A survey of Republican Primary voters released this week and conducted by Public Policy Polling provides some interesting results and insight into the minds of GOP voters.
The poll determined that Scott “Scabby” Walker is currently the lead potential 2016 candidate, followed, oddly, by Dr. Ben Carson.
Scott Walker is at 25% to 18% for Ben Carson, 17% for Jeb Bush, and 10% for Mike Huckabee. Rounding out the field of contenders are Chris Christie and Ted Cruz at 5%, Rand Paul at 4%, and Rick Perry and Marco Rubio at 3%.
The most startling result, however, is the fact that 57 percent of GOP voters–and 94 percent of Huckabee supporters–would like Christianity to be our “national religion.”
You know, we on the left get a lot of flack for supposedly being “Anti-American” and not being in line with “American Values” because we want to feed poor people and have sex without consequences and we don’t like war too much. However, I’m going to say that wanting a national religion is just about the least American thing there is.
The fact that we have no such thing, the fact that every individual in this country is free to believe (or not believe) as they choose with no one’s beliefs being held above anyone else’s? That’s a point of national pride for us. We should feel good about that and we should fight for it. Not to mention the fact that it’s in the First Amendment. The very first one! The part that says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof!”
I’m not really convinced that gutting the First Amendment is the kind of behavior those that carry the torch of “American Values” should be engaging in.
The survey also found that the two least popular potential 2016 candidates were Chris Christie, with 45 percent unfavorable rating, and Jeb Bush, with 29 percent having an unfavorable view of him. Oddly, Jeb Bush is even less popular than his much reviled brother, former President George W. Bush, who only got a 21% unfavorability rating.
Also interesting were the stats on who believed in evolution and global warming. While it’s not at all surprising that the vast majority of GOP voters don’t believe in either thing, there were some fascinating variations. While–credit where credit’s due–a whopping 85 percent of Rand Paul voters believe in evolution, Christie voters carried the day in believing in global warming.
However, while Christie had previously lost favor with many GOP voters by suggesting that it might be a good idea to believe scientists about global warming, he is currently trying to get back into their good graces by twice vetoing the New Jersey state legislature’s vote to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), “a cap-and-trade system aimed at reducing global warming pollution from factories and power plants.” It’s probably likely that he’ll be in full retreat mode by the time 2016 rolls around, just running rampant through the streets, using up all the aerosol hairspray in New Jersey, wantonly setting fire to every Prius he sees.
By and large, it seems that Huckabee voters are the most uniform in their views, with virtually no divide on most issues. I, personally, find it fascinating that although Scott Walker voters were the least likely to support Christianity being made the national religion, they were also the least likely to believe that global warming is real.
Perhaps the only good news in this poll is that 37 believe of Republicans believe in evolution, which is a lot more than I would have thought.
[Public Policy Polling] [h/t /r/Atheism]Original by Robyn Pennacchia
