{"id":6944,"date":"2012-02-17T15:22:03","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T15:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=6944"},"modified":"2012-02-18T15:39:09","modified_gmt":"2012-02-18T15:39:09","slug":"helping-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/helping-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>The polling data relied upon for this<\/a> Washington Post<\/em> article is from a Democratic polling firm, but the results should come as no great surprise:<\/p>\n

The firm\u2019s poll finds that one of the most important factors powering Obama\u2019s gains against likely GOP nominee Mitt Romney has been the President\u2019s improving numbers among unmarried women, a key pillar of the present and future Democratic coalition. <\/p>\n

Among this group, Obama now leads Romney by 65-30 \u2014 and there\u2019s been a net 18-point swing towards the President among them:\u2026After unmarried women dropped off for Dems in 2010 and were slow to return to the Dem fold in 2011, Obama is now approaching the 70 percent he won among them in 2008.<\/p>\n

Unmarried women will be important to Obama\u2019s success at rebuilding his 2008 coalition in time for reelection, something that already seems to be underway, as Ronald Brownstein has demonstrated. The crack Post polling team tells me that the key to understanding this constituency is that it\u2019s complex and diverse; it includes young women who have never married, divorced women, and widows, and it cuts across class, racial, income, and geographic lines.<\/p>\n

Various factors \u2014 the improving economy; the drawn-out Republican nomination process; the GOP\u2019s sinking approval ratings \u2014 already seem to be driving unmarried women back towards Obama. And the pitched battle over birth control could continue to galvanize and unite this group behind him, particularly if Romney is forced to embrace the conservative position. The Greenberg poll also tested the two sides\u2019 position on this issue, and found that 61 percent of unmarried women side with the Democratic one. <\/p>\n

Concludes the memo: \u201cWe may yet look back on this debate and wonder whether this was a Terri Schiavo moment.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The chances that this will indeed be the case will increase substantially if Santorum is the nominee. To use a hackneyed term, elections are all about the \u201cnarrative\u201d and the narrative says that Santorum wants to ban contraception. He can deny that all he wants (and that’s just what he’s doing), but he\u2019s said enough in the past to ensure that there are a lot of people who will never believe him. That will tell at the polls should Santorum become the nominee. <\/p>\n

And not in a good way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The polling data relied upon for this Washington Post article is from a Democratic polling firm, but the results should come as no great surprise: The firm\u2019s poll finds that one of the most important factors powering Obama\u2019s gains against … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[740,79,776],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6944"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6944"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6962,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6944\/revisions\/6962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}