Democratic Party
The Democratic Party is one of the two major political parties in the United States of America. It is generally seen as being politically between center and left of center, while the rival Republican Party is positioned to the right of center (see political spectrum theory). Members and supporters of the Democratic Party are known as Democrats.
The Democrats currently control the 110th United States Congress together with the majority of State governorships and legislatures.[1] According to a Pew Research Center poll, 50 percent of Americans identify themselves with the Democratic Party as opposed to 35 percent for the Republican Party.[2] However, Democrats have served out only three of the last ten presidential terms. Democrats in the US Congress currently have a 64.8% disapproval and only a 24.8% approval rating -- the lowest in ten years since the Impeachment trial of President Clinton -- according to the RealClearPolitics Average of several dozens of Congressional Job Approval polls conducted 06/05 - 06/28. [3] Investor's Business Daily remarked, "For all the promises of its new Democratic leaders, Congress seems truly interested in doing only one thing: surrendering in Iraq. No wonder its public approval ratings have sunk below the president's." [4]
Like the Republicans, the Democrats are currently selecting their candidate for the 2008 presidential election; the front-runners in the contest are Senator Hillary Clinton of New York and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. The most recent president who was a Democrat was Bill Clinton, who served from 1993 to 2001.
Religion
In the United States, there is some correlation between religious and political affiliation, though people of all faiths and denominations can be found among the supporters of each of the main parties.
Both historically and today, Catholic voters have had a tendency to identify with the Democratic Party[Citation Needed], and a number of Democratic office-holders, such as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, are Catholics. However, several general ideals of the Democratic Party's platform - most notably, the party's overall support for the legality of abortion - are contrary to the position of the Catholic Church.[Citation Needed]
With regard to Protestant Christians, members of Evangelical churches in particular are associated with the Republican Party. One unusual feature of the Democratic Party, however, is that it draws substantial support both from committed African-American Protestant Christians and from secular and atheist white voters.[Citation Needed] The strong opposition to homosexuality found among many Black Protestant Christians (and, indeed, among orthodox Catholics) contrasts strikingly with the support frequently shown by other Democrats for the homosexual agenda.[Citation Needed]
Democrats also generally believe that religion should be separate from public life, and as such are typically supported by the ACLU. For example, in 1999 the Congress took up a bill to protect the display of the Ten Commandments. In the House of Representatives, over 3/4ths of the Democratic party members voted to remove the display. [5]. The measure did not pass the Legislature, and as a result when Justice Roy Moore posted a Ten Commandments display in his courthouse, the ACLU was able to have the display removed.
See also
References
- ↑ Multistate.com Post-Election 2006 Maps
- ↑ Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007 Pew Research Center, 22 March 2007
- ↑ RealClearPolitics Congressional Job Approval Poll, 05/18 - 06/10.
- ↑ The Do-One-Thing Congress, Investor's Business Daily, May 15, 2007.
- ↑ http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/06/18/gun.rollcall/ten.commandments.html
External links
- The Real Democrat Story, Open the File on the Freshmen Democrats.