Racism is not a factor driving conservative opposition to President Barack Obama, according to the results of focus groups conducted by Democracy Corps, a Democratic organization, released on Friday.
Nevertheless, members of the conservative base of the GOP said they believe the president is pursuing a “secret agenda” designed to push the country toward socialism.
“This is a pretty dominant view in the Republican Party,” said Democratic strategist James Carville, who worked on the report.
Rather than attributing their dislike of Obama to race, participants in the focus groups, which were a project of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, said that their disaffection was borne out of a sense that the president was orchestrating an effort to steer the country away from its “founding principles.”
“They want him to fail,” said pollster Stan Greenberg. “It’s not just a political motivation, it’s an ethical imperative given what they think Obama’s goals are.”
The research team held focus groups from Sept. 29-30 with conservative voters in suburban Atlanta and another set of meetings with conservative-leaning independents in the Cleveland area. The Atlanta groups consisted of older white, self-identified conservatives who voted for both John McCain and a Republican Congressional candidate. The Cleveland groups included older white swing voters — half of whom voted for Obama and half of whom supported McCain in 2008. In the two places, researchers found vastly different results. - Politico Story
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