Is this a ploy to gain the religious vote for the upcoming elections? |
Yes-A political tactic |
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No-They're truly reaching out to them |
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I'm not sure... |
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Total Votes : 6 |
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Founder Dominion Leader
Joined: 21 Jun 2004 Posts: 12755 Location: Gamma Quadrant
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Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:06 pm Democrats...want religion? |
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Quote: | With a leading poll showing only one in four Americans viewing the Democratic Party as friendly to religion, Wilhelm and a broad-based group of Christian Democratic activists are starting an Internet effort to organize religious voters whose views might be compatible with Democrats. |
I'm not too sure about this. Their timing is awefully fishy to me. The elections are but a few years away and they no doubt don't want another defeat at the hands of the Republicans. It's no secret that Democrats tend to be the..."party of the athiests" as Republicans are the "party of the Christians". Now of course, it isn't as simple as I said it was, but both sides love to stereotype. I think Democrats are trying to gain the religious vote, seeing as it did so well for the Republicans.
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CJ Cregg Commodore
Joined: 05 Oct 2002 Posts: 1254
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Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:08 pm |
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Clearly a Political Tactic. Good for them. Politics is Politics.
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Puck The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004 Posts: 5596
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Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:08 pm |
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Well if they change their views on social issues to match their claim of wanting to be more friendly to the Christian voter, then that's not a big deal. Back your words up with action. Unless they change some of their social views though, they won't be getting much support from me.
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Founder Dominion Leader
Joined: 21 Jun 2004 Posts: 12755 Location: Gamma Quadrant
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Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:10 pm |
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I agree that this is definitly a political tactic. Not that I'm gonna cry foul over it. Republicans do the same thing. It's about time the Democrats became more aggressive. I don't support that party by ANY means, but I do like that they're waking up to the fact that giving the proverbial finger to religious people and hoping Athiests will lead them to the White House aint gonna happen.
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Lord Borg Fleet Admiral
Joined: 27 May 2003 Posts: 11214 Location: Vulcan Capital City, Vulcan
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Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:12 pm |
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Yeah, alot more people are religious then many think. I considar my self religious, even though I dont really have a "Specific" religion, so....what would that mean to the democrats?
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Republican_Man STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004 Posts: 14823 Location: Classified
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Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:20 pm |
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Politics at its best. And this is nothing new. They've been trying to do this for some time now. It will, of course, fail, as usual.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Founder Dominion Leader
Joined: 21 Jun 2004 Posts: 12755 Location: Gamma Quadrant
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Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:22 pm |
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Republican_Man wrote: | Politics at its best. And this is nothing new. They've been trying to do this for some time now. It will, of course, fail, as usual. |
Why do you say that? I'm not disagreeing, just interested in understanding why you think that.
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Republican_Man STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004 Posts: 14823 Location: Classified
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Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:28 pm |
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Founder wrote: | Republican_Man wrote: | Politics at its best. And this is nothing new. They've been trying to do this for some time now. It will, of course, fail, as usual. |
Why do you say that? I'm not disagreeing, just interested in understanding why you think that. |
Because the American people are smarter than that. They realize that the Democratic party is not really a party based on Judeo-Christian values. They have given evangelicals and generally religious people the proverbial finger numerous times and have tried "reaching out" to Christians in the recent past. It has failed, and it will fail again. It's a false, purely political image that they're trying to display. There is no honesty in it whatsoever. At least, that's how I see it.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Founder Dominion Leader
Joined: 21 Jun 2004 Posts: 12755 Location: Gamma Quadrant
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Wed Sep 06, 2006 12:04 am |
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They've done it before? Really? When? If so, then it was a terrible job...
One must wonder, how will this work exactly. The Democratic party suffers from being horribly divided with their members. While they have a large amount of black votes, most blacks tend to be Christian or Muslim. On the other hand, the Democrats have a lot of Athiests in their party as well. I can see a lot of confliction when they're trying to vote on an issue, especially one that deal with seperation of church and state. I won't even state the numerous amounts of other conflicting members the Democratic party has. The only true agreement I see they have is hating Bush and Republicans and that is most certainly not going to win any elections.
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Republican_Man STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004 Posts: 14823 Location: Classified
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Wed Sep 06, 2006 12:13 am |
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I'm too deep into AP US History homework to call up their past attempts at this (though I do remember talk of this last year and nothing happened), but it traditionally goes as follows in terms of religions and political parties (as studied in my AP Gov class):
Typically...
Jews = Overwhelmingly Dem
Atheists = Overwhelmingly Dem
Black Christians = Dem
Catholics = almost evenly split; Dems in past, more Reps in present
White Protestants = Rep
All Protestants = Rep
Evangelicals = Overwhelmingly Rep
Now, those are majorities, of course, but that's typically how it's broken down.
The more religous people, though, save for Jews tend to be in the Conservative-Republican camp. Most religious people are not Liberals or Democrats. I don't make it up--it's the actual correlation between religious devotion and party/ideology. When you hear talk in political terms of the "religious" people or whatnot, it's usually the case that they're members of the GOP, hence "Christian Conservative" and so forth.
Now back to AP US
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Hitchhiker Rear Admiral
Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 3514 Location: Ontario, Canada
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Wed Sep 06, 2006 12:20 am |
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Quote: | Is this a ploy to gain the religious vote for the upcoming elections? |
Er, yes, for the simple reason that every stitch and seam of a political platform is a carefully crafted ploy to gain someone's vote. Elections aren't really about voting for who you think will get the job done. It's about voting for the person least likely to screw you over while they're doing whatever the heck they want to do while they're in power.
It's interesting how they say an "Internet effort". Doesn't this leave out a large group of people who would be very much interested in Democrats for religion? I'm talking about impoverished poor-to-lower class people, people living below the poverty line, people without regular access to Internet. It seems to me that this would be a good demographic for the Democrats.
But the poor voters don't really matter unless they have money....
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Valathous The Canadian, eh
Joined: 31 Aug 2002 Posts: 19074 Location: Centre Bell
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Wed Sep 06, 2006 12:24 am |
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I can just imagine Bush walking up to whoever ends up stepping up as the Dem to run in 2008...
"You stole my Jesus fish, didn't you?!"
(That's a quote for you, RM! )
But yeah, I see this as more of an attempt at gaining votes than anything else. I don't really care. Anything to get the Republicans out of office, really, . I can't see it being overly effective, though, considering many of the views of the Democratic party on hot issues like abortion and embryotic stem cells, (which I think many Dems are for, however I'm not entirely sure...)
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Leo Wyatt Sweetest Angel
Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 19045 Location: Investigating A Crime Scene. What did Quark do this time?
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Wed Sep 06, 2006 1:50 am |
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A democrat may be the next president , but democrats don't always stay in office like republicans. No matter how you don't want a republican in office. It is always going to go back and forth to each party.
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borgslayer Rear Admiral
Joined: 27 Aug 2003 Posts: 2646 Location: Las Vegas
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Wed Sep 06, 2006 3:43 am |
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If the Democrats want to side with the Church their is nothing wrong with that. If the RP got a problem with it they should do the same
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Leo Wyatt Sweetest Angel
Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 19045 Location: Investigating A Crime Scene. What did Quark do this time?
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Wed Sep 06, 2006 4:00 am |
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guess u got a point I guess. I am not disagreeing. I got off subject with my other post above. I apologize. Meant for something else lol
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IntrepidIsMe Pimp Handed
Joined: 14 Jun 2002 Posts: 13057 Location: New York
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Wed Sep 06, 2006 1:02 pm |
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Yeah, it's a political maneuver to gain votes, but I don't see how it would cause all that great of a rift within the party unless they actually start backing up their words with actions. And that's probably not likely. Figuring that registered democrats number at being about 43% of the US population, and that Atheists number at about .4%, I'd hardly consider them to be the "party of the atheists."
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"Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."
-Wuthering Heights
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Founder Dominion Leader
Joined: 21 Jun 2004 Posts: 12755 Location: Gamma Quadrant
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Wed Sep 06, 2006 9:01 pm |
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IntrepidIsMe wrote: | Yeah, it's a political maneuver to gain votes, but I don't see how it would cause all that great of a rift within the party unless they actually start backing up their words with actions. And that's probably not likely. Figuring that registered democrats number at being about 43% of the US population, and that Atheists number at about .4%, I'd hardly consider them to be the "party of the atheists." |
I know. What I said was more of sarcasm at the stereotypes of our respectable parties.
I do wonder how the...athiest portion of the Democratic party feels about this.
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Republican_Man STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004 Posts: 14823 Location: Classified
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Wed Sep 06, 2006 9:09 pm |
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I can assure you that if action is actually taken on these claims (which I doubt) the secularists will fall back and find someone else to support. The Dems can't become all "religious" because they'll lose their liberal-progressive-secularist support base.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Hitchhiker Rear Admiral
Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 3514 Location: Ontario, Canada
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Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:22 pm |
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Founder wrote: | IntrepidIsMe wrote: | Yeah, it's a political maneuver to gain votes, but I don't see how it would cause all that great of a rift within the party unless they actually start backing up their words with actions. And that's probably not likely. Figuring that registered democrats number at being about 43% of the US population, and that Atheists number at about .4%, I'd hardly consider them to be the "party of the atheists." |
I know. What I said was more of sarcasm at the stereotypes of our respectable parties.
I do wonder how the...athiest portion of the Democratic party feels about this. |
I doubt that they are too concerned about it. For those who are registered to vote, they are probably too apathetic to actually vote anyway. For those who do vote, they probably think that this is just a political gambit and nothing will come of it. For those who do think that this is serious and something will come of it, they probably don't believe that suddenly a large number of bills that disadvantage their atheist beliefs will be introduced.
I could see them becoming upset if the Democrats backed some sort of crazy religion with 17.253 commandments that included, "Thou shalt eat fried worms" and "Thou shalt slay all atheists".* While I recognise that religion can affect the moral guidance for legislation, none of the mainstream U.S. religions really differ that much when it comes to morality. Most of them are undecided on the subject of fried worms, and most of them don't condone the slaughter of atheists.
*If this is your religion, I apologise for calling it "crazy". Please be assured that I believe that all religions are "crazy", which they are to an extent, just like the prices at Wal-Mart. And just like the prices at Wal-Mart, "crazy" doesn't mean bad. Although I don't condone slaying all atheists. Just the ones who get in the way of the Master Plan. MUWAHAHAHA
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