Wal-Mart Voters

When I think of Wal-Mart voters and politics, I think of George Bush supporters. Apparently, I need to change my thinking. Ryan Sager, author of Elephant in the Room, has an article in Real Clear Politics that analyzes the polling date of Pew and Zogby on Wal-Mart voters. That data suggests that while Wal-Mart voters tend to respond to the Republican moral issues, they are otherwise not natural allies:

Wal-Mart voters are simply not a viable, reliable conservative constituency. When Pew looked at the opinions of those pro-government conservatives in a 2005 study, it found that 94 percent favor a higher minimum wage, 63 percent favor the government guaranteeing health care to all citizens, and fewer than half favor drilling in ANWR. What's worst: more than half of pro-government conservatives held positive views of both Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The data also suggests that they are not happy with George Bush and think Democrats would do a better job. We can expect Karl Rove to do everything he can to keep the focus on social issues and not on the the economy or the war.