Dems Still On the Losing End

We have been covering the Democrats’ effort to improve their 2012 electoral position by beating back the efforts of numerous states to prevent voter fraud. Eric Holder is the point man for the Democrats in this campaign. While stirring racial division may help energize the Democrats’ base, it appears that the anti-ballot integrity movement will not be popular with the broader electorate. Scott Rasmussen finds that an overwhelming 75% support photo ID requirements. Eric Holder, meanwhile, is increasingly unpopular, with 19% favorable/43% unfavorable ratings among likely voters. This probably relates mostly to Fast and Furious, but Holder is not a strong figure to carry the anti-ballot security message.

The Democrats also hope to stir up their base by attacking state efforts to curb illegal immigration. Here, too, they are paddling the canoe uphill, as likely voters say, by a 52%/34% margin that they would like their state to enact an immigration law like Arizona’s.

Finally, President Obama’s Iowa speech of a week ago signaled that the Democrats will make inequality their big campaign theme in 2012. This would make more sense if Obama hadn’t been president for the last three years, but I suppose you could say that about nearly any issue. The problem, once again, is that while railing against the “rich” may fire up the far left, it doesn’t do much for most voters. Gallup finds that growing and expanding the economy is given high priority by 82% of Americans and increasing equality of opportunity for people to get ahead if they want to is considered very important by 70%, while only 46% attribute high priority to reducing the income gap between rich and poor. These numbers would be even more striking if Gallup were sampling likely voters. (Via Walter Russell Mead at The American Interest.)

It seems that more or less across the board, the Democrats are aiming their policies and the overall tenor of their campaign at the most leftward 30% of the electorate. This is perhaps understandable if they think they are in deep trouble and need to shore up their base, but it is hard to see consistent advocacy of principles and values that are disapproved by a clear majority of voters as a winning electoral strategy.

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