicans because of the religion factor. But this will take at least a few more election cycles.

their differences between the law and their religion.

One can be anti-abortion AND pro-choice. They can dissuade folks from having abortions while allowing folks to make that choice on their own. They can quit trying to use the force of law to keep folks from having them and instead persuade folks from making that choice.

Thanks w4rma for bringing that up!

I agree with you 100% (and I happen to be anti-abortion and pro-choice). I think that some elements of the left have gone a bit too far on the abortion issue, and have kinda blown a chance to pull in a lot more moderates in the issue.

Personally I think both sides trivialize the issue way too much and treat it far too flippantly, possibly becuase it's a very easy issue to make political gains on. I don't mean to harsh on either side, but if both sides took a little more care in dealing with the other, I think it could effectively be diffused as a political issue.

Making abortion illegal won't stop it
Unwanted children often lead very difficult lives
Let's work together to make abortion less common
Let's make adoption and maternity funding easier and more accessable
Let's understand that there's a difference between morality and law
We absolutely respect your opinion to be anti-abortion

These, IMO, are the issues that Dems could use to help diffuse the issue among progressive and centrist religious. Bumpersticker slogans on either side, just make the other side more angry. I know bumperstickers on BOTH sides tick me off.

david

Kucinich 2004

The various religions do not agree on abortion and none agree with the Catholic religion anyway. That being the case, it makes no sense for abortion to be an issue for Catholics, especially when the death penalty isn't. You can't use your religion to deny somebody else choices that their religion allows. And Catholics have alot more to lose by voting in these fundamentalists because alot of them hate Catholics as much as they hate abortion.

That's the approach I take with Catholics myself, don't know that it works, but I try.

Bush should be tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail and counting anyone who says no as approving his job performance.

this is incontrovertable proof of shrub's invulnerability.

The polls which have come out over the last few weeks have maintained the precipitous trend in Bush's approval numbers. At the current rate, Bush should drop below 50% approval sometime in September. Likewise, he may show approval ratings below his disapproval by late october. The NYT/CBS poll has typically been several points in favor of Bush; so it is odd to see this poll come in below his overall average.

Current average poll ratings for the week ending in August 2nd (adjusted for individual poll biases):
Approval: 56%
Disapproval: 39%
Spread: 17%

Current Pollkatz style charts:




I actively update these charts and once I have sufficient posts to start new topics I will post weekly or bi-weekly updates in the general forums section. Obviously I am following in the footsteps of Dr. Pollkatz (http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/files/pollkatzcontentpage.html).

Unfortunately most of them come from countries so corrupt that every single election is like what happened in Flordia. They don't know what its like to live in a real Democratic Republic that is not corrupt.

What the Hispanics seem to be preferring, sensibly, is responsive, adequately-staffed government.

Responsive government is what Americans want. Size is no more important here than it is anywhere but the men's room.