The polls: religion and the 2000 presidential election: public attitudes toward Joseph Lieberman.

Cohen, Jeffrey E.

By almost any standard, the 2000 presidential election was momentous. The Florida vote recount and the Supreme Court decision on the recount fueled controversy, increased polarization between the parties, added to public disenchantment with politicians, and undermined George W. Bush's accession to office. But the 2000 election saw for the first time in history the naming of a Jew, Senator Joseph Lieberman, to a national ticket. Not since the 1960 election had the religion of a candidate for national office been a major issue in the campaign, and not since 1984, when Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman on a national ticket, had a nontraditional politician been placed on a national ticket. While the Florida recount controversy negatively affected the legitimacy of the electoral system in the eyes of many, Joseph Lieberman's vice presidential candidacy was looked upon more favorably.

Many commentators, and many Jews, initially thought that Lieberman's candidacy would harm the Democratic ticket because of overt or hidden (latent) anti-Semitism that they felt existed in the American body politic. Much to their surprise, the announcement of Lieberman's candidacy at the Democratic convention preceded a boost in voter support for Gore. Some attributed this boost to Lieberman's candidacy and to the courage that Al Gore demonstrated in naming the senator as his running mate (Shribman 2002).

But other research shows that conventions almost inevitably lead to boosts in support for a party's ticket (Campbell, Cherry, and Wink 1992). The Lieberman candidacy may have had little to do with the boost in support for the Democratic ticket. Moreover, that boost was short-lived, as the convention boost theory predicts. In short order, George W. Bush pulled ahead of Gore, which may have been due to the surfacing of latent anti-Semitism, as some predicted. Still others comment on the positive reception that Lieberman received around the nation, even in regions and among constituencies normally cool or at least less hospitable toward Jews and Jewish politicians. (1)

The 2000 presidential election contest allows us to test some of these notions. Although surveys indicate a massive lessening of anti-Semitic attitudes over the past half-century, support for a Jew on a national ticket has been a hypothetical exercise in surveys. Did the Lieberman candidacy activate latent anti-Semitism into national politics? Who supported Lieberman? Did his religion, and his religiosity, attract the support of some Americans, while repelling others? What do the patterns of support for Lieberman say about prejudice and bias in twenty-first century America?

Trends in Attitudes Toward Jews and Other Social Groups

The opinion climate in 2000 was not overtly anti-Semitic or hostile to Jews. Table 1 presents feeling thermometer ratings of Jews and other religious and social groups that the American National Election Studies (ANES) have asked of Americans since the mid-1960s. The thermometer ratings ask people to assign a temperature score, ranging from 0 (the coldest) to 100 (the warmest), with 50 as the midpoint, neither warm nor cool. For each rating of Jews from 1964 to 2000, Americans lean in a warm direction, on average rating Jews in the mid-60s. Only in 1976 do we see a dip in warmth toward Jews, with a 57 rating that year.

In comparison, the ratings of Jews are very close to those of Catholics, Blacks, and Hispanics, all of whom receive ratings in the 60s for most years. The same can be said of Protestants in 1976 and 2000, although Protestants receive higher ratings, in the 70s in the 1960s and early 1970s. Furthermore, Jews are rated more highly than gays, illegal aliens, and Christian fundamentalists, the first two receiving decidedly cool scores from Americans, while Americans do not appear to be either warm or cool toward fundamentalists. Yet, Americans are warmer to Whites than to Jews (or the other religious and social groups), who tend to receive average ratings in the 70s.

Thus, from 1964 through 2000, there does not appear to be any appreciable trend in the thermometer ratings toward Jews. Stability, not increasing warmth or coolness, characterizes attitudes across this thirty- to forty-year time span. The bottom two rows of Table 1 report the results of regressing the feeling thermometer ratings at the individual level on year. Such an analysis allows us to describe time trends in the data, although the very large n's will produce statistically significant results that are not of much substantive merit. For example, the Jewish results suggest a slight up-tick over time in warmth. The size of coefficient (.05) indicates that from 1964 to 2000, aggregate warmth increased perhaps 1.8 degrees, an increase that may not be substantively meaningful. The same can be said for feelings toward Blacks. The analysis also suggests no trend in thermometer ratings toward Catholics or Christian fundamentalists.

However, in the cases of Protestants and Whites, we see an erosion of warmth. The regression analysis estimates a loss of 13 and 11 degrees of warmth for Protestants and Whites, respectively. In contrast, Americans became noticeably warmer to Hispanics and gays, the latter by a massive amount.

From these data, one cannot conclude that Lieberman's candidacy or the Democratic ticket was harmed merely because Lieberman was Jewish. Americans tend to feel more warmly than coolly toward Jews, and such attitudes appear quite stable in the aggregate, at least for the last third of the twentieth century. But it is one thing to harbor warm attitudes to a group. It is quite another thing to be willing to vote for a member of that group, especially on a national political ticket. In the next section we turn to such data.

Trends in Support for Nontraditional Candidates on National Tickets

By the late 1990s, nearly all Americans agreed that they would vote for a Jew for president (see Table 2). This represents a long-term change in attitudes toward having Jews in public office. In the earliest questions that I can locate, about one half of those polled (47 percent) in a Gallup Poll from 1937 said that they would not vote for a well-qualified Jew for president, but a similar amount (46 percent) said that they were willing to cast such a vote (Gallup Poll, February 10-15, 1937). During the height of the Second World War, one third thought that President Roosevelt had appointed too many Jews to jobs in Washington, compared to one fifth who thought that the number was about right and only 2 percent who thought that Roosevelt had appointed too few Jews. Almost one half had no opinion on the question (Gallup Poll, December 17-22, 1943).

While it is hard from these questions to tell whether Americans embraced strongly anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic sentiments in the 1930s and 1940s, attitudes had changed remarkably by the end of the century. By the late 1950s, nearly two thirds said that they were willing to vote for a Jew for president; by the mid-1960s the figure had reached 80 percent, and it increased incrementally, topping 90 percent by the late 1990s.

Some of the increase in support for a Jewish president likely comes from the horror of the Holocaust, which shocked people worldwide (Fredrickson 2002). Notably, however, in the late 1950s, about one third of voters were still unwilling to vote for a Jew for president. The presidential candidacy of John F. Kennedy in 1960 and the civil rights movement of the 1960s also seemed to have liberalized attitudes about who would be acceptable as president.

For instance, in Table 2, we see a 10 percentage point increase in those who would vote for a Catholic, from 70 percent to about 80 percent, in the short period from 1960 to 1965. Between those years, the percentage who said that they were willing to vote for a Black for president rose by a similar amount, from about one half to about 60 percent. The increased willingness to vote for a Jewish president is thus in part a function of the general liberalization of attitudes about presidential qualifications, in which Americans profess a willingness to vote for many types of nontraditional candidates.

By the late 1990s, the public seemed about as willing to vote for a Jew, or a Catholic, Black, or woman, as they were willing to vote for more traditional candidates, such as a Baptist. In fact, a Jewish president was preferred to a Mormon by about 10 percent in the 1990s. Despite the overall loosening in public strictures regarding presidential qualifications, only modest support existed to vote for an atheist or homosexual, who garner support from about one half and 60 percent, respectively, in 1999. While modest in comparison to support for Jews, Catholics, Blacks, and women, even these figures represent strong advances in support for these two groups over the past quarter-century.

Thus, in the 2000 campaign, these data suggest little sentiment against Lieberman because he was Jewish. Several points need to be made against these Gallup questions. One, they are hypothetical. One does not know how attitudes or behavior would change if a Jew was a presidential candidate. Two, the Gallup question only asks about willingness. Perhaps a more telling question would be to ask whether a traditional candidate, such as a Baptist or Protestant, would be preferable to a Jew, Catholic, Black, or woman. Three, the highly positive responses in the Gallup surveys may be a function of respondents providing the socially acceptable answer. Some studies have found that professed support for major Black candidates was higher than the vote that they received, which may be explained by such self-censorship (Citrin, Green, and Sears 1990). Yet Kane, Craig, and Wald (2004), in an experimental study, find little overt anti-Semitism or hostility to Jewish candidates. Thus, the trends in Table 2 may possess some degree of validity.

Support for Lieberman in Campaign 2000

Joseph Lieberman's vice presidential candidacy in 2000 was not hypothetical. During much of the campaign, Al Gore ran ahead of George W. Bush in the polls and appeared to many a sure winner. The prospect of a Jewish vice president, only a heart-beat away from the presidency, was a true possibility. Given this context, we can ask about attitudes that the public held about Lieberman as the campaign progressed.

The mass public reacted strongly and positively to Al Gore's announcement that Joseph Lieberman would be his running mate, at least according to the poll results in Tables 3 and 4. Although many people held no opinion about the Lieberman candidacy, a function of lack of information and the limited importance of the vice presidency on people's presidential vote decisions, about 80 percent of those with an opinion viewed Lieberman favorably in these early polls.

All of the polls show declines in favorability toward Lieberman as the campaign progressed. This could be a function of people learning that Lieberman was Jewish, and thus withdrawing their support for him for that reason. But the decline could also be a function of people melding attitudes toward Lieberman into their presidential preferences, viewing Lieberman, not as a Jew running for vice president, but as Al Gore's running mate. There is some support for this second notion, however scant in the data in Tables 3 and 4. First, Lieberman's net favorability ratings stayed quite high, rarely dipping below 70 percent, across the entire campaign. If broad-based anti-Jewish attitudes were coming to the fore, one would expect this rating to dip much lower. Second, as the percentage of "no opinion's" declined, as people became more familiar with and knowledgeable about Lieberman, the favorable percentage did not decline, but stayed steady or actually increased (as did the percentage of unfavorable). If anti-Semitic attitudes are present, they are masked in these data. Still, attitudes toward Jews may structure attitudes toward Lieberman. We need different data to test this hypothesis. In the next section, I turn to the 2000 ANES, which presents us with some opportunities to test this hypothesis.

Modeling Attitudes Toward Lieberman in Campaign 2000

How much did Lieberman's religion and religiosity enter into people's evaluations of him in campaign 2000 or were attitudes toward Lieberman primarily a function of traditional factors that structure support or opposition to candidates, such as partisanship? Moreover, if Lieberman's religion entered into people's evaluations, did it harm or help him with voters?

In determining whether Lieberman's religion entered into public attitudes toward him, we must begin by assessing whether people were aware of Lieberman's religion and religiosity. If people were unaware of Lieberman's religion, it could not enter into their evaluations of him. The 2000 ANES asked respondents whether they knew Joseph Lieberman's religion (v1469). Unfortunately, the ANES failed to ask people whether they knew that Lieberman was Orthodox and highly religious. Still, compared to many knowledge items, a hefty percentage of respondents knew that Lieberman was Jewish (60 percent). In contrast, only 26 percent knew that Lieberman came from Connecticut, 16 percent knew that Dick Cheney came from Wyoming, and less than 4 percent knew Cheney's religion. Moreover, slightly less than half (47 percent and 43 percent) of respondents knew that the Republicans controlled the House and Senate, respectively. The high proportion of respondents who were aware of Lieberman's religion opens the prospect that his religion may have been a factor in how people viewed his candidacy for the vice presidency.

What accounts for attitudes toward Lieberman? Is it a function of traditional political orientations, such as partisanship and ideology, or does religion also enter into the picture? In this section, I build a multivariate model of attitudes toward Lieberman using the 2000 ANES. I use the feeling thermometer for Lieberman to assess public attitudes toward him, the dependent variable. This is the only item in the 2000 ANES that asks respondents their opinion toward Lieberman. In 2000, Lieberman received a 57.4 thermometer reading, which is nearly identical to the thermometer ratings of Gore (57.6), Bush (56.1), and Cheney (56.4). To model traditional political orientations, I use respondents' party identification and ideological orientation. I rescore those without an ideological preference in the middle, moderate category to save cases. In modeling attitudes toward Lieberman, I also take into account demographics and attitudes toward religion, factors to which I now turn and discuss briefly before turning to the multivariate analysis.

Demographics and Attitudes Toward Lieberman

Different groups in society have a tendency to align with one party more than the other. We may expect that members of such a group or demographic category will tend to prefer candidates from that party over the other. In several instances, group membership pulls a person to support Democrats, but research on anti-Semitism finds some of these group categories associated with higher levels of anti-Semitism. These cross-pressures open the possibility of investigating the relative strength of these two, opposed pulls on attitudes toward Lieberman. Before proceeding, I want to emphasize that I am not suggesting that people of these groups are anti-Semitic due to their group membership. Nor do I want to suggest that people who dislike Lieberman are anti-Semitic. Still, demography may enable us to distinguish partisan loyalties from dislike toward Jews in some instances, if we do not push such an interpretation too far.

For example, a large literature suggests that Blacks are more likely to dislike Jews than other racial/ethnic groups (cf. Smith 1996; Sniderman and Piazza 2002). However, Blacks are also the most staunchly loyal group toward the Democrats, and Lieberman was a Democrat. Did party loyalty among Blacks override tensions between Blacks and Jews in evaluations of Lieberman? At the simply zero-order level, Blacks appear more warmly disposed toward Lieberman than non-Blacks, with a mean thermometer rating of 62.3 for Blacks, compared to 57.1 for non-Blacks (the difference is statistically significant at the .02 level). But Blacks are more likely to be Democrats than non-Blacks. When controlling for party identification, the relationship between race and feelings toward Lieberman turns mildly negative (b = -3.24, p = .12), suggesting that Blacks are about 3 degrees cooler toward Lieberman than non-Blacks, holding partisanship constant. But the relationship is weak and by conventional standards is not statistically significant.

Similarly, Southerners have been found to hold more negative attitudes toward Jews than residents of other regions, in part, some have surmised, because of the smaller Jewish population in that region historically, among other reasons (Smith 1996). Like Blacks, and contrary to the conventional portrait, Southerners appear slightly more positive toward Lieberman than non-Southerners, with a mean thermometer rating of 59.8, compared to a non-Southerner rating of 56.7. This difference is statistically significant at the .03 level, but when controls for party identification are applied, the relationship vanishes.

In the analysis below, in addition to race and region, I also employ controls for Hispanic, gender, education, and age. Research indicates that women, the more highly educated, and older Americans all hold more positive attitudes toward Jews (Smith 1996), (2) but these demographics also push people in a Democratic direction. Research has not found a connection between being Hispanic (Smith 1996) and attitudes toward Jews, although Hispanics also have a tendency to support Democrats more than Republicans.

Religious Attitudes

Attitudes about religion may be more important than demographics in understanding the role that Lieberman's religion played in public assessments of his vice presidential candidacy. Attitudes toward Jews may be especially determinant. The ANES asked several questions about attitudes toward Jews. One question asked respondents to rate how warmly or coolly they felt to Jews on the thermometer rating noted above. Here respondents appear mildly warm, as noted above, with a 67.9 rating, which is about 9.5 degrees higher than Lieberman's rating. Unexpectedly, while the two thermometer ratings are significantly correlated, the correlation is modest (r = .25, p = .000), and it is of similar magnitude for those who know that Lieberman is Jewish as well as those who do not. (3)

A second related question asks whether the respondent thinks that Jews have too much influence, just about the right amount of influence, or too little influence. We would expect those who think that Jews are too influential to be less amicable toward Lieberman's candidacy. Only a very weak, albeit significant relationship exists between this item and the Lieberman thermometer rating (r = .07, p = .03). It strengthens when only looking at those who know that Lieberman is Jewish, although it is still far from impressive in magnitude (r =. 13, p = .001).

To non-Jews who are religious, Lieberman's candidacy was thought to either be an attractant or a repellent. On the one hand, some thought that the fact that Lieberman practiced his religion would be attractive to religious non-Jews and cultural traditionalists, who often felt alienated from the lack of regard for religion in public life and in society in general. Especially in the aftermath of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, some pundits and political strategists argued that Lieberman's respect for his religion and traditional values would return to the Democratic fold many who were disgusted by the scandals of the Clinton presidency and undermine any attempt by Republicans to attack the Democratic ticket for being morally loose. On the other hand, fundamentalist Christians, who were bent on furthering their values within the political realm, might abhor the thought of electing a non-Christian to national office, or so some commentators suggested about the political program of Christian fundamentalists.

To test for the effect of Christian fundamentalism and traditional values on attitudes toward Lieberman, I use two items. The first asks whether the respondent considers him or herself to be a born-again Christian. The second is a scale of two items that tap into traditional values. The questions ask how much the respondent agrees with the statements that "new morals are causing society breakdown" and "this country would have many fewer problems if there were more emphasis on traditional family ties." Both items are somewhat mildly negatively correlated with the Lieberman thermometer rating (traditionalism, r = -.11, p = .000; born again, r = -.07, p = .001). Thus, rather than attracting born-again Christians and cultural traditionalists, Lieberman seems to weakly repel such voters. (4)

A Multivariate Model

The above discussion suggests that several demographic, political, and religious attitudes seem related to opinions about Lieberman. At the zero-order level, some of these relationships pointed in expected directions: people with more positive (negative) attitudes toward Jews felt more positively (negatively) toward Lieberman. But there were also several instances of unexpected signs, such as the positive regard for Lieberman among Blacks. And several variables exhibited no relationship at all. Our major question is whether normal political leanings, such as partisanship and ideology, have greater pull on support for Lieberman, or whether factors associated with attitudes toward Jews, religion, and traditionalism also come into play, and if they do, do they harm or help Lieberman's candidacy.

Table 5 presents results of regressing the Lieberman thermometer ratings on partisanship, ideology, Black, Southerner, Hispanic, female, age, education, whether one knows that Lieberman is Jewish, the feeling thermometer toward Jews, whether one feels that Jews are too influential, being a born-again Christian, and whether one holds traditional moral values. I also control for whether the respondent is Jewish.

The overall model fits quite well for survey data, with an [R.sup.2] of .30. Results indicate, as expected, that more educated people feel more warmly toward Lieberman, as do older people, Democrats, and liberals. But findings show that race, Hispanic origin, gender, and region do not affect Lieberman's thermometer ratings. The effects of party are especially pronounced, with a massive t value (10.38). Further, these results show that respondents who knew Lieberman was Jewish were warmer toward him, and of course that Jews themselves felt more warmly toward Lieberman, perhaps reflecting ethno-religious pride.

Attitudes toward Jews did not always come into play. Feeling that Jews were too powerful had little effect, although the warmer one felt toward Jews, the warmer one felt toward Lieberman. Oddly, the two attitudes toward Jews are not highly correlated (r = .09, p = .01). Thus, the lack of impact for the Jewish influence item is not due to multicollinearity with the thermometer rating. Finally, neither born-again self-identification nor traditionalism affects attitudes toward Lieberman. On the whole, these results suggest that anti-Jewish feeling had little impact on attitudes toward Lieberman, in part because little anti-Jewish sentiment exists in the public.

However, as noted above, whether or not feelings toward Jews and religion may affect attitudes toward Lieberman should be conditioned by whether one knows that Lieberman is Jewish. Also in Table 5 I report results of regressions, separating those who know Lieberman is Jewish from those who do not, and excluding Jewish respondents from these analyses. The main implication of this analysis is to find less structure in the opinions of those who do not know that Lieberman is Jewish. For those who do know that he is Jewish, the Jewish influence item grows in importance, although it does not reach conventional statistical significance levels, just failing with a p = . 11.

Attitudes toward Lieberman are primarily a function of traditional political leanings. The only religiously related factor with any significance is the Jewish feeling thermometer. However, Americans are relatively warmly disposed toward Jews, which bolstered Lieberman's support rather than detracted from it, echoing results in Kane et al. (2004). Still, like all survey research, social desirability effects may affect these findings. Moreover, there exists another route through which attitudes toward Lieberman and Jews may affect the 2000 campaign. This route is how attitudes toward Lieberman and Jews affected attitudes toward the other major presidential candidates.

In Table 6 I present results of three regressions, one each for the feeling thermometers for Gore, Bush, and Cheney. These models use the same variables that were used to estimate the Lieberman feeling thermometer in Table 5. Like some of the estimations on Table 5, here I only include those who knew Lieberman was Jewish and I exclude Jewish respondents.

These results closely resemble the results from Table 5. Never does the item on whether one thinks that Jews are too influential attain statistical significance. The Jewish feeling thermometer does in all three equations, although the coefficients in each case are small, ranging from .06 to .07. In the Lieberman models those same coefficients hit the .15 to .17 level. Again, the same story as above emerges. Traditional political orientations overwhelm attitudes toward Jews in assessing the sources of support for the candidates in the 2000 presidential election. Although attitudes toward Jews at times attain statistical significance, their effects are modest.

Religion in the 2000 Presidential Election and Twenty-First Century America

America has been characterized as currently being in a culture war and as being severely politically polarized (but see Fiorina 2005). Cultural values and religion are often cited as sources of these characterizations. Given such a climate, one would expect the candidacy of a nontraditional candidate for office to catapult such attitudes into the presidential campaign and raise the issue of the qualifications of that candidate for office. Joseph Lieberman's vice presidential candidacy in the 2000 election raised just such a possibility. The results here indicate, however, that generally broad support existed for Lieberman and that attitudes toward Jews had little impact on the 2000 election. When such attitudes affected opinion in the 2000 campaign, it tended to bolster support for Lieberman. Americans, as we enter the twenty-first century, seem more open to a Jew in high national office, as well as supportive of other types of nontraditional candidates also serving.

Thus, despite the cultural divisions and political polarization that currently characterize American public opinion and politics, Americans also exhibit tolerance and acceptance of diversity in their political leadership. Such tolerance and acceptance at once allows debate over cultural values and religion in politics, while at the same time keeps those divisive issues from renting society too severely. That Joseph Lieberman's vice presidential candidacy could be so warmly regarded and that it failed to spark anti-Semitism into the campaign speaks of a side of modern America at odds with the picture of a nation at war with itself.

One last message of this article is the value of using the presidency as a site to investigate the complexity of American society and politics. As a representative institution, many of the divisions, as well as unifying forces, find their way into presidential politics. By looking at the case of the Lieberman vice presidential candidacy in 2000, we see how the nation has changed, opening itself to alternative national leaders, as well as how the nation may try to bind itself into a whole when intense and deep divisions also exist.

TABLE 1

Thermometer Ratings of Religious and Social Groups, 1964-2000

Year Protestants Catholics Jews Blacks Whites

1964 79.32 66.08 62.19 63.40 83.29
1966 77.20 65.04 64.72 62.83 82.97
1968 78.10 64.83 64.11 64.30 79.95
1970 61.13 76.36
1972 73.79 67.74 66.13 63.73 77.41
1974 65.14 79.04
1976 66.14 63.08 57.23 60.54 73.37
1978
1980 63.85 76.71
1982 63.35 72.11
1984 63.24 63.91 73.65
1986 65.98
1988 63.83 62.59 61.37 72.48
1990 68.86
1992 64.66 64.42 64.92 70.69
1994 63.22 71.40
1996 65.76 70.94
1998 69.02 70.53
2000 66.14 67.13 66.55 67.06 72.64
b (a) -.37 -.01 .05 .001 -.31
p (a) .000 .31 .000 .000 .000

 Illegal
Year Hispanics Gays Aliens Fundamentalists

1964
1966
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976 55.43
1978
1980 57.68
1982
1984 59.20 29.91
1986
1988 56.83 28.50 35.63 51.34
1990
1992 60.87 37.68 36.10 54.64
1994 35.54 32.62 55.25
1996 63.36 39.81 53.63
1998 45.40
2000 63.98 47.34 51.08
b (a) .35 1.15 -.41 -.03
p (a) .000 .000 .003 .67

(a) Regression coefficient (b) and significance value (p) of regressing
the thermometer rating on year.

Source: ANES Cumulative File, 1964-2000.

Table 2

Trends in Support for Voting for Candidates of Particular Backgrounds

Date Catholic Atheist Black Jew Baptist Divorced

Jan-55 69
Jun-56 72
Apr-58 70
May-58 72
Jul-58 72
Aug-58 69 18 37 62 92
Sep-58 67 18 38 63 93
Apr-59 70
Dec-59 70 22 49 72 94
May-60 71
Aug-61 82 50 68
Aug-63 84 48 77 79
Jul-65 87 59 80 83
Apr-67 90 53 82 95 85
Mar-69 87 66 86
Oct-71 69
Jul-78 91 40 76 82 84
Mar-83 77
May-83 92 42 77 88
Oct-83 77
Jul-84 77
Jul-87 44 79 89
Jan-97 93
Feb-99 94 49 94 92 94
May-03 93 92 89

Date Mormon Quaker Homosexual Woman

Jan-55
Jun-56
Apr-58
May-58
Jul-58
Aug-58
Sep-58
Apr-59
Dec-59
May-60
Aug-61
Aug-63
Jul-65
Apr-67 75 78
Mar-69
Oct-71
Jul-78 26
Mar-83
May-83 29
Oct-83
Jul-84
Jul-87
Jan-97
Feb-99 79 59 92
May-03 87

Question wording varies: If your party nominated a generally
well-qualified person for president who happened to be ..., would you
vote for that person?

Source: Gallup Poll.

TABLE 3

Attitudes Toward Joseph Lieberman During Campaign 2000

 Favorable Unfavorable
Poll Date % %

ABC News/Washington Post Poll 9/4-6/00 46 15
ABC News/Washington Post Poll 8/7/00 24 10
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 11/29-30/00 47 26
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 11/1-2/00 53 21
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 10/18-19/00 50 22
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 10/4-5/00 47 17
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 9/20-21/00 53 16
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 9/6-7/00 52 18
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 8/23-24/00 52 13
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 8/9-10/00 48 10
Gallup Poll 12/2-4/00 47 30
Gallup Poll 11/13-15/00 48 23
Gallup Poll 8/18-19/00 55 13
Gallup Poll 8/7/00 37 10
Time/CNN Poll 10/12-13/00 42 18
Time/CNN Poll 10/4-5/00 39 20
Time/CNN Poll 9/6-7/00 40 15
Time/CNN Poll 8/9-10/00 37 14

 Net
 No opinion (a) Favorbale (b)
Poll % %

ABC News/Washington Post Poll 39 75.4
ABC News/Washington Post Poll 65 70.6
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 27 64.4
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 26 71.6
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 28 69.4
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 36 73.4
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 41 76.8
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 30 74.2
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 35 80.0
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll 42 82.8
Gallup Poll 33 61.0
Gallup Poll 29 67.6
Gallup Poll 32 80.9
Gallup Poll 53 78.7
Time/CNN Poll 40 70.0
Time/CNN Poll 41 66.1
Time/CNN Poll 45 72.7
Time/CNN Poll 49 72.5

(a) Includes "no opinion, not sure, never heard of, cant say, not
familiar.

(b) Formula: (% favorable) / (% favorable + % unfavorable).

Question wording:

ABC News/Washington Post Poll: "Do you have a favorable or unfavorable
impression of Joseph Lieberman, or perhaps you don't know enough to
say?"

FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll: "I'm going to read the names of some
people. Please tell me whether you have a generally favorable or
unfavorable opinion of each. If you've never heard of one, please just
say so. Joe Lieberman."

Gallup Poll: "Next, I'd like to get your overall opinion of some people
in the news. As I read each name, please say if you have a favorable or
unfavorable opinion of this person--or if you have never heard of him.
Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman."

Time/CNN Poll: "Next, I'm going to read you the names of some people in
the news today. Please tell me whether you have generally favorable or
generally unfavorable impressions of each, or whether you are not
familiar enough to say one way or another. Connecticut Senator Joseph
Lieberman."

TABLE 4

Positive and Negative Attitudes Toward Joseph Lieberman in Campaign
2000

 Very Somewhat Somewhat Very
 Positive Positive Neutral Negative Negative
Date % % % % %

Dec-00 18 22 25 11 12
Oct-00 19 28 27 9 6
Sep-00 17 26 26 8 6
Aug-00 19 21 27 7 4

 Don't
 Know/Not Net
 Sure Positive
Date % %

Dec-00 12 63.5
Oct-00 11 75.8
Sep-00 17 75.4
Aug-00 22 78.4

Question: "I'm going to read you the names of several public figures
and I'd like you to rate your feelings toward each one as either very
positive, somewhat positive, neutral, somewhat negative, or very
negative. If you don't know the name, please just say so. Joe
Lieberman."

Net positive = (% very positive + % somewhat positive) / (% very
positive + % somewhat positive + % somewhat negative + % very
negative).

Source: NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll.

TABLE 5

Impact of Demographics and Attitudes on Lieberman Feeling Thermometer,
2000

 Non-Jewish
 Respondents

 Know Lieberman
 All Respondents Is Jewish

Variable b p b p

Education 1.55 .000 1.49 .001
Black -.57 .808 .76 .782
Age .19 .000 .20 .000
Party ID 3.59 .000 3.61 .000
Ideology .90 .044 1.18 .022
Hispanic -4.08 .183 -1.51 .720
Female 1.10 .352 .79 .548
South -1.28 .345 -2.05 .173
Jewish 8.37 .012 --
Jewish influence 1.46 .139 1.76 .107
Born-again .33 .804 -.17 .906
Know Lieberman's religion 6.38 .000 --
Jewish thermometer .17 .000 .17 .000
Traditionalism -.01 .956 .16 .436
Constant 34.80 .000 40.59 .000
N 943 758
F 28.02 23.66
P of F .000 .000
[R.sup.2] .30 .28
Adj. [R.sup.2] .29 .26
Root MSE 17.73 17.51

 Non-Jewish
 Respondents

 Don't Know
 Leiberman Is
 Jewish

Variable b p

Education 1.24 .266
Black -2.97 .566
Age .18 .069
Party ID 2.53 .006
Ideology .33 .768
Hispanic -4.86 .352
Female 1.51 .638
South 2.20 .567
Jewish --
Jewish influence -1.24 .627
Born-again 3.08 .402
Know Lieberman's religion --
Jewish thermometer .15 .068
Traditionalism -.82 .180
Constant 42.66 .004
N 153
F 2.29
P of F .011
[R.sup.2] .16
Adj. [R.sup.2] .09
Root MSE 19.12

Source: American National Election Study, 2000.

TABLE 6

Impact of Religious Orientations on Feeling Thermometer Ratings for
Gore, Bush, and Cheney, 2000 Presidential Election Among Non-Jewish
Voters Who Know that Lieberman Is Jewish

 Gore Bush Cheney

 b p b p b p

Education .99 .029 .22 .616 .62 .189
Black .66 .814 5.69 .037 2.75 .341
Age .15 .001 .11 .011 .07 .137
Party ID 6.21 .000 -5.91 .000 -3.58 .000
Conservative -2.14 .000 2.39 .000 2.05 .000
Hispanic 1.85 .662 9.06 .025 10.32 .018
Female 3.67 .007 2.12 .105 1.55 .268
South -1.19 .447 1.37 .359 .61 .708
Jewish
 influence 1.75 .120 -.63 .557 .26 .823
Born-again .03 .986 2.67 .069 -1.21 .441
Jew
 thermometer .07 .042 .06 .060 .07 .071
Traditionalism -.34 .116 .66 .001 .65 .004
Constant 63.97 .000 5.07 .349 16.05 .008
n 854 851 753
F 54.37 58.36 23.53
Prob > F .000 .000 .000
[R.sup.2] .44 .46 .28
Adj. [R.sup.2] .43 .45 .26

Source: American National Election Study, 2000.

(1.) The Lieberman candidacy received considerable publicity too. Heith (2001) reports that 4,162 newspaper articles and 88 stories on the three network broadcasts mentioned Lieberman's candidacy during the 2000 campaign. During August 2000, nearly 70 percent of newspaper stories mentioned that Lieberman was the first Jewish candidate for vice president.

(2.) The relationship between age and anti-Semitism has been questioned. See Smith (1996).

(3.) The thermometer rating for Jews is similarly correlated with Gore's thermometer rating (.16, p = .000), but is unrelated to either Bush's or Cheney's thermometer ratings (Bush, r = -.02, p = .39; Cheney, r = -.01, p = .85).

(4.) The relationship slightly strengthens when we only look at traditionalists who know that Lieberman is Jewish (traditionalism, r = -.14, p = .000).

References

Campbell, James E., Lynna L. Cherry, and Kenneth A. Wink. 1992. The convention bump. American Politics Quarterly 20(July): 287-307.

Citrin, Jack, Donald Philip Green, and David O. Sears. 1990. White reaction to Black candidates: When does race matter? Public Opinion Quarterly 54(Spring): 74-96.

Fiorina, Morris P., with Samuel J. Abrams, and Jeremy C. Pope. 2005. Culture war? The myth of a polarized America. New York: Longman.

Fredrickson, George M. 2002. Racism: A short history. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Heith, Diane J. 2001. Footwear, lipstick, and an Orthodox Sabbath: Media coverage of nontraditional candidates. White House Studies 1(3): 335-47.

Kane, James G., Stephen C. Craig, and Kenneth D. Wald. 2004. Religion and presidential politics in Florida: A list experiment. Social Science Quarterly 85(June): 281-93.

Shribman, David M. 2002. Prologue: The Lieberman candidacy. In Jews in American Politics, edited by L. Sandy Maisel. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Smith, Tom W. 1996. Anti-Semitism in contemporary America: A review. Research in Micropolitics 5: 125-78.

Sniderman, Paul M., and Thomas Piazza. 2002. Black pride and Black prejudice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Jeffrey E. Cohen, professor of political science at Fordham University, is the author of several books, including Presidential Responsiveness and Public Policy-Making, as well as articles in numerous journals including the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics.