I'm sorry about the signal-to-noise ratio going off the charts but there's a
reason. We're in a highly charged period of deep division in the country
and the it's precipitating exaggerated partisan politics. It started with
the 2000 election and, subsided for a while after 911. But the country is
heading in a direction that's causing more division than I've experienced
since the mid-sixties.

I, for one, can't help arguing the points. I'm really sorry we're losing
you as you've been a voice of reason. Those among us who are more extreme
in our views are likely to drive moderates out of the discussion no matter
the forum and that's a problem.

Here's an article from the LA Times that talks about what's happening in the
country according to the Pew Research Center. I hope this improves before
it gets worse but I'm not hopefull. The injection of religious themes into
politics and public policy has served to polarize the country further.



Survey Finds Americans Are Increasingly Divided

Republicans make gains as their differences with Democrats on key issues
grow more pronounced.

By Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON - Across a range of domestic and foreign policy issues, the gap
between the views of Republican and Democratic partisans is now wider than
at any point in the last 16 years, a major new survey has found.

The survey, by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the
Press, portrays a nation profoundly polarized between two political camps
that are virtually identical in size but inimical in their beliefs on
virtually all major questions.

The center, which began measuring public opinion in 1987, found in its new
poll that the disagreement between Republicans and Democrats was greater
than ever on topics such as national security, the social safety net, big
business and equal rights for minorities.

"The extraordinary spirit of national unity that followed the calamitous
events of Sept. 11, 2001, has dissolved amid rising polarization and anger,"
said Andrew Kohut, Pew's director.

Since the terrorist attacks, according to the new poll, the share of
Americans who consider themselves Republicans has increased to the point
that the GOP, for the first time since the party's takeover of Congress in
1994, has drawn even with Democrats in public support.

The poll also found voters split almost exactly in half on whether they
intend to support President Bush or a Democrat in the 2004 presidential
race - and dividing along the same lines of class, race, gender and
religious attitudes as in the razor-thin election of 2000.

"It is still the 50-50 nation," Kohut said.

The poll measured the views of 2,528 adults, an unusually large sample, from
July 14 through Aug. 5. The group polled another 1,515 adults from Oct. 15
through Oct. 19 to update opinions on Bush and the war in Iraq. It has a
margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for the October survey,
and 2 percentage points for the questions posed in the summer.

The survey captures several long-term shifts in the currents of U.S.
politics. Among the key trends:

Polarized Views

Across a battery of 24 questions measuring political and policy attitudes,
the survey found that the average difference between Republican and
Democratic attitudes is about 50% larger than in the late 1980s.

On specific issues, 72% of Democrats now say government should do more to
help needy people even if that means a bigger federal budget deficit, while
39% of Republicans agree. That 33-point difference is the largest the poll
has recorded.

Likewise, while 69% of Republicans say the best way to ensure peace is
through military strength, 44% of Democrats agree. That 25-point gap is also
the largest the poll has recorded - and nearly triple the difference in
polls taken as recently as 1997.

The gap is also the widest it's been on the question of whether corporations
make too much profit: Nearly three-quarters of Democrats agree, compared
with just less than half of Republicans.

Looking solely at white voters, the poll found 55% of Republicans compared
with 34% of Democrats agreed that "we have gone too far in pushing equal
rights in this country" - that, too, is the largest gap the survey has
recorded.

On other policy choices, the poll reported that more than four-fifths of
Republicans believed preemptive war was often or sometimes justified,
compared with half of Democrats. Similarly, while 85% of Republicans
believed it was the right decision to invade Iraq, 54% of Democrats said it
was wrong.

On virtually all of these issues, independents typically take positions that
fall in between the attitudes expressed by partisans. But there is some
evidence in the survey that independents also are polarizing between those
who lean toward the Democrats and those closer to the GOP. For instance, on
both the peace-through-strength and government-aid-to-the-needy questions,
attitudes among voters who lean Democratic or Republican are virtually
indistinguishable from members of each party.

Within this overall pattern of polarization, the survey found that
Democratic voters moved markedly to the left since the Clinton
administration. The percentage of Democrats who said government should do
more to help the needy has jumped by nearly a fourth since 1999, while the
share who accepted the peace-through-strength argument has plummeted by more
than a fifth since 1997.

That movement, analysts say, may reflect both the waning influence of
Clinton, who offered a mostly centrist agenda, and the sharp Democratic
backlash against Bush.

Republican attitudes on these questions, although still predominantly
conservative, have changed less in recent years.

In their attitudes toward the political parties, Americans are increasingly
dividing along lines of values.

In 1987, Pew found about 7 in 10 Republican and Democratic voters expressed
strong religious beliefs in their answers to questions meant to measure such
attitudes. Today, the figures for Democrats are the same, while the share of
Republicans with strong religious beliefs has edged up near 80%.

Division in Values

The study found religious belief is now as strong a factor as income in
predicting which party voters will support. And like other recent studies,
the poll suggests that religious practice may be an even stronger predictor
of partisan behavior than religious belief. The survey found that one of the
sharpest divides in attitudes toward Bush's reelection followed the
frequency of church attendance.

Overall, the poll found voters split evenly, 43% to 43%, on whether they
would prefer Bush or an unnamed Democrat in 2004. But Bush led by 26
percentage points among voters who attended church at least once a week, and
among those who attended either weekly or a few times a month. Those who
attended church only once or twice a year gave the Democrat a narrow margin,
while those who attended rarely or never preferred the Democrat by 24
points.

That stark division tracked almost identically the pattern found by exit
polls in the 2000 race between Bush and Democrat Al Gore.

Growing Tolerance

The poll reported greater tolerance since 1987 on several questions
involving race and homosexuality. Although gaps still exist along party and
religious lines, the trend toward tolerance is significant among both
Democrats and Republicans, and the religiously devout and the secular.

For instance, the share of Americans who believe "it's all right for blacks
and whites to date" has jumped from 48% in 1987 to 76% now. The share who
say school boards should have the right to fire known homosexuals has
dropped from 52% in 1987 to 35% today, with the declines consistent across
lines of partisanship, income and religious belief. Divisions remain greater
on abortion, with half of Republicans saying they support stricter laws
against the practice, while 70% of Democrats oppose such efforts.

Partisan Balance

Combining all of its surveys since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pew Center
found the two parties drawing almost exactly equal support from the public,
with 31% of adults calling themselves Democrats and 30% Republicans. (The
rest didn't identify with either side.)

That's an improvement for the GOP since the late 1990s, when Pew surveys
gave the Democrats a 6-percentage-point edge. Since World War II, polls by
various organizations have found Republicans even in partisan identification
with the Democrats only twice: toward the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency
in 1988 and immediately after the GOP congressional landslide in 1994.

Ominously for Democrats, Pew found gains for the GOP above the national
average in several swing states, including Iowa, Michigan, West Virginia,
Minnesota and Florida.


For what it's worth, I too am disheartened by all the political stuff
posted here. I'm sure there are political news groups more appropriate
for these posts. I'm fairly new to boating and enjoy the exchange of
info and experience and from time to time have ventured my 2 Cents
worth.

I find I'm visiting this group less & less for these reasons. What do
Reps., Dems, Iraq and George Bush et al, have to do with boating? I
challenge all the political hot heads to post in appropriate groups.

Americans may be divided, but I hoped it was regarding 2 strokes vs 4
strokes, inboards vs outboards and the like, on this group.

I regard political posters in the same light as telemarketers. They
are uninvited, unwelcome, a nuisance, generally despised and I didn't
want to hear from them in the first place.

Ahhhhh... I feel better now, nothing like a little vent.