But the article as I read it yesterday and today it says:

Democrats and Republicans were about equally represented in the most knowledgeable group but there were more Democrats in the least aware group.

What gives? I would think since Democrats are the majority of the viewers of the smarter shows it should read as FDL quoted it.

http://www.editorandpublisher……1003571876

But the article as I read it yesterday and today it says:

Democrats and Republicans were about equally represented in the most knowledgeable group but there were more Democrats in the least aware group.

What gives? I would think since Democrats are the majority of the viewers of the smarter shows it should read as FDL quoted it.

Republicans and Democrats are equally likely to be represented in the high-knowledge group. But significantly fewer Republicans (26%) than Democrats (31%) fall into the third of the public that knows the least.

So E&P correctly reported the survey results.

Democrats and Republicans were about equally represented in the most knowledgeable group but there were more Democrats in the least aware group.

The above is from the linked article. While your quote shows Republican. Either they changed their article or you did??

opie jeanne @ 61
–snip– (Talking about things like demonizing welfare queens, rather than asking how to stop enabling poor people, so as to lift them out of poverty.)

–snip–

Yes, my dad demonized welfare moms. Upon growing up, it was something for me to see what real people really are up against, and to think about what NOT taking care of our country’s children really implies about our values. Tough love, my butt. Mean is mean.

My dad had softened shortly before his death, because he had his own awful downfall. One of my last memories of him is of him shuffling down the walkway in the snow with a bag of groceries for a welfare mother in a tough neighborhood. He had congestive heart failure, and it was so hard to walk. He was making his way to his Ford Festiva (”zippy! I love my little car!”)–he had always driven Caddies and Lincolns. He had lost it all. But in his final year of life, he got a great deal of comfort from serving the poor (poor himself) for St. Vincent de Paul.

Even so, as a rich man, he loved to give to charities, and a favorite memory was going shopping for him for toys for tots each Christmas season. He’d buy a load of stuff for kids we didn’t know. I loved it. I was so proud of him. But there was that “welfare queen” demonization thing. There really were Republicans who bought that “compassionate conservatism” line of crap. My dad, for one. He sure was a mix of wonderful and horribly judgmental. So, how do we reach them? One downfall at a time? It’d be nice to reach their hearts while they still have their money and power.

At the end of John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience, the appendix gives a list of Conservative vs. Liberal beliefs, developed in teh 1950’s. Liberals and Conservatives have flipped on a number of really critical beliefs. I’m inclined to think that EvilDrPuma @ 40 is right.

Alicia @ 201

opie_jeanne – you sound like a very intelligent and thoughtful person. How would you articulate what Republican values are to you – the values that made you become one?

You give me far too much credit. My awakening started by osmosis, little niggling crap (like Agnew) and continued until I actually felt wrenched by the realization that A Lot of Things Were Not Good.
The original values that I associated with my party, perhaps wrongly, were basic decency, conservation (remember Teddy Roosevelt and the National Parks?), being careful with taxpayers’ money and trying not to take too much of it.
When I was a kid, it seemed that everyone I respected was a Republican, and most of the Democrats I knew seemed a bit… slap-dash?… about things like money, not saving enough, owing too much, having more than two kids (don’t laugh, I have three), not planning ahead. Funny, the kids from some of those families were the most fun to play with.
Compassion wasn’t a real big item on the Republican agenda, even back then, but I didn’t notice it so much back then, believing personal responsibilty was more important. I have been bothered more and more by this lack of compassion because it affects everything else.
I guess I’m still growing, politically.

I just want to say that Opie_Jeanne sounds a lot like myself, as far as how it felt growing up Republican. My dad was a small businessman, worked SUPER hard–every day of his life. I’d bring him Pepsis as he worked in his office. When he said the democrats were raking him over the coals with taxes (he was audited year after year by the IRS, and never failed an audit), I had no reason to disbelieve him.

George Bush’s call to identify gays as the enemy of our families and marriage was shocking beyond belief to me. It was the final straw. After a decade of trying to justify republicans based on the values Opie_Jeanne listed, I walked away from it. I learned something about partisanship–you can wake up surrounded by evil people, trying to justify something that’s long dead. I’ll avoid a label for the rest of my days, just so I’m free to disagree or agree on particular issues as I see fit in individual discussions. I’ve watched loved ones defend crazy stuff they don’t even believe, for their party.

That doesn’t mean I won’t vote the Dem party line for a while, though, until the GOP is properly cleansed. Then, I’ll revisit.

Well-informed audiences come from cable (Daily Show/Colbert Report, O’Reilly Factor), the internet (especially major newspaper websites), broadcast TV (NewsHour with Jim Lehrer) and radio (NPR, Rush Limbaugh’s program)

Rush Limbaugh?

I hate to break it to you, but the E&P article, as well as the original source, both say that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 31-26 in the lowest knowledge category.

Now, I don’t necessarily believe the results based on my life experience, especially here in Texas with a bunch of dumb-as-rocks Republemmings, but that is actually what the poll results stated, which is not what your post said. Sorry…