National security

If you're the kind of person who is fascinated by close analysis of polling data—and who isn't?—then you'll love this post from Chris Bowers at MyDD. Here's what we bloggers call the nut ’graph, in which he unpacks voters concerned with “national security” into folks concerned with Iraq vs. those concerned with terrorism:

I do not think that there is a national security gap where Democrats have not convinced enough people that they can keep America safe. I do not think it is particularly useful to lump two distinct voting blocks, those concerned with Iraq and those most concerned with terrorism, into a single “national security” voting block and then conclude that we are losing this group of voters for a single reason: that they do not trust Democrats to keep America safe. Clearly, the Iraq block of voters do trust Democrats to keep America safe, as even in the South they voted for Kerry in overwhelming numbers. On the other hand, those concerned with terrorism, who clearly do not trust Democrats to keep America safe, cannot ever be expected to trust Democrats to keep America safe because their faith-based, identity-based worldview is antithetical with liberalism.

This implies that further precipitating a clash-of-civilizations type of conflict with the Muslim world would work to Republicans’ electoral benefit. Brr.