According to the latest Pew Research poll they are:
The good news for Republicans: You are happier than Democrats. You always have been, and you probably always will be.
Never mind that your presidential candidate is sinking in the polls while your president plumbs historic depths of popular scorn and your free market squeals for intervention while your Wall Street investments evaporate. You are not just happier than the other guys, but more of you are very happy, according to new survey results published Thursday by the Pew Research Center.
The pollsters were in the field asking about happiness this month, when economic news was gloomy for everybody and presidential campaign news seemed especially baleful for Republicans. Yet they found 37 percent of Republicans are “very happy,” compared with 25 percent of Democrats; 51 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of Democrats are “pretty happy”; and 9 percent of Republicans are “not too happy,” compared with 20 percent of Democrats.
The partisan happiness gap — unbroken for nearly 40 years — is impervious to electoral ups and downs. It has something to do with worldview.
“I’m very happy,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, and a Republican. “When I was 12, I realized the world was not organized around my desires and wishes. The problem with guys on the left is they never figured that out at age 12. And they’re just irritated the world is not organized around their vision. This makes them grumpy.”
Chris Lehane doesn’t sound grumpy. The Democratic consultant is on the phone from San Francisco: “My guess is if [Pew] checked the cross tabs out in California, we’re all pretty happy out here. The wine is still good, the food is fresh, the people are beautiful.”
But seriously, Lehane said, if Republicans are more happy, it’s because they care less.
“The typical Republican is happy coming home to a 62-inch television, pulling out a fine bottle of cognac or scotch, putting his feet on the table and enjoying the fruits of his labor, but not caring what’s going on in the world outside their living room … and their gated community.”
Hard-core liberals are the happiest liberals, and hard-core conservatives are the happiest people on Earth. Self-certainty is like a happy pill. The bumper sticker may declare, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention,” but the guy behind the wheel is overjoyed.
Check out this video of hardcore Republicans lined up for a McCain rally. Watch this ignorant, racist, lying throng of Republicans wallow in their happiness as they accuse Obama of being a Muslim terrorist baby killer:
