Americans for the most part support giving Michael Vick a second chance and letting him play in the NFL this season. 49% favor his reinstatement while 34% do not and 17% are unsure.
I was curious how this issue would break down along party lines. Democrats tend to be more into second chances but they also tend to be more into animal rights. It turns out there is a pretty big schism on that front with Democrats supporting reinstatement by a margin of 56-26 while Republicans oppose it 45-39. Who knew Vick was such a partisan issue? Independents support letting him play 52-31.
There is an even stronger divide along racial lines with African Americans supporting reinstatement 80-9 but whites by only a 42-39 margin.
That made me wonder if the party divide was simply a reflection of the racial divide with almost all blacks being Democrats. White Democrats support letting Vick play 42/35, while white Republicans oppose him 38/45. So there is a partisan divide beyond the racial divide but it is not quite as stark.
In addition to the race and party stuff there is also a large gender gap on the Vick issue. Men are in favor of letting him play by a 61-27 spread while women are actually opposed 40-38.
Of course it's interesting to see what broader public opinion on this is but ultimately it's going to come down to one guy- Roger Goodell. But just for fun, if you want to know how folks matching the Commissioner's demographics- white men in the 46-65 age range come down- it's 54% for reinstatement to 34% opposed. So if Goodell's reflective of his brethren maybe we'll see Vick in week 7.
Full results here
The point here isn't that Palin herself believes in this racist conspiracy. The point here is that her supporters do, by and large. Anybody who paid any attention to the campaign last fall should not be surprised that the paranoid white trash base of the Palin-wing of the GOP would be most likely to believe that Obama was born in Africa. Note that even as Palinites take umbrage at this statistical correlation they still can't help themselves from proving the point that they are birther bigots.
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