Searching for the Anti-Politician

By LisB on Fri, 10/30/2015 - 8:57pm |

Or...why the GOP is so FU'D

URL:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/91662/carson-trump-are-the-anti-politicians?mref=home

5026 reads

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Lis, your link and any possible commentary didn't make it ... happens all the time in the "news". Will you edit? I'd like to read the article.

by barefooted on Fri, 10/30/2015 - 9:38pm

Of course, Miss...

by LisB on Sat, 10/31/2015 - 12:02am

“We’re sick of career politicians,” said a woman in the focus group who supports Trump, and “we’re out to clean house.” Another woman, a Carson backer, said that politicians “don’t keep their word. Their morals are loose. They don’t have values. We’re just tired of them. We’re ready for someone who has not been in tThhat role.”

This is the last paragraph.

by LisB on Sat, 10/31/2015 - 12:05am

Bummer - I can't load it on mobile.

by barefooted on Sat, 10/31/2015 - 12:43am

This piece was written by Charley Cook and it is interesting. He is talking about a study of Republican focus groups that have been done by Annenberg Public Policy Center. I find this rather telling about the current state of the Republican voter's mind.

In what I thought was their most perceptive conclusion about Republican voters’ state of mind, Hart and Hunt observed: “Behind all of this is a sense that these people have done a better job of figuring out what they are against rather than what they are for. Part of the challenge that emerges for Republicans is that there appears to be nothing positive around which they can unite. Much of this discussion was spent railing against what is wrong rather than searching for a uniting vision of what they want in their nominee. A uniting leader may yet emerge, but for now the consensus is around a quiet man versus
a loudmouth.”

I do think they have been like this for the last couple of decades. Racism has been their glue and that has lost it's sticking power.

by trkingmomoe on Sat, 10/31/2015 - 12:54am

@barefooted I think this is also important take on the article. The rest of it talks about what social group is picking who in the current Republican line up.

The common denominator for participants in the focus group: a desire for someone who is untainted by the political process. They see policy expertise and experience in public office as, at a minimum, vastly overrated or—for some participants—downright disqualifying. This is quite a switch for a political party that has traditionally gone for known commodities, for candidates the voters felt they knew and were comfortable with.

“Voters are paying attention and are much more in the process than in previous political years,” Hart and his associate, Corrie Hunt, concluded in an analysis prepared after the focus group, using data from quantitative surveys. Knowledge remains at the “sound bite” level, they reported, but voters’ “awareness and perceptions of the major candidates are still quite formed.”

by trkingmomoe on Sat, 10/31/2015 - 1:00am

Knowledge remains at the “sound bite” level, they reported, but voters’ “awareness and perceptions of the major candidates are still quite formed.”

Really. Translation: they know who they are and are buying their crap.

How is this helpful?

by barefooted on Sat, 10/31/2015 - 1:17am

I should have said this first, momoe - thank you for trying to inform me about the article!

by barefooted on Sat, 10/31/2015 - 1:20am

Searching for the Anti-Politician

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