Yesterday, I covered the first three basic findings from the Third Way report on Democrats and the middle class. The fourth basic finding of the report is:

With the exception of those with graduate degrees, education level does not predict voting behavior. Education level predicts income, which predicts voting behavior.

This just isn’t right. In fact, if you look carefully at the data in their own report you can see that education does have an effect on level of Democratic support, even controlling for level of income. But the report’s authors are intent on showing that, at any given level of education, income has an important effect on Democratic support. This is undeniably true, but they appear to believe that establishing that fact somehow proves education has no independent effect on income. Wrong. Both relationships can and do exist: income has an effect on Democratic support at any given level of education and education has an effect on Democratic support at any given level of income.
Take the white middle class, on whom the report tends to focus. In 2004, Bush beat Kerry by 33 points among non-college-educated middle class whites, but only by 3 points among college-educated (a four year degree or more) middle class whites. Moreover, between 2000 and 2004, Bush’s margin among non-college-educated middle class whites increased by 15 points, while his margin among college-educated middle class whites increased by just 7 points.
Lest one think that the differences between college-educated and non-college-educated middle class whites in 2004 were all driven by postgraduate middle class whites, those middle class whites with a four year degree only were still markedly less pro-Bush (an 18 point smaller margin) than the non-college-educated.
Conclusion: yes, income matters–but so does education.
The final basic finding of the report is:

The entrance of married women into the middle class led to a dramatic increase in Republican support.

This is awkwardly phrased, making it sound like there’s some sort of social trend with married women “entering” the middle class and then voting Republican. What they’re really saying here–what their data show–is that married women, particularly white married women, with moderate to high incomes voted Republican in 2004, while unmarried women with those incomes still leaned Democratic (though less so, the higher the income level).
But we knew that.
Anyway, I don’t want these criticisms to lead people away from the report. On the contrary, I want people to grapple with it. The authors of the report and Third Way as an organization are to be commended for making an empirically-based case for their political views, instead of simply asserting that their views are correct. We could use more, not less, of this kind of serious data analysis as the debate in and around the Democratic party continues.
And I certainly don’t disagree with the thrust of the some of the final remarks in the report:

Democrats talk and legislate a great deal about issues that they believe are of concern to the middle class, such as better schools, affordable health care, and job security. This has not translated into middle class votes. Assuming these issues are truly important to middle class voters (and there is no reason to believe they are not), it could be that Democrats have a set of flawed messages that do not reach the middle class. Or, the middle class may simply believe that their schools will not be better, their health care will not be more affordable, and their jobs will not be more secure should Democrats run the Congress and control the White House.

Either way, the so-called party of the middle class has some serious work to do. Hats off to authors of this report for calling our attention to this challenge.

A new Zogby poll, conducted 5/9-16 finds a huge majority of Americans supporting stronger U.S. action to stop genocide in Darfur in western Sudan. Unfortunately, however, as Julia Scott explains in her Salon.com article on the poll’s findings:

Since terming the ongoing scorched-earth campaign against civilians in Darfur genocide several years ago, the Bush administration has done everything it can to avoid committing to substantial intervention in the region, even downplaying the number of dead.

Yet, as Scott notes, over 80 percent of respondents want the U.S. to impose a no-fly zone over Darfur to prevent further bombing of civilians. More than four out of five also want the U.S. to “use its military assets to bolster African Union troops on the ground in Darfur” and “impose tough sanctions” on the leaders responsible for the atrocities. Americans are understandibly less enthusiastic about sending ground troops at this point, as Scott explains:

Only 38 percent of respondents supported deployment of U.S. troops in Darfur…a number the ICG considered surprisingly high given a strained U.S. military and the intractable situation in Iraq. And ninety-one percent of people polled disagreed with the Bush administration’s policy of non-cooperation with the International Criminal Court, which works to bring genocidaires to justice.

Thus far, however, the Administration seems unphased by the large majorities of Americans wanting U.S. action to relieve the suffering. Scott quotes John Norris, chief of staff of the Darfur Crisis Group on the poll’s findings and the Administration’s response:

“This level of support comes at a time when the Bush administration has never used its bully pulpit to issue much of a real call to action on Darfur…This is one of those issue areas where [they’ve] said there’s little public support, but when you open [it] up, you see that’s not the case.”

If ever there was a genuine mandate for measured U.S. military and diplomatic intervention, the time is now and Darfur is the place — and the crisis cries out for Democratic leadership to make it happen.

As the Democratic Party girds for the ’06 elections, a pair of articles in The American Prospect by co-editors Paul Starr and Robert Kuttner shed light on the challenges confronting contemporary liberalism and reforms needed to secure its future.
Starr’s “The Liberal Project Now” urges liberals to avoid the trap of becomming “merely defensive and oppositional” and to renew “the principled commitments to liberal ideas” and “liberal innovation.” He offers this challenge to Dems:

Rebuilding a Democratic majority will require a broad and inclusive politics and the acceptance of ideological diversity within the party. As the Republicans support centrists who can win in the blue states, so Democrats — including liberals — will have to support centrists who can win in the red states. Some say the Democrats need only the courage of their convictions to tap a deep well of progressive sentiment, but if there is a latent national majority for that kind of pure and unadulterated liberal politics, it has kept itself well hidden for a long time. The more realistic goal is a government that is responsive to liberal influence on foreign and domestic policy and committed to the constitutional principles in force since the late 1930s.

In “The Death and Life of American Liberalism,” Kuttner argues that the primary reason for the right’s recent success is that it is “a movement, 30 years in the making” and a “smooth machine joined by common ideology.” He cites the power of the GOP’s superior institutional unfrastructure, discipline and echo chamber as formidable GOP assets, in stark contrast to the Dems’ “uncertain trumpet” and failure to fully grasp that “conviction beats waffling.” But he finds cause for Democratic optimism in surveying the current and future political landscape:

And yet, this overpowering structural tilt conceals some surprisingly good news. Despite its immense advantages, the right barely prevailed in the last two presidential elections, even against feckless Democratic campaigns. The superior infrastructure just offset the extremism. The country remains skeptical about most Republican policies, from Social Security privatization to the assault on the courts. As John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira have documented, potentially liberal groups are demographically ascendant. There is a latent liberal majority, if liberals can once again learn to do politics.

Kuttner counsels Dems to become more vigorous champions of “the economic struggles of ordinary citizens” and argues that “a resurgent Democratic Party built on progressivism would be more worth having” than a centrist party based on moderation. He concludes with this observation:

The resurgence of liberalism and the Democratic Party, when it comes, will necessarily be grass roots as well as intellectual or professional. A new generation of think tanks and message machines can help, but in a democracy, the ultimate test is whether a program animates voters. Democratic candidates will shed their temporizing not when a linguistic expert gives them better packaging but when voters demonstrate that a muscular progressivism that addresses the plight of the common American is a winning politics.

Kuttner’s and Starr’s articles, along with Meyerson’s piece cited below, show why The American Prospect should be a regular bookmark for Dems. TAP offers its readers a lot free of charge, but subscribers help to make a worthy investment in a more focused Democratic vision.

4. The new Democracy Corps/Campaign for America’s Future poll makes the strongest case of all the recent polls on the public appetite for change (see yesterday’s post for discussion of the Gallup, Quinnipiac and CBS News polls). In this poll, right direction/wrong track is at 37/55 and, by 55-41, voters say they want the country to “go in a significantly different direction”, rather than continuing in Bush’s direction. The latter sentiment is even more lopsided among independents (66 percent different direction/26 percent Bush’s direction), moderates (66/30) and white mainline Protestants (62/35). And even white rural voters favor a new direction by 49-46.
The figure on white mainline Protestants is worth paying particular attention to. In the 2004 election, according to the 2004 National Survey on Religion and Politics (NSRP), white mainline Protestants moved strongly toward the Democrats, increasing their support of the Democratic presidential candidate by 10 points over 2000. That change brought this group to an even split of their vote between Kerry and Bush, while four years before they had given 60 percent of their two-party to Bush. Further movement in the Democrats’ direction on the part of white mainline Protestants would clearly endander the GOP’s tenuous electoral majority.
On Iraq, the poll finds 57 percent of voters saying the war was not worth the cost in lives and dollars (including 52 percent who strongly endorse that sentiment) abd just 38 percent saying the war was worth those costs. On the economy, by 62-36, voters say the economy is performing poorly for the middle class, rather than doing well. And on Social Security, voters reject Bush’s Social Security plan whether it is simply alluded to (56-34) or explained, including his progressive indexing proposal (58-36).
In addition, by 57-33, voters believe Congress has the wrong priorities and “isn’t working on the issues that matter to me” and, by 55-40, they endorse the idea that Democrats should make sure Bush and the Republicans don’t go too far in pushing their agenda, rather than work in a bipartisan fashion on Bush’s legislative priorities. Voters also favor Democrats over Republicans in next year’s Congressional election by 5 points (48-43), which includes leads of 23 points among independents, 29 points among moderates, 19 points among white mainline Protestants and 9 points in the battleground states.
So: an appetite for change and a clear opening for the Democrats. The problem, as the DCorps report notes, is that voters still cannot bring themselves to be very enthusiastic about the Democrats–their favorability and thermometer ratings differ little from Republicans’ at this point. That’s because, while voters want real and substantial change, they still don’t see the Democrats as being the party of such change.
That’s the problem Democrats need to solve and the sooner the better. I believe the way to tackle the problem, as I argued in “Myths of Democratic Renewal“, is to identify the Democrats with good new ideas that change the way voters look at Democrats.
Let me illustrate this point by flagging another result from the DCorps poll: that the two items of a Democratic agenda that made the most voters say they would be more likely to vote for a Democratic candidate were both items in the education area (early childhood investment and affordable college). Yet Democrats currently have little to say in this area and didn’t appear to benefit much from education issues in the 2004 campaign. What gives?
Center for American Progress fellow Robert Gordon, in an important cover story, “Class Struggle: What Democrats Need to Say About Education“, in this week’s New Republic, makes a convincing case that Democrats have not benefitted more from education issues because they have had little new and exciting to say to voters about these issues. Instead, they have repeated the same old tired refrain (“more money!”), which has just reinforced voter stereotypes about Democrats and certainly hasn’t made make them look like the party of reform and change.
Here are some excerpts from Gordon’s article where he makes his case, but I urge you to read the entire article:

In the only exchange on education during the 2004 presidential debates, John Kerry made one argument: “The president who talks about No Child Left Behind refused to fully fund [it] by 28 billion dollars … he didn’t put in what he promised, and that makes a difference in the lives of our children.” George W. Bush responded acidly: “Only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 percent increase in funding for education was not enough. We’ve increased funds. But, more importantly, we’ve reformed the system.”
That sums up the education debate in last year’s campaign. Bush championed reform and resources. Although Bob Dole had once wanted to shut down the Department of Education, in his first term, Bush supported standards-based accountability through the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). And, though he fell short of his promises on money, Bush did approve more than $30 billion in new K-12 education funding.
While Bush and the Republicans moved to the middle, Kerry and the Democrats retreated from it….The party’s top three education demands were money, money, and money. “You cannot promise to leave no child behind and then leave the money behind,” Kerry often said.
While Democrats reinforced the old idea that they just want to spend, Bush appealed to a public that wants both accountability and funding….
These are vivid memories for me. I was one of Kerry’s education advisers during the general election. I previously worked for–and have since advised–Edwards. The views expressed here are my own, but I bear plenty of responsibility for the developments described. Yet the attitudes of the candidates reflected the attitudes of the party. Top congressional Democrats today say nothing different.
It’s stunning to see Democrats lose their edge on education. That’s because, on education, Democrats don’t need to explain why the United States needs vigorous government; Americans already want effective public schools. Through education, Democrats reach for their own deepest aspiration: a country where birth doesn’t dictate destiny. Nothing offends Democratic ideals more than the fact that a typical poor or African American twelfth-grader reads at the same level as a typical middle-class or white eighth-grader. Nothing is a greater threat to middle-class prosperity than mediocre schools. If Democrats cannot speak powerfully to an issue that speaks so powerfully to them, they cannot expect to prevail on tougher ideological terrain.
To get the politics right, progressives need to act on a policy principle that Americans understand: Money ain’t everything….

Gordon illustrates the approach progressives need to use by referring to the issue of teacher quality–an issue which consistently tops the public’s list of concerns about the public schools:

The tougher challenge for progressives is not to fix NCLB, but to stop talking about it all the time–and instead offer an educational vision of their own. Bush isn’t vulnerable for supporting standards; he is vulnerable for believing standards are enough. Tests measure progress but don’t teach children.
Progressives should tackle a challenge all but ignored by Bush: strengthening the quality of teachers. As the Education Trust notes, good teachers are the single most important factor in good schools–affecting student achievement more than race, poverty, or parental education. Three years of good teachers can lift students’ scores by 50 percentile points compared with three years of lousy teachers, according to researcher William Sanders. But, as talented women have moved on to other professions, teacher quality has declined. Education majors score below national averages on standardized tests. Most schools do little to draw or keep more talented teachers: Onerous hiring procedures discourage able candidates, while the lockstep pay scale rewards seniority and accumulated degrees, not success. Schools offer $80,000 salaries to middle-aged and mediocre gym teachers while losing bright young chemistry teachers who make only $40,000. Today, a middling performer can get a routine grant of tenure after three years, then become virtually impossible to remove for three decades. One North Carolina study showed that school superintendents would have liked to remove about one in 25 tenured teachers per year, but actually removed fewer than one in 600. Teacher quality is lowest in the poorest schools, where good teachers are needed most. Students at high-poverty schools are nearly twice as likely to be taught by teachers who lack even a minor in the relevant subject.
Strengthening teaching requires changes to the pay system and school culture that abet mediocrity. Standing alone, the usual liberal solution–across-the-board pay hikes–perpetuates the maldistribution of good teachers and reinforces the irrelevance of achievement. High-poverty schools need to attract more teachers with bonuses, and all schools need to attract better teachers with the promise of higher earnings for better results. Teachers reasonably worry about arbitrary merit bonuses, but performance pay need not be arbitrary. Sanders and others are developing methods to measure each teacher’s contribution, accounting for students’ starting points and their expected progress. Together with peer and principal reviews, these methods promise at least as rich a basis for evaluation as those available in other professions where performance pay is the norm.
While schools need better pay to attract good teachers, they also need better systems to remove bad ones. Today dismissal can take years, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and require proof of outrageous conduct. That is unfair to students and good teachers who want peers who work as hard as they do. Faculty deserve protection against dismissals based on politics or personal animus, but schools should extend the periods needed to get tenure and streamline procedures so dismissals are fair but fast. Finally, talented young people seeking to enter teaching should not be required to get education degrees with no proven link to classroom performance.
Although still in their infancy, reforms along these lines have shown promise. When Chattanooga’s lowest-performing schools offered teachers $5,000 bonuses, free graduate-school tuition, and mortgage assistance, vacancies dropped by 90 percent. The Milken Family Foundation’s Teacher Advancement Program offers bonuses up to $5,000 based on a combination of evaluations and test scores. Most schools in the program are outperforming similar schools outside it. According to a recent evaluation, Teach for America’s talented novices, lacking traditional training, outperform typical teachers in math instruction and equal them in reading.
A sound national plan would put big money on the table for school districts that adopt real reforms in pay, tenure, and licensing for teachers. To see what works best, schools should be encouraged to try different–and ambitious–approaches. With federal help, a city might offer a promising new math teacher in a poor school district $60,000 instead of $40,000; after excelling in the classroom for two years, that teacher might earn $80,000. Raises averaging $20,000 for one-third of the teachers at 10 percent of schools would cost $2 billion annually in a system spending over $400 billion, but could show the way to transform teaching.
Progressive leaders should couple these reforms with a sustained call for Americans to teach in troubled schools. Twelve percent of Yale seniors applied to Teach for America this year. How many more talented Americans, young and old, would teach if their country called?
….Al Gore and John Kerry both offered agendas along these lines for teacher quality. But, after giving speeches and garnering media accolades, both candidates barely mentioned their ideas again. Nor have congressional Democrats stepped up to promote them.

That shameful reticence has to stop. Americans will only come to regard the Democrats as the party of change if they sound like they’re willing to shake up the system, instead of issuing the same old call for more money. That means, while voters are ready for change, Democrats are going to have to do some changing of their own to capture that voter sentiment. We shall see if they’re up to it.

That’s question number one for the Democrats to answer, because the public is ready–indeed, eager–for change. Consider these key results from the latest round of public polls:
1. The latest Gallup poll finds Bush’s overall approval rating at 46 percent and his approval ratings on the economy, Iraq and Social Security at 40, 40 and 33, respectively, all three of which are the worst he has ever received in those areas. Bush also receives his poorest evaluation ever on whether he has “the personality and leadership qualities a president should have”, one of his traditional strong suits: right now, only a narrow majority (52 percent) agrees and 45 percent disagree. And on whether “you agree or disagree with George W. Bush on the issues that matter most to you”, 57 percent of the public says they disagree and just 40 percent says they agree (another worst ever). Finally, the public believes, by 47-36, that the country would be better off if the Democrats, not the Republicans, controlled Congress.
2. The latest Quinnipiac University poll has Bush’s overall approval rating at 44 percent (39 percent among independents), his lowest ever in this poll. And, as Bush seeks to move the judiciary to the right, the poll finds 55 percent saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases and a very strong 63-33 majority expressing support for the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing a woman’s right to an abortion.
3. The latest CBS News poll has Bush’s overall approval rating at 46 percent (40 percent among independents) and his approval rating on foreign policy at 40 percent (31/independents), on the economy at 38 percent (32/independents), on Iraq at 38 percent (29/independents) and on Social Security at 26 percent (24/independents). Right direction/wrong track is at 34/60 and, by 61-34, the public says Bush does not share the same priorities for the country that they have. They are even more skeptical of Congress, believing, by 68-20, that their priorities for the country are different from those of Congress.
More on “How Can the Democrats Become the Party of Change?” Tomorrow….

If Maynard G. Krebs, beatnik extraordinaire, worked down at RNC headquarters, that’s what he’d likely be saying about the latest round of public polls.
Newly-released data from the latest Pew Research Center poll include the following dreadful approval ratings for Bush: 43 percent approval/50 percent disapproval overall; 42/43 on the environment; 38/46 on foreign policy; 37/56 on the Iraq situation; 35/57 on the economy; 31/49 on energy policy; and 29/56 on Social Security.
The Pew analysis of the poll notes that the biggest factors (based on a regression model) driving Bush’s poor overall approval rating are the public’s negative views of his handling of the economy and of the Iraq situation.
The Pew poll also includes a series of questions asking respondents whether the country is making progress, losing ground or staying about the same on a series of important issues. The worst result was on the budget deficit, where 65 percent say we’re losing ground and just 6 percent think we’re making progress. That’s followed by Social Security finances (63/6), how the health care system is working (62/9), Medicare finances (56/5), availability of good-paying jobs (55/15), illegal immigration (52/11) and the quality of public education (50/20). On the health care system, going back to 1994, and the budget deficit, going back to 1989, these are the most negative assessments ever. And on job availability, only an early 1994 reading is more negative than the public’s assessment today.
Speaking of job availability and the economy, the latest ARG poll indicates extraordinarily high levels of economic pessimism. Bush’s economic approval rating in the poll, 35/57, closely matches Pew’s rating (as does Bush’s overall approval rating at 43/51). And just 19 percent in the poll say the national economy is getting better, compared to 59 percent who say it is getting worse. Moreover, only 21 percent expect the economy to be better in a year, compared to 51 percent who say it will be worse.
In terms of their household financial situation, a mere 9 percent report that their financial situation is getting better, while 61 percent say it is getting worse. And expectations for a year from now are only slightly more positive: 23 percent say their finances should be better, while 50 percent expect them to be worse.
The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll has right direction/wrong track at 35/52 and indicates a number of ways in which Bush and his administrattion are seriously out of step with the American public (for the public’s views on Congress, see this earlier post).
Just 35 percent say Bush has the same priorities for the country as they do, compared to 57 percent who say his priorities are different. By 49 to 12 percent, the public says Bush and his administration are placing too much, rather than too little, emphasis on Iraq and, by 30-27, they feel the same way about “issues related to moral values”. On the other hand, they feel very strongly that too little (65 percent) rather than too much (1 percent) emphasis is being placed on jobs and the economy and express similar sentiments about health care (75/3), education (57/8) and gas prices (64/9).
Consistent with this overwhelming sense that the Bush administration is putting too little emphasis on jobs and the economy, the public finds Bush administration economic policy falling short in almost every area of the economy (the one exception is on keeping interest rates low). Bush administration policies receive their worst ratings on keeping manufacturing jobs in the country (69 percent not working well vs. 10 percent working well) followed by dealing with the price of gas (67/11), managing the federal budget (65/15), keeping white collar jobs in the country (48/23), expanding the number of new jobs (48/24), controlling inflation (43/28), improving the overall economy (39/30), encouraging retirement savings (38/32) and keeping taxes low (43/34).
The public also expresses lop-sided support for Congress holding hearings on gas prices (66 percent support/13 percent oppose) and for Congress investigating Tom DeLay’s relationships with lobbyists. And the public continues to think, by a wide margin, that is a bad idea (56 percent), rather than good idea (36 percent), to change the Social Security system to allow workers to invest their Social Security contributions in the stock market. Moreover, those who believe private accounts are a bad idea are quite unlikely to change their minds (62 percent say their position is firm), while those who believe these accounts are a good idea are quite open to shifting their position (62 percent say they’re open to changing their minds).
Things just seem to be going from bad to worse for the Bush administration. Or, as Mr. Krebs might put it: Like ouch, man–like double ouch.

The June 6th issue of The Nation, now online, has a pair of articles of interest to Dems seeking a winning strategy in the ’06 and ’08 elections.
Eric Alterman’s “Cowboys and Eggheads” succinctly lays bare the Dems’ “conundrum” in formulating a foreign policy that resonates in a positive light to average Americans. Drawing from recent articles in The American Prospect, the Wall St. Journal and think tanks, Alterman ventures a disturbing thought:

Liberal Democrats today are faced with an unhappy paradox. The most significant factor in John Kerry’s defeat was that, according to exit polls, 79 percent of voters who said terrorism or national security determined their vote chose the chickenhawk over the war hero. Though they agreed with the Democrats on most issues–and agreed, by a 49 to 45 percent margin, according to election day exit polls, that the Iraq War had made us less, not more, secure–a majority of voters still felt safer with the idea of George W. Bush minding the store. Based on the evidence, it is almost a perfectly irrational reaction to reality….making sense on foreign policy is not enough. It may actually be a net negative. As Bill Clinton famously explained, Americans prefer a President who appears “strong and wrong” to one who seems right but looks weak.

Not a lot for Dems to be optimistic about there, but Alterman, a media critic and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, does note growing discontent about U.S. policy towards Iraq, and the Administration’s inability to formulate a credible policy towards Iran and North Korea as trends that may help Dems in the future.
On a more upbeat note, Greg Sargent’s “Brand Hillary” provides an engaging portrait of a Democratic politician (and ’08 front-runner in recent polls), who is expanding her credibility with constituencies Dems lost in ’04. Sargent, a contributing editor to New York Magazine, sources her upward arc in opinion polls:

Clinton’s evolving approach–call it Brand Hillary–is sincerely rooted in her not-easily-categorized worldview, but it’s also a calculated response to today’s political realities. In effect, she’s taking her husband’s small-issue centrism–its trademark combination of big but often hollow gestures toward the center, pragmatic economic populism and incremental liberal policy gains–and remaking it in her own image, updating it for post-9/11 America with an intense interest in military issues…For all the consternation on the left about Clinton, her approach depends less than her husband’s did on using the left as a foil. Instead it relies on two fundamental ingredients: She projects pragmatism on economic issues, and she signals ideological flexibility on social issues. This latter tactic is not, as is often argued, about appeasing the cultural right. It’s about appealing to moderates in both parties.

What makes Hillary Clinton’s “centrist” approach interesting is that it is tempered by her 95 percent ADA rating (By comparison, Sargent notes that John Edwards scored a 60 in his last ADA rating). Sargent wonders if the Dems “real problem” on national security “is not just the quality of their ideas, but that moderates simply won’t listen to them.” Senator Clinton, as Sargent makes clear, is determined to be heard.

By Alan Abramowitz
According to the 2004 NEP exit poll, the relationship between church attendance and partisanship is not just a white Protestant thing. Yes, the relationship between church attendance and partisanship/presidential vote is stronger among white Protestants than among white Catholics, but it’s there for both. Among churchgoing white Protestants, those who attended religious services weekly or more often, Republicans outnumbered Democrats by 61% to 19%. Among non-churchgoing white Protestants, those who attended religious services a few times a year or never, Republicans outnumbered Democrats by only 38% tp 34%. Among white Catholics who attended religious services weekly or more often, R’s outnumbered D’s by 44% to 29%. Among white Catholics who attended religious services a few times a year or never, R’s outnumbered D’s by only 36% to 35%. Not nearly as big a difference but still statistically significant and certainly politically significant. In terms of presidential voting, 77% of churchgoing white Protestants voted for Bush vs. 56% of non-churchgoing white Protestants. 61% of churchgoing white Catholics voted for Bush compared with 51% of non-churchgoing white Catholics. Again, the difference among Catholics is statistically significant and, more importantly, politically significant.
More generally, my analysis of the 2004 exit poll data shows that among white voters, two measures of religiosity–church attendance born again/evangelical identification–correlated more strongly with both party identification and presidential voting than any other social characteristics including age, income, gender, marital status, and even union membership.
The way Gallup presents the data also tends to underestimate the influence of religiosity on partisanship and voting behavior because including only Protestants and Catholics leaves out a large group of voters–those who describe their religion as “something else” or “none.” These “something else/none” voters comprised 15% of the white electorate in 2004. Church attendance among “something else/none” white voters is much lower than among Protestants and Catholics: 85% of “something else/none” white voters reported attending religious services only a few times a year or never. Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 39% to 23% among “something else/none” white voters in 2004 and 65% voted for Kerry.

What is the relationship between church attendance and party ID? The conventional wisdom is that those who attend church most frequently lean heavily Republican, while those who attend least frequently lean heavily Democratic. A new Gallup report, based on 30,000 interviews conducted during 2004, confirms this perception.
According to the report, a “macropartisanship” measure tapping the Democratic leanings of a group (defined here as the percentage of Democrats in a group divided by the percent of Democrats plus the percent of Republicans in that group) has a value of 40 among those who attend church once a week, 45 among those who attend almost every week, 54 among those who go once a month, 56 among those who seldom attend and 61 among those who never attend. That indicates a pretty strong and uncomplicated relationship between church attendance and Democratic leanings.
But among important subgroups of the population this relationship is considerably more muddled. Among blacks, for example, the relationship is considerably weaker and more erratic, going from 88 to 92 to 94 to 95 and back to 94, as you go from highest to lowest attendance. And among white Catholics the relationship is also quite weak and even more erratic, going from 49 to 47 to 46 to 57 to 54, as you move from highest to lowest levels of church attendance.
Given this, what’s driving the strong relationship we see in the overall data on church attendance and partisanship? It’s all about white protestants: at the highest level of church attendance, macropartisanship is 25, rising to 32, 41 , 47 and finally 52 at the lowest level of church attendance.
So when Democrats worry about the relationship between religious observance and supporting the Republican party, it appears they should focus most of that worry on white protestants. Among other groups, it doesn’t seem to be that big a deal.

The Campaign for America’s Future is sponsoring a major conference, “Take Back America 2005,” June 1-3 at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C. The Conference will feature a dazzling line-up of many of the nation’s prominent progressive leaders, activists and spokespersons, including: Senator Dick Durbin; Senator John Edwards; Howard Dean; Arianna Huffington; Robert Borosage; Los Angeles Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa; Celinda Lake; Robert Kuttner; Thomas Frank; Jesse Jackson; George Lakoff; Katrina vanden Heuval; Jim Wallis; Kim Gandy; Tom Hayden; Donna Brazile; Wade Henderson; and many others.
The purpose, according to organizers:

The Take Back America Conference brings thousands of progressive activists, thinkers and leaders together to discuss our vision, unite our groups and train our campaign organizers. By building relationships and creating strategy, the Take Back America Conference is a catalyst for building the infrastructure we need to ensure that the voice of the progressive majority is heard.

The Conference will feature segments on:

STRATEGIES for building a progressive majority to make America better
Critical ISSUE CAMPAIGNS that will drive America’s political debate
NEW IDEAS and winning message with leading progressive public scholars, political leaders and organizers
TRAINING in media, organizing and campaigning, organized by Progressive Majority
New BATTLES. New STAKES. New STRATEGIES. New ENERGY.

‘Take Back America 2005’ provides a unique opportunity to access the wisdom of some of America’s best progressive thinkers and strategists. For more information click on the link above or, for all questions regarding the Take Back America Conference, including Conference registration, payment and accomodations, please contact:

Natalie P. Shear Associates, Inc.
1730 M Street NW, Suite 801
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 833-4456, ext. 104
Toll-Free: 1 (800) 833-1354 (for callers outside the D.C. area)
Email: takebackamerica@ourfuture.org