By Michael Bryan
Reviewing some very nice data from exit polling posted on The Arizona Conservative, I came across a few interesting factiods that are informative about the thinking of Arizona's electors. I suggest a look. You may find some interesting insights of your own for the comments.
First, was this:
Not terribly surprising that those voters who believed that Obama was primarily responsible for the current economic problems would vote for Romney. Very surprising, however, that 15% of those who blamed Bush would nonetheless vote for more of the same from Romney. Maybe those folks think that Bush wasn't sufficiently "supply sided" in his economic policies and want Romney to finish off the middle class?
Also interesting that 31% of those who think Romney favors the wealthy still voted for him: I guess that those 31% think they are in the 1% who would have benefitted of Romney's agenda? I don't think that math works… which demonstrates the brilliance of conservative propaganda.
Also interesting to me was this:
At first, I could not figure out why fully 44% of those who want Arizona to recognize same-sex marriage would vote for Romney, who opposes such policies. Then I realized that, of course, they were voting for Romney despite his position. They want same-sex marriage recognized, but it is not a high enough priority to overcome their support for Romney on other issues. In other words, these are 'fiscal conservatives' who believe (wrongly…) that Romney would be a superior choice on other (more salient) issues, but who now support marriage equality. That's an strong resevoir of support for marriage equality inside the GOP coalition. It may not be a strongly motivating value in a candidate campaign, but it could be decisive in an issue-oriented campaign, such as a ballot question.
Chris Hayes had a segment on his Saturday show about Arizona's exit polls and racialized politics that was very thought provoking. See that clip after the click…
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