Moving on to DailyKos Polling
I’ll be writing up a longer post about this, because the folks I talked to were, for the most part, not as extreme as some may have expected. An examination of the list of people I polled may explain that:
- A black dude from Ohio
- a white guy from Connecticut
- A gay white man from Washington DC
- A white woman from New Jersey
- One of the original signatories of the Mt. Vernon document, Colin Hanna (an older white man)
- A young white girl from the suburbs of NYC
- Eric Wargotz, The presumptive Republican nominee for the US Senate currently occupied by Barbara Mikulski
- A white woman from Atlanta
- A white man from Iowa
As you can see, the folks I polled were mostly from Blue states, so it’s probably no surprise that there views were fairly moderate. I’ll be tabulating the results soon enough, but for now, here are a couple of the more newsworthy and/or entertaining and/or alarming interviews.
First up… Dr. Eric Wargotz, the Republican Senate candidate from Maryland:
And here is the woman from Atlanta:
Dr. Eric Wargotz was, much to my surprise, and not without a number of far-right beliefs (he admits to being a “birther”), a reasonably moderate conservative – although I noticed that where he parted company with the more conservative elements of the Republican Party, he prefaced his statement with a reference to his career as a physician, somewhat ameliorating his-overall-conservativeness somewhat with the shadow of science & rationality.
The second interviewee? You were right, in your finishing comments on the record – she did come off like a far-right crazy – because some of her stated beliefs are so far to the right they’re nearly invisible. Strangely enough, she recognizes and labels her comments as (paraphrased) ‘not based on facts, just my opinions’ – which means that she understands her opinions don’t match reality, but she just doesn’t care about that – what she thinks is reality and reality is what she thinks it is. I’d say, “unbelievable”, but sadly, it is not. I’ve run into people just as bad, and worse.
Last summer, at a Townhall with our local US Rep. Brian Baird (D-03-WA), when we left the county fairground covered arena (the only venue large enough to hold the crowd with a 14K maximum crowd size), outdoors were a group of three people waiting, with 2 ft x 4 ft. posters on sticks, of Pres. Obama, with an Hitler-style mustache printed on him. The poster-holder we came closest too was a young man of no more than 20 years. I stopped, I looked him in the eye and said to him, “Shame on you. Do you have any Jewish friends? Don’t you understand how shameful it is to use this? Shame on you.” What made me incoherent for a moment was his response, “I am Jewish”.
So now, nothing surprises me anymore. Nothing.
Angie in WA State
21 Feb 10 at 1:05 am
WOW. Guess we know why Ron Paul was so unpopular even though he won the straw poll. These blue-staters are going to feel mighty uncomfortable in a party of extremists.
Matt Osborne
21 Feb 10 at 2:17 am
Oy, “these” should be “the.”
Matt Osborne
21 Feb 10 at 2:20 am
Wargotz seems pretty cool for a conservative.
kathy
22 Feb 10 at 6:25 pm
Also, let me point out that Dr. wargotz doesn’t even meet the definition of a “birther”. Nowhere in the video does he mention questioning the legitimacy of the president to be president. He merely answered the question of birthplace. I can understand the confusion. Claims of fraud on all sides of the discussion regarding paperwork from hawaii, kenya,etc. I am a democrat and still have questions myself but like wargotz, i do not question the legitimacy of this presidency and right to serve.
kathy
2 Mar 10 at 10:28 pm