re: #383 garhighway

Money isn’t everything. Most people have very deeply held beliefs on some topics that transcend money.

For example: if you believed that abortion was murder (I don’t) you might also therefore believe that ridding the world of that evil was more important than getting a fairer economic deal out of your government.

Likewise, liberty interests often outweigh purely economic concerns.

Likewise, for some, being in favor of a strong national defense trumps economic issues.

The GOP of the last 10 years has done a good job of marrying the social conservatives with the economic ones, even though their interests are not always consistent with one another. And so it must be, for a party based purely on lower taxes for the higher brackets would be doomed to electoral failure. I read somewhere once that one of Karl Rove’s worst nightmares was the repeal of Roe v Wade, as he feared that in that event a big chunk of his base would re-prioritize their interests.

In any event, this isn’t about rationality, nor poor information. It’s about people’s personal priorities.

Except for the fact that their personal priorities are based on mis-information. You gave an excellent explanation, but unfortunately it doesn’t match up with the real-life data. Go check out the exit polls. Alabama went overwhelmingly for McCain. Guess what the top issue for 58% of McCain voters was? The economy.
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