noteworthy wrote:
] The point is that the ballot questions on gay marriage did NOT
] cause a bunch of religious people who normally don't vote to
] show up at the polls this year. Brooks was saying that with
] regard to the overall electorate, the percentages on the
] goes-to-church / does-not-go-to-church question are the
] basically same as in 2000.

Seeing as the number of people who voted this year was so much higher then last, if the percentage is the same, then they did mobilize a large number of people.

Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster, called critiques of the poll "garbage."

"The people who picked moral values as an issue know what that means," he said. "It's a code word in surveys for a cluster of issues like gay marriage and abortion."

McInturff said if "moral values" was really a "catchall" with a confused meaning, then more Democrats would have picked it as well. Of the 22 percent who chose "moral values" in the Election Day poll, 80 percent were Bush supporters and 20 percent were Kerry supporters. "It's self-selected by people for whom these issues are very important for their votes," McInturff said, adding that the margin by which Bush carried these voters arguably made the difference in the election.

] Concern about terrorism cannot be viewed strictly as a personal
] safety issue.

Thats a valid point.

] If 150,000 voters in Ohio had chosen differently, Kerry would
] be President despite having lost the popular vote, and we'd
] probably be concerned about the electoral college.

Thats also true. The fact that these guys won sheds light on them that wouldn't otherwise be there. But a problem ignored in another scenario is no less a problem.

] It's also a case of selective interpretation of the facts. It
] excludes other things from the field of view. For example,
] California passed an amendment to authorize $3 billion in
] funding for stem cell research.

Califorina is a blue state.

RE: The Values-Vote Myth