Poll - Alabama Evangelicals more likely to vote for Moore after new allegations

[Mr. Morden]

First off, I disagree with multiple posters here who say that more likely/ less likely polls are meaningless. This is way too high a percentage to Simply write off as knee-jerk positive responses for one's own candidate. Even such knee-jerk responses are bad enough as it is as it reflects someone being absolutely deaf dumb and blind to the facts and world around them.

Well, they're bad, yes, but the question is about how do we interpret them.  I just don't trust any poll respondent to answer honestly when asked "Does X make you more or less likely to support your candidate?"  They're not going to answer honestly.  They may not even be capable of answering honestly, because they might not know.  They might just take in any scrap of data and figure that it makes them more likely to support their candidate of choice, even when it doesn't.  Or they could just be reading the poll question as a chance to give a "symbolic" show of support to their candidate.

[Ban my account ffs!]

First off, I disagree with multiple posters here who say that more likely/ less likely polls are meaningless. This is way too high a percentage to Simply write off as knee-jerk positive responses for one's own candidate. Even such knee-jerk responses are bad enough as it is as it reflects someone being absolutely deaf dumb and blind to the facts and world around them.

Well, they're bad, yes, but the question is about how do we interpret them.  I just don't trust any poll respondent to answer honestly when asked "Does X make you more or less likely to support your candidate?"  They're not going to answer honestly.  They may not even be capable of answering honestly, because they might not know.  They might just take in any scrap of data and figure that it makes them more likely to support their candidate of choice, even when it doesn't.  Or they could just be reading the poll question as a chance to give a "symbolic" show of support to their candidate.

I would agree that this is tribalism at its finest.  The deranged tribalism of evangelicals leads them to either not believe Moore did what he is accused of doing, to minimize what he did with excuses (40 years ago, no sexual intercourse, but ABORTION AND HILLARY, etc), or simply agreeing there is nothing wrong at all with what he did because, you know, Joseph and Mary and Jesus...

It's not hard to figure out.

[Mr. Morden]

To add to my post above, here's Nate Silver expressing my same sentiments, but more succinctly:

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/930071217280872448

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[afleitch]

First off, I disagree with multiple posters here who say that more likely/ less likely polls are meaningless. This is way too high a percentage to Simply write off as knee-jerk positive responses for one's own candidate. Even such knee-jerk responses are bad enough as it is as it reflects someone being absolutely deaf dumb and blind to the facts and world around them.

Well, they're bad, yes, but the question is about how do we interpret them.  I just don't trust any poll respondent to answer honestly when asked "Does X make you more or less likely to support your candidate?"  They're not going to answer honestly.  They may not even be capable of answering honestly, because they might not know.  They might just take in any scrap of data and figure that it makes them more likely to support their candidate of choice, even when it doesn't.  Or they could just be reading the poll question as a chance to give a "symbolic" show of support to their candidate.

I would agree that this is tribalism at its finest.  The deranged tribalism of evangelicals leads them to either not believe Moore did what he is accused of doing, to minimize what he did with excuses (40 years ago, no sexual intercourse, but ABORTION AND HILLARY, etc), or simply agreeing there is nothing wrong at all with what he did because, you know, Joseph and Mary and Jesus...

It's not hard to figure out.

By a strict modern definition, it's arguable whether Mary had the ability to 'consent'; age issues, being able to say actually say 'no' to the figure of power etc, so I can see why it might stir a few people (but then that's what you get when you cobble together a chain of events to replace the early Christian understanding of Jesus being 'adopted' by god as his son.)

[EnglishPete]

To add to my post above, here's Nate Silver expressing my same sentiments, but more succinctly:

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/930071217280872448

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well exactly. I'm sure during last years election after Breitbart promoted claims by Juanita Broderick that Bill Clinton had raped her and that Hillary had help cover it up there were Dem voters thinking "Well if Breitbart want to attack her in this way it must be a smear and I want to vote for her even more". This is just the same reaction but the other way around.

[Badger]

Well... wow.

My observation would be that firstly they would be unlikely to believe the fourth story as the pattern of behaviour in that story is so entirely different from the pattern of behaviour in the other three and that furthermore the pattern of behaviour in the other three cases is not only not unChristian but is in fact highly Christian and highly ethical.

Consider first that the age of consent in Alabama at which someone is judged capable of consenting to sex and marriage is 16 in Alabama. You might think that too low but that's not what Alabama law contends. I suspect that some of you might think that the age of consent for sex ought not be the same as the age of consent for marriage, i.e. that it should be both socially and legally accepted and even encouraged that young people should be sexually active for some years before getting married and starting a family. This is of course quite contrary to the traditional Christian ethics that Moore so  strongly advocates. That ethics teaches strict chastity before marriage and strict faithfulness within it.

In three of the accounts Moore is said to have behaved in an utterly proper way in this respect. They all said that he always asked the parent's consent to court her daughter and respected their authority in doing so. That is very much in line with traditional Christian teaching. Furthermore he behaved in an entirely chaste and rather courtly manner, doing no more than kissing and cuddling, which the ethical code followed by evangelicals proclaims is all any Christian man is permitted to do with anyone who is not his wife.

Whilst most parents would suspect a man in his early thirties wanting to date a young woman in her late teens  its important to remember the cause of this suspicion. The cause is that they would be worried that the man was looking for a mere mistress to take advantage of and then discard. It is very clear from the cases described of the two women that he dated that he was not looking for a mere mistress but for a wife, and by all accounts he has been a devoted and faithful husband so its no wonder that the mothers of those two girls thought that he would make a great son in law.

You compare that to the fourth case where the pattern of behaviour is totally different. In this case he is described as behaving in a manipulative and abusive way towards a child, seeking out an underage child, molesting her, acting in a way that was exploitative, dishonest and unchaste. That is so completely out of character with the other stories and with everything else known about Moore that it makes it hard to believe.

If you just look at the other three cases Moore behaved in a way that was not only not immoral but was in fact highly ethical. Alabama Evangelicals may very well then see this as a case where someone who not only preaches but practises a strict Christian code of sexual ethics and is being persecuted and slandered for it by a GOP establishment that is full of people who are admitted adulterers and who otherwise fall short of the Christian ethical ideal.

I thought Pete was imprisoned after Charlottesville. Nuts.