Commentator/consultant/celebrity James Carville and Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg are going after the Teabaggers. Tomorrow the two are releasing a report based on focus groups that apparently will show that portions of the GOP base have moved into a conspiratorial, far-right alternative universe. A press release issued by the pair on Thursday morning previewed the findings: “The study explored the relevance of the ‘race issue’ among these voters and revealed they’re not just critical of President Obama, but worried he is deliberately trying to deceive the American public in order to advance a secret socialist agenda.” This sounds like a polite way of saying that the conservative Republican base contains a significant number of whacked-out Obama-haters whose views are shaped by racial bias. Cue Glenn Beck.
From the press release:
Washington, DC. October 15, 2009. On Friday afternoon, Democracy Corps will be releasing a controversial, comprehensive report on focus groups conducted last month among conservative Republican base voters in suburban Atlanta, with parallel groups conducted among blue collar independents in suburban Cleveland. Prior to the release—at 11:00am EST this Friday, October 16—Democracy Corps’ co-founders James Carville and Stan Greenberg will host a special conference call with interested media to preview the findings.
The report is based on results of two sets of focus groups held September 29-30, 2009 by Democracy Corps, along with survey data collected over the last four months. The first set of groups were held in suburban Atlanta, GA among older white, self-identified conservative Republican base voters—those that voted for both John McCain and a GOP candidate for Congress. A parallel set of groups was conducted in Cleveland, OH among older white, non-college swing voters—half of whom voted for Barack Obama and half of whom voted for John McCain last November.
The study explored the relevance of the ‘race issue’ among these voters and revealed they’re not just critical of President Obama, but worried he is deliberately trying to deceive the American public in order to advance a secret socialist agenda. The study also explored a variety of recently media-covered including TEA parties, as well as surprising findings about how the conservative Republican base views their own party officials, the Republican Party, and conservative media pundits like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. These voters have a strong self-identity, are critical of the Republican Party, and share few views with the ‘Macomb-County-like’ swing voters in the middle.
