Social Issues Rank as Lowest Priorities With Voters

A new Pew Research Center Poll found that while the GOP remains obsessed with social issues ranging from mandating inter-uterine ultrasounds to deter abortions (or at least harass women seeking them) and denying contraception to poor women to barring same sex marriage, the vast majority of voters deem those issues at the bottom of the pile of important issues as set out in the chart above. This disconnect is further evidence that the real puppeteers of the GOP in many ways continue to be the far right Christianist extremists. The challenge for Barack Obama, therefore, is to keep pushing for economic improvement while the GOP base will hopefully continue to push Romney and Congressional candidates to remain talking about contraception, bashing gays, and alienating minorities. Here are some highlights about the Pew findings (the full report can be found here):

[V]oters [are] rating the economy and jobs as the issues that are "very important" to their vote. Some hot-button social issues, like gay marriage and birth control, rank at the bottom of the list of voter concerns.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted April 4-15, 2012 finds that those who say the economy and jobs will be very important to their vote divide their support almost evenly between Obama and Romney. But the candidates each have advantages on other top-tier issues. Health care and education voters favor Obama by double-digits. Those who rank the federal budget deficit as a top priority favor Romney by a 19-point margin. Romney is also the preferred candidate among those who rank Iran as very important, while Obama leads among those who cite the environment.

Obama continues to owe his lead to support from women, college graduates, blacks, Latinos and lower income voters -- all of whom support him over Romney by double-digits.

While I remain less than thrilled with Obama, Romney's stance on LGBT rights, his contribution in support of Proposition 8, and his desire to gut the social safety net while giving huge tax cuts to the rich, make it impossible for me to consider voting for him under just about ant circumstances. Obama may not be the LGBT community's friend, but he's not our confirmed enemy either. Better to have a luke warm friend in the White House than an enemy.