Beer Drinkers Are Split in Pennsylvania

Via Extreme Mortman comes this poll from the Keystone State that shows Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) well ahead of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) among gun owners, bowlers, and hunters, but only tied among beer drinkers in Tuesday's Democratic Primary.

What explains that? Or any of this?

Zogby, btw, is touting a poll which shows Clinton up 6 points (48 percent vs. 42 percent, with 6 undecided).

Comments

Abdul | April 21, 2008, 7:54am | #

What about the mini-golf demographic? Any news on which way they'll go?

Elemenope | April 21, 2008, 8:14am | #

Personally I'm waiting for the "people who own ferrets" statistic. As they go, so goes Pennsylvania.

thedifferentphil | April 21, 2008, 8:27am | #

I live in PA, and I can tell you that almost every hunter and every gun owner is a male. Exceptions, yes, but probably 95% with the hunters and 90% with the gun owners. Bowling -I haven't been in an ally outside of kiddie birthday parties since the 1980s, so I will leave that to someone else. The letters to the editors here have been lighting up, complaining about bitter gun owning, church going comments, but _all_ of those letters in my town are from Republicans. They are the ones most exercised by that comment, but the PA primary is closed, so it will be interesting to see how strong that impact is on the votes.

Tommy_Grand | April 21, 2008, 8:35am | #

Does that chart say 38% of people own guns, but only 28% drink beer? Huh. I know more folks who've shotgunned a beer than have shotgunned a bird.

Reinmoose | April 21, 2008, 8:35am | #

I think if they further broke down the beer statistic that they'd find a difference between Hoegaarden drinkers and Milwaukee's Best drinkers.

thedifferentphil | April 21, 2008, 8:44am | #

Milwaukee's Best drinkers don't vote. Fun PA fact: liquor stores are closed on election day.

robc | April 21, 2008, 9:00am | #

thedifferentphil

KY and IN too. No alcohol sales anywhere until the polls close.

Reinmoose | April 21, 2008, 9:03am | #

KY and IN too. No alcohol sales anywhere until the polls close.

Funny - it's as though they think without alcohol, voters will make a rational and informed decision. If they've been drinking, then it's just reckless, or something.

Warty | April 21, 2008, 9:14am | #

it's as though they think without alcohol, voters will make a rational and informed decision

I imagine it's probably to avoid election riots like they had in the old days. Damn, the old days must have been fun.

Elemenope | April 21, 2008, 9:14am | #

Does that chart say 38% of people own guns, but only 28% drink beer?

There are lots of old folk for whom owning a gun is the thing to do but cannot drink beer because alcohol would interact with their heart/blood-thinning medications and kill them. IIRC, Pennsylvania is on average a very aged state, and so this may not be an insignificant effect.

Juan | April 21, 2008, 9:38am | #

Milwaukee's Best drinkers don't vote. Fun PA fact: liquor stores are closed on election day.

Venezuela too. We vote on Sundays, and there's no booze for sale for the entire weekend.

joe | April 21, 2008, 9:41am | #

If the question was, "Are you a beer drinker?" a lot of people might have responded no, on the grounds that they prefer wine, or scotch, or Jaeger Bombs.

P Brooks | April 21, 2008, 9:50am | #

What about the Jesus freaks? How do they break down?

thedifferentphil | April 21, 2008, 10:02am | #

>>What about the Jesus freaks? How do they break down?
Probably an even gender split here, you know: one man, one woman, just like the Bible (didn't) say. Socially conservative fundamentalist types are almost all Republicans, so they don't really factor in here.

PC | April 21, 2008, 10:04am | #

Once you get outside of Philly and Pittsburgh you have a large demographic that hates anything that reminds them of corrupt Philly politics. You can go through the Ski areas where many Philly, NY, and NJ people go for vacation and see signs like "Tourists are always in season," alluding to hunting. When you look at things like Wright, Ayers, Rezko, and some of his other comments they see city elitism, but they also see through Obama as a slick talking corrupt city politician. Obama wouldn't have made the contacts he made if he wasn't planning on playing Chicago politics. I don't even think he expect to rise as fast as he did, at least his actions show this to be the case.

Abdul | April 21, 2008, 10:07am | #

Socially conservative fundamentalist types are almost all Republicans, so they don't really factor in here.

Except for the junior senator from Pennsylvania, Bob Casey. Also, his eponymous father was a very popular governor there, and also a pro-life, Christian democrat.

thedifferentphil | April 21, 2008, 10:23am | #

Casey is a Catholic, not a fundamentalist. Casey types are economic populist, anti death penalty, prolife types. Go to a (PA at least) nondenominational, fundamentalist protestant church and you will find no democrats.

Creech | April 21, 2008, 10:24am | #

If Punxsatawny Phil sees his shadow tomorrow will be have 6 more weeks of primaries?

LarryA | April 21, 2008, 10:45am | #

I live in PA, and I can tell you that almost every hunter and every gun owner is a male. Exceptions, yes, but probably 95% with the hunters and 90% with the gun owners.

On hunters you’re probably correct, that matches what I remember of Lebanon, PA, in the 70s.

However, as a firearm instructor I train lots of women who have firearms strictly for self-protection. They don’t advertise the fact. It’s probable that you know several, but don’t know they’re gun owners.

Rhywun | April 21, 2008, 10:52am | #

What explains that? Or any of this?

The fact that beer, bucks, bowling and guns are absolutely meaningless indicators of... anything? And that if we just ignore these stupid fucking polls they might go away?

Rhywun | April 21, 2008, 10:56am | #

"Tourists are always in season,"

Charming. It's the same everywhere. They don't seem to realize that without "elitists" propping up their economy--such as it is--they wouldn't have a pot to piss in.

thedifferentphil | April 21, 2008, 11:00am | #

LarryA, I have no doubt that you are right in that I know women who have guns that I don't know about. But even then I doubt that it exceeds 10% of gun owners, and certainly much, much less than 10% of the guns owned.

TallDave | April 21, 2008, 11:03am | #

LOL Looks like there's a lot of bitterness out there.

Rhywun | April 21, 2008, 11:14am | #

LOL Looks like there's a lot of bitterness out there.

Darn tootin'.

Mona Mackel | April 21, 2008, 11:47am | #

I can not understand why we would want another
8 years of Clinton's
we could wind up paying for another impeachment.
Remember Bill goes to the white house with Hillary/ sounds like fun to me. Ugh

Remember he signed the papers cutting welfare, and Hillary was in favor of this

Cesar | April 21, 2008, 12:00pm | #

The real bitter heartland Americans will come lol'ing in November!

Rick Barton | April 21, 2008, 1:22pm | #

I'm pretty sure that chess players would be for Ron Paul.

thedifferentphil | April 21, 2008, 1:37pm | #

Rick -lets take that a step further, who do you think would win a chess tournament among this year's crop of presidential candidates?

Rick Barton | April 21, 2008, 1:53pm | #

thedifferentphil,

I dunno. None of em stick out as seemingly strong players to me. What do you think?

PintofStout | April 21, 2008, 2:27pm | #

Where did the hell-raisers fall?

thedifferentphil | April 21, 2008, 2:30pm | #

No one left standing strikes me as very good either. Maybe Rudy would be the best of the original lot. Still standing? Maybe Obama.

Rick Barton | April 21, 2008, 2:33pm | #

Pathological Liars for Hillary

Put one of our own in the White House!!

Rick Barton | April 21, 2008, 2:37pm | #

thedifferentphil,

If we're speaking of the original lot, I'll say, Dr Paul. Yeah, maybe Obama now.

Tommy_Grand | April 21, 2008, 2:50pm | #

chess tournament pick:

Wayne Allyn Root

gorgonzola's foil | April 21, 2008, 2:57pm | #

Makes perfect sense: Philadelphia is a beer town.

LarryA | April 22, 2008, 12:27am | #

I have no doubt that you are right in that I know women who have guns that I don't know about. But even then I doubt that it exceeds 10% of gun owners, and certainly much, much less than 10% of the guns owned.

In Texas in 2007 18.31% of the CHL applications went to women. (PDF)

Granted, TX is not PA.

lower case j | April 22, 2008, 2:46am | #

Beer drinkers are tied at 44% each.

They seem to be the deciders.

I grew up in PA, haven't been there for a while, but I know a bit about it. Western PA folk like this beer named Stroh's. To me it tastes like a Schlitz with an extinguished cigarette butt. Eastern PA folk follow New York in their fancy for imports that they can't afford.

It's gonna come down to who Rolling Rock drinkers select. If I were HRC or BHO I'd pander for a photo op where I was wearing a T-Shirt with the number 33.

thedifferentphil | April 22, 2008, 10:05am | #

I bet that more women have CHL licences than shotguns, etc., so that probably over measures female gun ownership.