Poll: Only Eight Percent Say Sotomayor Is Racist; Majority Wants “Empathy”
The new poll by the non-partisan firm Research 2000 for Daily Kos strongly suggests that the two main right-wing talking points about Sonia Sotomayor are a bust.
First, on the claim, echoed by many mainstream conservatives and GOPers, that Obama’s call for “empathy” in a judge is a cause for concern:
Do you think empathy is an important characteristic for a Supreme Court Justice to possess or not?
Yes 52%
No 29%
Not sure 19%
…and then, on the claim by Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich (who subsequently retracted it) and others on the right that Sotomayor is a “racist”:
Based on what you know or have heard about Sonia Sotomayor do you think she is a racist?
Yes 8%
No 61%
Not sure 31%
Amazingly, only 19% of Republicans — less than one-fifth — say Sotomayor is a “racist,” versus 28% who say she isn’t and 53% who are not sure, meaning they’re unwilling to accept that talking point. It’s yet another sign of how far right the GOP’s most prominent conservative voices are, even within the Republican Party itself.
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Kinda makes that column from EJ Dionne look silly doesn’t it?
agreed, SG. I didn’t get the fuss over that column. why does rush’s prominence necessarily shift the center of the debate in any meaningful sense? I’d say it shifts the republican party to the right, away from the rest of the world.
I was just getting ready to say the same thing SG. But of course, the liberal media as it is.
Greg
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To me it was just a way to give the MSM cover for the way they are pushing right wing talking points as facts. The media hasn’t shifted to the right, thats where they have been for some time. Hell didn’t the run up to Iraq dispell the notion of a liberal media altogether? I swear man I couldn’t understand why people were linking to Dionne like he was saying something profound. He just didn’t want to admit that his paper is putting out wingnut product all of its own volition. So OBVIOUSLY it was Obama’s fault for making the media cover everything Rush Limbaugh says. How laughable.
And, when the Bushies wanted a talking point spread throughout their base the first thing they did was appear on the drug addict’s show or Fox News. In other words, their first instinct was to turn to Rush and FNC, and other right wing talking heads, to get their message out.
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The Bushies are gone (thank God) but the apparatus isn’t. Those doing the talking for the right wing are still very much in place but somehow it’s Obama who is making them the focus of right wing points?? Hardly, the case. If anyone propped up Rush Limbaugh it was the Bushies.