The liberal Democracy Corps, founded in 1999 by Democrat operatives James Carville, Stanley Greenberg, and Bob Shrum, released a poll of Democrats in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina last week that is interesting, to say the least.
The poll of approximately 500 likely Democratic voters in each of the three states revealed the typical Democratic views: Bill Clinton - good; George Bush - bad; Democrats like labor unions, the NAACP, and the United Nation; Democrats don't like the NRA, big corporations, or John Ashcroft.
None of this comes as a big surprise, but a couple aspects of this poll are attention-grabbing.
Democrats Prefer Pro-Iraq War Candidate
Democrats in all three states let it be known that they preferred a Democratic presidential nominee who supported military action against Saddam Hussein over a nominee who opposed the war from the beginning.
From the poll:
Choose the statement that comes closer to your views:
#1: I want a Democratic nominee who opposed the Iraq war from the beginning
OR
#2: I want a Democratic nominee who supported military action against Saddam Hussein but was critical of Bush for failing to win international support for the war.
Iowa
New Hampshire
South Carolina
These results seem to go against the conventional wisdom since, nationally the two frontrunners have been former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and retired Gen. Wesley Clark, both of whom have come out against the Iraq war. In fact, the same poll indicated that though Democrats claim to desire a pro-Iraq war nominee, they still lend relatively strong support to Dean and Clark.
From the poll:
If the election were held today, for whom would you vote?
Iowa
New Hampshire
South Carolina
Stacked Deck: Avoiding Answers They Don't Want
What is even more interesting than the fact that a majority of Democrats in these important early primary states want a pro-Iraq war nominee is that the pollsters did not allow respondents to give an answer to a question on social issues that the Democratic Party might not have wanted published.
A good portion of the poll was dedicated to understanding the values of likely voters. Respondents were given pairs of statements and were asked to state whether the first or second statement was closer to their own views, such as the question on the Iraq war quoted above. All of the pairs were contrasting statements on a particular issue - all but one of the pairs, that is.
From the poll:
Choose the statement that comes closer to your views:
#1: I want a Democratic nominee who will defend a woman's right to choose, demand greater tolerance for gays, and limit access to assault weapons.
OR
#2: I want a nominee who will stand up to corporate interests and address unemployment and rising health care costs.
So, what exactly happened here? Why were the respondents denied an opportunity to indicate a pro-life, anti-sodomy, pro-2nd Amendment viewpoint? Did the pollsters make a simple mistake or did they intentionally keep respondents from giving a particular answer?
I think I know the answer to that one.
It appears to me that Democrats cannot be honest even in conducting their own polls designed to help themselves understand what their party's voters believe. Why? Because they have sold out to liberal special interests, particularly the abortion lobby, that are not interested in knowing what Americans believe.
By the way, do you want to know something really interesting? In the above polling item, Statement #2 handily beat Statement #1.
Iowa
New Hampshire
South Carolina
Background:
