A Pew study was just released on public perceptions of the two parties when it comes to religious issues. All of us who want to help the dems be more effective at connecting with Americans going into 2006, and all who want to be more effective at countering the Republican lies and spin should read it. There is so much important stuff there. The report is available here:
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=254
The most important things I saw to take away from this are:
- Just over half of Americans believe religious conservatives have too much influence on the Republicans. But, the same number believe secular liberals have too much influence on the Dems.
- Only 29% believe the Dems are friendly toward religion. This number has dropped drastically over the last year, from 40% last August. People are buying the Republican lies about us making war on faith. I think this is a serious problem.
- Two thirds of America believes that liberals have gone too far in keeping religion out of public life, while only 45% believe religious conservatives have gone too far in pushing their religion on us.