Posted on 04/06/2011 8:27:54 AM PDT by daniel1212
A new national survey of registered voters conducted by the Barna Group reveals that the issues that will most affect the candidate people support for President in the 2012 election are most likely to be those affecting their personal security and comfort. The matters that are likely to have the least impact on their choice of candidate are moral issues.
The issues most likely to influence which candidate voters embrace in the 2012 presidential election are health care (which 64% said will have “a lot of influence” on the candidate they choose), tax policies (60%), terrorism (50%) and employment policies (50%).
A second level of influential issues included immigration policies (45%), education policy (44%), the wars in the Middle East (43%), and America’s dependence upon foreign oil (38%).
The issues noted as being least likely to influence how voters feel about potential candidates tended to be those with distinct moral underpinnings. Those matters include domestic poverty policies (37%), abortion (27%), environmental policy (26%), and gay marriage (24%).
Faith Impacts Views The survey data showed that there are also substantial differences in the importance attached to various issues based upon a person's faith commitments.
The interests of born again voters are distinct from those of non-born again adults: there were statistically significant differences in interest levels between those two segments regarding eight of the 12 issues in the survey....
(Excerpt) Read more at barna.org ...
Time to read Lincoln's proclamation of a national fast day
Smaller government, with freedom without anarchy, liberty with limits, fiscal conservatism, wise foreign policy, and a sound economy, etc. are fruits of obedience to Biblical precepts and principals. The liberal mentality wants a garden of Eden, the tree being the government providing all, but without His necessary laws, which are to our benefit when obeyed, and to our own collective hurt when spurned. Now and forever. Too many conservatives today want to change the effects of spiritual, moral and ideological declension, but not a return their foundation basis.
See also http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2699703/posts
do the words Sodom and Gomorrah ring a bell with anybody?
One thing that is not clear in this survey is whether or not the influence on votes will be for or against the condidates who favor certain policies. For example many people are interested in health care, but this survey does not indicate if these people are strongly for or strongly against the recent health package.
No American citizen will have any “personal security and comfort” when the present house of cards U.S. economy falls. The nanny, benefit providing, we know best government will collapse and those on the government tit will starve. The rest of us will be cowering in our basement bunkers hoping civil disorder will not find, rob and kill us.
Protests and signs as in Athens Greece and Madison Wisconsin cannot solve the coming economic collapse. We need a big attitude change and like drunks and drug addicts, most Americans won’t see reality until the collapse is total.
The federal government is not supposed to have a “poverty policy” or an “environmental policy”. How are these supposed to be moral issues?
You are commanded to help people. That’s what the poverty policy is supposed to be. The government’s “poverty policy” is at best, a drain on the economy and at worst an evil theft-based wealth transfer scheme to buy votes and power for politicians.
Environment? If the federal judges in the 19th century had adhered to property rights instead of “progress”, environmental messes would be a private matter between the land-owner with damaged property and the party that damaged the land.
A federal government environmental policy is at best a drain on the economy.
There is too much not said in this report.
The founders admitted that the government they devised would not work for a people that was not virtuous.
People have traded freedom for “security and comfort”, and in the end, they will have none of the three.
From the article:
On the 12 issues measured in the survey, there were significant differences between these two groups, (Protestants/Catholics) regarding only two issues:
‘Abortion and gay marriage.’ In both cases, Protestants were more likely than Catholics to indicate the issue would play a meaningful role in their candidate selection process. Overall, 35% of Protestants and 25% of Catholics said a candidate’s abortion position would greatly matter to them; one-third of Protestants (33%) and only one-fifth of Catholics (19%) said gay marriage policy would substantially affect their candidate decision.
One of the most significant transitions in the past 20 years has been among Catholics. For instance, in the early 1990s, Catholics were among the standard bearers for opposition to abortion. Today, however, the influence of abortion on the voting preferences of Catholics has waned and is more similar to that issue’s level of influence on Skeptics than to the degree of influence it has on candidate choice among Protestants.
“On the other hand,” Barna continued, “evangelical Christians distinguished themselves by their consistency. The issues that mattered to evangelicals in 1992 are the same issues that matter to them today. Some analysts have suggested this means evangelicals are out of touch with the times and are stuck in the past.....
...... A more realistic interpretation is that evangelicals’ perspectives have remained stable because they are based on a worldview that does not shift with the ebb and flow of cultural preferences and fads.”
This was surprising to me since historically Catholics have been very staunch on their position regarding Abortion and Homosexuality. Looks like these isssues are less than steller now for many.
Not the Catholics I know!!!! I will not, never vote for anyone who supports abortion and gay marriage.
I actually work with Catholics who support abortion while at the same time discussing what they gave up for lent and when they will be attending their next mass. Needless to say this presents confusion to non-believers who hear these comments.
IMO if a Catholic, or anybody else, supports the murder of unborn babies, who we are called to protect and nuture, then what in the world makes people thing those same people give a hoot about your life and the welfare of it...let alone the politicians they support who agree with them. There is no shame in the hearts of those people.
Lots of people are “Catholic” or “Lutheran” or whatever only because of that is what their people are.
iow the homosexual marriage crowd is ok for society.
i call bs on this poll as another effort to balkanize conservative into fragmented groups.
conservative is conservative.
hedonism costs tax dollars.
See 3rd link in post #1
Sometimes, like industries polluting a river, the gov has a legit regulatory interest, but such things are used as a pretexts by elitists “vain puffed by their fleshly mind” to promote their vain imaginations of a paradise where they reign as gods, but the results are from Hell, not Heaven.
Yes, and Jesus said to remember them!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.