Want another? How about the “marriage gap”? This one’s a doozy. It shows that Kerry took un-married voters by 18 percent, but then lost among married voters by 15 percent – a 33 percent swing! Further, married voters outnumber un-marrieds by 63 to 37 percent.
Apparently, something happens to people when they get married that causes them to run from Democrats. Could it have something to do with liberal policies being perceived as less family friendly? Married people generally pay more in taxes, have a greater stake in the economy and are (rightfully so) more likely to have children. Probably as a result, they tend to do things like go to church more often and generally be concerned about the overall coarsening of our culture.
In fact, this was the third election in a row where (aside from the black vote) the most reliable statistical indicator of how an individual will vote was based on an affirmative answer to three questions: Are they married? Do they have kids? And do they attend church on a regular basis? A "yes" to all three puts you deep in GOP territory.
Then there’s the “ideology gap,” which showed equal percentages of liberals voted for Kerry as conservatives who voted for Bush, (85 percent), but that self-identified conservatives outnumber liberals 34 to 21 percent.
Last but not least, there’s the “values gap.” It seems that the voters who placed a premium on moral issues might have been partially responsible for some political pros’ misreading of the tea leaves in the run-up to the election. The responses to the pre-election polls regarding the overall direction of the country (the “right track/wrong track” question) had a majority of voters saying they felt the country was headed in the wrong direction.
The media wrongly assumed that that meant they were unhappy with the president. What it actually appears to have meant for many people was that they were unhappy with such things as gay marriage, abortion, activist judges and a host of other values related issues. When it came time to vote, they pulled the lever for W.
In fact, voters who based their vote on “moral issues” supported President Bush by better than 80 percent. Now that’s a gap.
Edited: LI
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