Matt Yglesias

Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins vs. Rush Limbaugh

This isn’t exactly profiles in courage material, but it’s good to see that not every Republican is taking her marching orders from talk radio. I do think this is worth peering deeper into, however:

Maine Republican Party Chairman Charles Webster, of Farmington, said Limbaugh has many admirers in Maine because “he speaks for a lot of working-class people” who are struggling to make a living.

Just to be clear, Maine exit polls show that the more money you have, the more likely you were to vote for John McCain:

In education terms, McCain’s best demographic was “some college” (though he lost that, too) and he did equally bad with those possessing a high-school diploma but no college, and those possessing a bachelor’s degree.

8 Responses to “Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins vs. Rush Limbaugh”

1. JimboSlice Says:
   March 9th, 2009 at 1:27 pm

   Matthew please see your post from a few hours ago to see why the GOP chair thinks this. To them the only people who “work” are the professional class, therefore the working-class consist of doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. The rest of the people are just lazy slackers who were too busy getting drunk and partying in high school and college.

2. Adam Says:
   March 9th, 2009 at 1:28 pm

   Working-class people of course refers to people that Maine Republican Party Chairman Charles Webster, of Farmington knows personally but that make a little less money than himself. It’s tough having to sell your vacation home next to the ski resort.

3. BFR Says:
   March 9th, 2009 at 1:30 pm

   Maine Republican Party Chairman Charles Webster, of Farmington, said Limbaugh has many admirers in Maine because “he speaks for a lot of working-class people” who are struggling to make a living.

   I don’t think there’s anything untrue about this – I don’t know the demographics for Limbaugh, but I’ve got to think he’s appealing mostly to people in the $25k-$100k range.

   So he does real well with the minority of people in that economic bracket who AREN’T voting democratic. Nothing really surprising about that.

4. Prester Dave Says:
   March 9th, 2009 at 2:00 pm

   Don’t know what to make of this post. However, I’d like to highlight something in the Maine poll data: it doesn’t show “the more money you have, the more likely you were to vote for McCain.” The top two demographic groups were nearly identical. If it’s valid to look at the two lower income groups and pretent to see a trend, then it’s also valid to look at the top two groups and claim “voting patterns appear to be largely independent of income”.

5. Will Says:
   March 9th, 2009 at 3:02 pm

   Wanna hear a joke?

   The Maine GOP

6. no comment Says:
   March 9th, 2009 at 7:26 pm

   Just to be clear, Maine exit polls show that the more money you have, the more likely you were to vote for John McCain

   And you then support this with a chart that shows support for McCain rising with income, then falling by a statistically insignificant amount?