There's a drive-thru ATM in Charlotte, N.C., that looks pretty standard, but it has an extra function: a button that says "speak with teller."
The face of a woman wearing a headset sitting in front of a plain blue background flashes onto the ATM screen. "Good afternoon," she says. "Welcome to Bank of America. My name is Carolina. How are you today?"
The divide between Republicans and Democrats on their views of the scientific theory of evolution is widening, according to a new poll released by Pew's Religion & Public Life Project.
The overall percentage of Americans who say "humans and other living things evolved over time" (60 percent) versus those who believe "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time" (33 percent) is about the same as it was in a similar poll four years ago. But the political gap has widened substantially.
In 2009, 54 percent of Republicans said they accepted the theory of evolution as true, compared with 64 percent of Democrats. But in the intervening years, opinions appear to have evolved: In the latest poll, nearly half of Republicans (48 percent) believed in a static view of human and animal origins, while just 30 percent of Democrats expressed that point of view. Independents tracked closely with the breakdown for Democrats.
"The gap is coming from the Republicans, where fewer are now saying that humans have evolved over time," says Cary Funk, a Pew senior researcher who conducted the analysis, according to Reuters.
Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of those surveyed by Pew said they believed that a "supreme being guided evolution for the purpose of creating humans and other life in the form it exists today."
According to Pew:
"A majority of white evangelical Protestants (64%) and half of black Protestants (50%) say that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. But in other large religious groups, a minority holds this view. In fact, nearly eight-in-ten white mainline Protestants (78%) say that humans and other living things have evolved over time. Three-quarters of the religiously unaffiliated (76%) and 68% of white non-Hispanic Catholics say the same. About half of Hispanic Catholics (53%) believe that humans have evolved over time, while 31% reject that idea."
A year after losing the popular vote for the fifth time in the past six presidential elections, the Republican Party has crafted a series of rules tweaks designed to regain control of — and dramatically shorten — its presidential nominating process.
The subcommittee charged with looking for fixes has approved five proposed changes for review by the Republican National Committee's rules committee at its January meeting. The full RNC would then need to pass the changes by a three-quarters supermajority.
"I think this strikes a good balance," said John Ryder, the RNC's general counsel.
February 2016 would be set aside for the traditional early states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. The other states could start as soon as March 1, but could not hold winner-take-all contests before March 15. Larger states that violate either of those rules would lose all but nine of their delegates to the summer nominating convention, not counting their three RNC members who are automatic delegates. Smaller states would lose two-thirds of their delegates, not including the three RNC members.
At the back end of the calendar, state parties would have to submit their slates of convention delegates 45 days prior to the convention, rather than 35 days. With RNC leaders hoping to schedule the convention in late June, rather than late August, this would mean the last primaries and caucuses would have to be set for mid-May — thereby cutting what was a six-month-long process in 2012 down to 3 1/2 months.
The balancing act, Ryder said, was to compress the calendar without giving an insurmountable advantage to a candidate who has "$200 million on day one."
The weeks and months leading up to Iowa and New Hampshire, in particular, would still be the time for low-budget candidates to make their case directly to the voters. Success in those contests could be parlayed into stronger fundraising heading into the first half of March, when the proportional-only mandate would mean that second- and third-place finishers could continue to win significant numbers of delegates.
"It gives a six-week period for a retail candidacy to take hold, if it's going to take hold," Ryder said.
If this thinking sounds familiar, it should. The RNC tried to accomplish similar goals heading into 2012. The four early states were given the month of February. Other states could start holding contests on March 1 if they allocated delegates proportionally, and on April 1 if they awarded all the delegates to the top vote-getter. A state that violated either rule faced a 50-percent loss of delegates.
That plan, though, was thwarted by Florida — which also violated the rules in 2008 — prompting the official early states to move even earlier. (Iowa held its caucuses on Jan. 3 in both 2008 and 2012.)
In 2012, the new rules were silent on how to deal with states like Florida that violated both calendar and proportionality rules. Only the single, 50 percent penalty ended up being levied, and 100 percent of the remaining delegates went to Mitt Romney, letting him get back on track after losing South Carolina to Newt Gingrich.
The new, harsher penalty appears to have solved the Florida-going-early problem. But whether it maintains a lane for a little-known, low-budget candidate remains to be seen.
After the "all-but-nine" delegate penalty was first imposed at the Tampa convention last year, the GOP-controlled Florida Legislature passed a law setting the presidential primary on the first Tuesday permitted by party rules that didn't involve a penalty.
In 2016, that Tuesday would be March 1 — the same date that Texas is planning to hold its presidential primary. Which means the first allowable day for contests in the non-"carve-out" states will feature primaries in two of the four largest states. Both have lots of big media markets and are extremely expensive to run in; the two states will, between them, award nearly a quarter of the delegates needed to win the nomination.
In other words, it would be just the sort of day best suited for a candidate with, say, $200 million.
S.V. Dte edits politics and campaign finance coverage for NPR's Washington Desk.
There's a drive-thru ATM in Charlotte, N.C., that looks pretty standard, but it has an extra function: a button that says "speak with teller."
The face of a woman wearing a headset sitting in front of a plain blue background flashes onto the ATM screen. "Good afternoon," she says. "Welcome to Bank of America. My name is Carolina. How are you today?"