It's often asked who are the 25 percent of voters who still approve of the job President Bush is doing as President. Answer: they're delegates at the Republican Convention!

The New York Times ran a fascinating poll yesterday examining what Republican delegates believe, as compared to other Republicans, the public at large and their Democratic counterparts. The findings confirm that President Bush is no more out of touch than John McCain's delegates.

A quick sample of the beliefs of GOP delegates:

** 79 percent approve of President Bush's handling of the presidency.

** 57 percent believe the economy is doing "very or fairly good."

** 77 percent believe it's more important to keep taxes low rather than provide all Americans with healthcare coverage.

** 80 percent believe the US was right to invade Iraq.

** 75 percent believe developing new sources of energy is more important than protecting the environment (20 percent volunteered "both").

** 9 percent believe abortion should be generally available, while 38 percent advocated stricter limits and 43 percent said it should be illegal.

** The only surprising finding was that 6 percent believe in gay marriage and 43 percent believe in civil unions for gay couples, compared to 46 percent who believe there should be no legal recognition. Thus more Republican delegates support some kind of domestic partnership for gay couples than oppose it. Paging Larry Craig!

Comments (8)

1. Yep...it's a HUGE crowd...who represent a SMALL portion of the populace.

   79% of them support Bush, while 28% of the whole country does.

   (Pssst, here's where some Righty posts a McCain-Obama poll match-up and claims they are still "the near-majority"...LOL)

   Posted by Maskdelta at 09/02/2008 @ 12:00pm

2. Like to show up with a "Buck Fush" T-shirt on!

   Posted by leftofcenter at 09/02/2008 @ 12:18pm

3. Those in favor for some sort of legal arrangement for gay couples represent a somewhat Libertarian majority. However, big business and the religious right are combining in the Republican Party. Greed and dogma will squeeze the true Libertarians , like Ron Paul, out of the Republican Party. When I first came to California as a child, the Republican Party had a Progressive wing that built the state, and it was squeezed out by big business. We are seeing the same thing with Libertarians. I think the Democratic Party is being pushed in that direction with it's "Free Trade" agenda.

   Posted by P. J. Casey at 09/02/2008 @ 1:30pm

4. Right.

   Reality never dawns on these people until it's too late.

   Posted by politicky at 09/02/2008 @ 2:36pm

5. BTW, I think it would have been more interesting for Mr Berman to post the "___ versus ___" numbers on those polls...

   i.e. "79% approve of the job Bush is doing, versus 28% of the entire country", etc.

   Posted by Maskdelta at 09/02/2008 @ 2:39pm

6. Yeah, but these people live in a different world from the Majority of Americans. That's why talking about things being "reality based" is pointless. For these folks, their world is as real as the one experienced by the other 7?% of the country.

   The rest of us call the representatives of the 2?% in these discussions "trolls" and some of them ARE in the true sense of the word -- they're just here to piss the rest of us off. But I think a lot of us forget that to them, the things they're saying represent reality and it's those of us from the 7?% world who are delusional.

   The good news, I suppose, is that before Cheny/Bush forced the nonthinking majority to re-examine their world views, the numbers were more or less 7?% - 2?% the other way. I've always said that it would take something unignorably for the American electorate to wake up and pay attention, and Cheny/Bush certainly have provided that!

   Still, that we are a country with 25% or so of the populace seriously mentally ill is a sad statement about America. <sigh>

   Posted by stubearto at 09/03/2008 @ 01:33am

7. Yeah, but these people live in a different world from the Majority of Americans. That's why talking about things being "reality based" is pointless. For these folks, their world is as real as the one experienced by the other 7?% of the country.

   The rest of us call the representatives of the 2?% in these discussions "trolls" and some of them ARE in the true sense of the word -- they're just here to piss the rest of us off. But I think a lot of us forget that to them, the things they're saying represent reality and it's those of us from the 7?% world who are delusional.

   The good news, I suppose, is that before Cheny/Bush forced the nonthinking majority to re-examine their world views, the numbers were more or less 7?% - 2?% the other way. I've always said that it would take something unignorably for the American electorate to wake up and pay attention, and Cheny/Bush certainly have provided that!

   Still, that we are a country with 25% or so of the populace seriously mentally ill is a sad statement about America. <sigh>

   Posted by stubearto at 09/03/2008 @ 01:36am

8. sorry about the double post. It's my internet connection. Gotta love Comcast.

   Posted by stubearto at 09/03/2008 @ 01:41am