June 27, 2006
Wal*Mart Voters
Move over Soccer Moms and NASCAR Dads and "Queer Eye" Uncles (okay, I made one of those up), the new "it" voter is the Wal*Mart voter. This is according to John Zogby.
A Ryan Sagar piece in RealClearPolitics portends bad things for the GOP in this new, large, block.
Zogby finds that while 85 percent of frequent Wal-Mart shoppers voted for President Bush's reelection in 2004 (and 88 percent of people who never shop there voted for Sen. John Kerry), Wal-Mart voters have turned on the president dramatically. In a poll taken earlier this month, they gave Bush a 35 percent approval rating -- compared to a 45 percent positive rating from born-again Christians, 49 percent from NASCAR fans, and 54 percent from self-identified conservatives.
I have wondered just who is turning away from President Bush and find this a plausible explanation. These folks are not juiced by the SCOTUS picks and the tax cuts.
Wal-Mart voters are simply not a viable, reliable conservative constituency. When Pew looked at the opinions of those pro-government conservatives in a 2005 study, it found that 94 percent favor a higher minimum wage, 63 percent favor the government guaranteeing health care to all citizens, and fewer than half favor drilling in ANWR. What's worst: more than half of pro-government conservatives held positive views of both Bill and Hillary Clinton.This is clearly not a voting bloc that Republicans can count on in 2006 or 2008.
I had posted about "The Party of Sam's Club" last December. Zogby's got more data but it is the same story: making room for populism in the GOP. Sadly, the shift away from basic, Republican principles we have seen can be attributed to this. The high spending incumbents we love to beat up on around here have a very large constituency here that can be developed with gay marriage bans and flag burning amendments. All of which are much easier than limited government.
Hat-tip: Insty