Whatever happened to the good, ‘ol days when partisans on the losing side of an election would try to find out what went wrong, then get to work to do better next time — rather than seeking fictional scapegoats or talking about pulling out of the United States since their side won? Apparently, we’re not quite in those days anymore:
PPP’s first post election national poll finds that Republicans are taking the results pretty hard…and also declining in numbers.
49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn’t exist anymore.
Some GOP voters are so unhappy with the outcome that they no longer care to be a part of the United States. 25% of Republicans say they would like their state to secede from the union compared to 56% who want to stay and 19% who aren’t sure.
One reason that such a high percentage of Republicans are holding what could be seen as extreme views is that their numbers are declining. Our final poll before the election, which hit the final outcome almost on the head, found 39% of voters identifying themselves as Democrats and 37% as Republicans. Since the election we’ve seen a 5 point increase in Democratic identification to 44%, and a 5 point decrease in Republican identification to 32%.
Is it surprising that the GOP is losing some voters? There is a paranoia and mean-spiritedness on the part of some that won’t enlarge the tent, but cause some to gingerly or not too gingerly move to the exit flap. There are many serious and thoughtful Republicans. They need to step to the forfront to get their party back on track.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.