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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2012 / Paul and the Evangelicals

Paul and the Evangelicals

by @heymistermix.com|  December 16, 20117:59 am| 131 Comments

This post is in: Election 2012, Teabagger Stupidity

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There’s a blogfight going on between Kevin Drum and he-who-shall-not-be-named about the kind of press attention Ron Paul ought to be getting. The basic argument Drum makes to support the notion that it’s OK to treat Paul like someone who can’t win is pretty sensible:

Given the fact that Paul has always had a dedicated band of fanatic supporters willing to give him money and organize support for him, but at the same time has never in his life managed to gain even double-digit support nationally, this is actually perfectly rational. Ron Paul isn’t going to win the GOP nomination, and if he manages to pull out some kind of freak victory in a small state with a weird nominating process, well, it’s just a freak victory.

Here’s my question, though: who else is going to take the Evangelical votes now that Newt is crashing? We know that the flock of nervous birds that makes up the Republican primary electorate won’t land on the same candidate twice, and as those Pew numbers show, evangelical Christians don’t consider Mormons one of them. So it’s anyone but Romney for them, but the major God botherers–Perry, Cain and Bachmann–have already been tasted and spat out. They’re not even willing to countenance a mouthful of Santorum, so that leaves Ron Paul, MD, FACOG.

It isn’t mentioned much, but unlike a lot of his libertarian brethren, Paul is as comfortable with Jesus as he is the Gold Standard. He’s also a staunch anti-abortionist, a good solid family man, and he comes off as authentically honest. If the anti-Mormon voters were willing to flirt with a serial philanderer like Newt, shouldn’t Paul at least get a few days of attention before they figure out that he’s unelectable, too?

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131Comments

  1. 1.

    The Other Bob

    December 16, 2011 at 8:08 am

    “They’re not even willing to countenance a mouthful of Santorum…”

    Uh yuck?

  2. 2.

    soonergrunt

    December 16, 2011 at 8:13 am

    They’re not even willing to countenance a mouthful of Santorum

    I see what you did there.

    Also, too– The Other Bob: Curses! Foiled again!

  3. 3.

    Schlemizel

    December 16, 2011 at 8:15 am

    I’ve been wondering for a while now if Paul might not win Iowa based solely on the not-willard and not yet put in the blender thing.

    If he did win it might give him a small boost to finish better in NH than he would have but as soon as the national spotlight falls on him the blender turns on & he would become mush as fast as Perry did.

    You have to admit this is the most interesting Republican race ever. Of course watching to syphilitic orangutangs argue about who could do more coke before performing open heart surgery on you would also be most interesting, Unsettling, disheartening, scarey but interesting

  4. 4.

    cat48

    December 16, 2011 at 8:18 am

    It pisses me off that the Press refuses to report or ask about his Racist News Letters that went out under his name for years. Jonathan Chait finally wrote about them yesterday & Kirchnik had covered last election. Paul’s never been asked about them on air. Chait felt people should know before they vote for him. I’m sure it’s just fine with a lot of people b/c: ??

    With Ron Paul ascending in Iowa, winning the hearts of independents, and even the endorsement of Andrew Sullivan, it’s worth pointing something out: Ron Paul is not a kindly old libertarian who just wants everybody to be free. He’s a really creepy bigot.
    …
    Around four years ago, James Kirchick reported a lengthy story delving into Paul’s worldview. As Kirchick writes, Paul comes out of an intellectual tradition called “paleolibertarianism,” which is a version of libertarianism heavily tinged with far-right cultural views. The gist is that Paul is tied in deep and extensive ways to neo-Confederates, and somewhat less tightly to the right-wing militia movement. His newsletter, which he wrote and edited for years, was a constant organ of vile racism and homophobia. This is not just picking out a phrase here and there. Fear and hatred of blacks and gays, along with a somewhat less pronounced paranoia about Jewish dual loyalty, are fundamental elements of his thinking. The most comparable figure to Paul is Pat Buchanan, the main differences being that Paul emphasizes economic issues more, and has more dogmatically pro-market views.

    It only seems fair since the prez & every other black person I know always has to explain anything deemed Racist by their overlords.

    Just a double standard in life I could live without.

  5. 5.

    HeartlandLiberal

    December 16, 2011 at 8:19 am

    The point that must be made again and again about how Ron Paul is portrayed in the media is this, and it has NOTHING to do with whether one supports or advocates Ron Paul as a candidate.

    Ron Paul is IGNORED by the media because the media represent the corporate oligarchy, and the media are the tools of the corporate oligarchy.

    Faux Noise Nutwork is the most wholly owned subsidiary of the the oligarchy. It pretty much 100% does not REPORT the news, it MAKES the news. Its talking heads have meetings, they get their talking points that have been passed down from the Republican party and their corporate masters, they are told who they are to speak favorably of, who they are to ignore.

    And they proceed to go on air and do so.

    And most of the rest of the mainstream media have been to a lesser but still controlling degree co-opted by the oligarchy, and turned into infotainment and disinformation sources. Walter Cronkite would not recognize contemporary American news and journalism for what he knew and practice for decades.

    And that is why Ron Paul is ignored, even as he rises in the polls above Romney, and is catching up with Newt as even the GOP 27 percenters realize what a toxic bag of foul gas Gingrich is.

    They ignore Ron Paul because they do not WANT him to be the candidate. It is not passive, it is active manipulation of information. It is in fact disinformation and refusal to report information, acts on behalf of the corporate oligarchy both by commission and omission.

  6. 6.

    amk

    December 16, 2011 at 8:19 am

    the guy, at 76, is older than Methuselah. Mebbe the rethug base needs performance enhancing drugs to get a rise out of him.

    ETA: via…ra is a filter now ?

  7. 7.

    cmorenc

    December 16, 2011 at 8:21 am

    @mistermix:

    If the anti-Mormon voters were willing to flirt with a serial philanderer like Newt, shouldn’t Paul at least get a few days of attention before they figure out that he’s unelectable, too?

    After intermittently watching parts of last night’s GOP debate (the first I’ve tried to actually watch rather than read about)…frankly mistermix I’M TOO NERVOUSLY RATTLED by the fact that there’s any realistic possibility any of these toxic clowns could become President in January 2013 to be able to coherently focus on answering your questions about GOP evangelical voter inside political baseball. All I know is that if any of these guys win, January 2013 is the wrong month to stop sniffing glue.

  8. 8.

    Rhoda

    December 16, 2011 at 8:23 am

    I don’t think Newt’s got as a big a problem as the MSM is making it out to be; if the vote were held today he’d win. His numbers are coming down because he’s being nuked with ads; but he’s got a sugar daddy now paying 20 million to a PAC for him so he’s going to start firing back. That will lift his numbers again; I still think he’s going to win Iowa and he’ll likely come really close in New Hampshire. The speaker of the house there endorsed him yesterday; that’s huge and a testament to Romney’s growing issues in the state.

  9. 9.

    NickM

    December 16, 2011 at 8:23 am

    Unfortunately, it seems a bit too early to conclude that Newt is “crashing” – especially since the decline in his poll numbers seems to be pretty evenly distributed between the five other candidates in the race.

  10. 10.

    Southern Beale

    December 16, 2011 at 8:25 am

    Paul is not going to get an evangelical votes. That’s just retarded. He doesn’t believe in any government programs, including all of the ones that the evangelicals love (like the faith-based stuff, the Israel stuff, the wars where we get to show Muslims how awesome Nuclear Jesus is, etc.). Also his whole “let the local governments decide” stuff about drug policy is anathema to Jesus people. Also, Paul doesn’t spout the religious stuff about the poor. He tells them to DIAF. Evangelicals want to hear empty platitudes about helping the poor so more money flows to churches.

    They want Huckabee. He’s their guy.

  11. 11.

    amk

    December 16, 2011 at 8:27 am

    Also, it’s strange that amidst two mormons with identical bakcgrounds (bidness men, gobnors, non-adulterer etc.), huntsman is being shunned by the base.

  12. 12.

    Southern Beale

    December 16, 2011 at 8:28 am

    In other news, Mark Meckler of the Tea Party Patriots was just arrested for trying to take a gun through LaGuardia Airport.

    That’s a felony, dude. Oh I have a big sad. No, actually, I don’t.

  13. 13.

    ChrisNYC

    December 16, 2011 at 8:29 am

    @cat48: They (Sean Hannity) did ask him about them post debate on Fox yesterday. He said what he did last time — I didn’t write them, don’t know who did, do not agree with sentiments. Of course, the questioning was motivated by getting Paul for his Israel stuff, not any actual concern about the newsletters. Apparently Hannity has been talking about them on the air because he was bitching about being email harrassed by Paulites for raising it.

  14. 14.

    Comrade Javamanphil

    December 16, 2011 at 8:33 am

    @amk: He’s shunned because he agreed to work for the black guy.

  15. 15.

    Gromit

    December 16, 2011 at 8:34 am

    Ron Paul’s views on prostitution might be somewhat of a problem for religious conservatives, too, to put it mildly.

  16. 16.

    Yevgraf

    December 16, 2011 at 8:37 am

    Perry isn’t done yet. I’m guessing an all white guy ticket-Perry/Ryan comes to mind.

    So bold, so daring…..

  17. 17.

    lol

    December 16, 2011 at 8:40 am

    I think it’s interesting that, more than the other groups, White Evangelicals still say they’ll rally behind the guy they don’t even consider a Christian that vote for the black guy they don’t even consider a Christian.

  18. 18.

    amk

    December 16, 2011 at 8:40 am

    @Yevgraf: perry is a dumbfuck and has zero teevee presence. He is never gonna make it.

  19. 19.

    superdestroyer

    December 16, 2011 at 8:41 am

    If the ability to win in November is the standard for deciding who is relevant and who is not, then the media should be ignoring the entire Republican primaries. The Democrats know that have about 250 electoral votes without spending a dollar.

    Considering that the Republicans are doing to have to spend limited funds in places like Virginia and North Carolina should convince everyone that President Obama will be easily re-elected.

    I guess the media does not want to admit that elections are irrelevant because then they would not have much to talk about.

  20. 20.

    amk

    December 16, 2011 at 8:43 am

    teh romney regatta

  21. 21.

    Guster

    December 16, 2011 at 8:51 am

    There’s no reason to think they won’t land on the same candidate twice. In an admittedly minor way, this already happened with Gingrich, post Right-Wing Social Engineering at Tiffany’s.

  22. 22.

    The Other Bob

    December 16, 2011 at 8:52 am

    @lol:

    They don’t consider most other Christians, actualy Christian, including Catholics, so not many candidates to choose from.

  23. 23.

    merrinc

    December 16, 2011 at 8:55 am

    In one respect – er, the one which counts most – I think we’re lucky the media ignores Ron Paul because if Richards Adams and others at the Guardian are correct, Paul is wrapping up the youth vote in Iowa. Is it not conceivable that he could pull a large part of it away from Obama, too? Lord knows he’s the only one who is firm about not starting another fucking war.

    On the other hand, part of me would like to see him be the nominee not just because Obama would clean his clock, but because we might actually move some of the conversations back to the left a bit. Paul wants to end all wars, including the money-sucking War on Drugs. Let the Dems explain why we shouldn’t do any of that.

  24. 24.

    MomSense

    December 16, 2011 at 8:58 am

    Boy, Huckabee must be kicking himself for sitting this one out. This year was made for him.

  25. 25.

    cat48

    December 16, 2011 at 8:58 am

    @ChrisNYC:

    That’s good he was asked, although I wouldn’t have gone with Hannity or Fox. I didn’t read Kirchnik’s story b/c it’s behind a paywall, but Chait made it sound bad.

    As far as Evangelicals go, Ed had an Evangelical pastor from Iowa on Wed. nite & he said they wanted “an honest candidate to go up against Obama.” He described Obama as honest & someone who told people what he would do as president & when he was elected he tried his best to do these things.

    That’s a nice compliment for O, but it’s truly sad too, because as of this day, there’s no one in the GOP available to them to vote for. They want their own Obama.

  26. 26.

    El Cid

    December 16, 2011 at 9:10 am

    Voluntary decency.

    At Kmart stores across the country, Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers’ layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn’t afford, especially toys and children’s clothes set aside by impoverished parents.
    __
    Before she left the store Tuesday evening, the Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s had paid the layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed out $50 bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash register.

  27. 27.

    jayackroyd

    December 16, 2011 at 9:11 am

    It’s worth noting that it’s not the gold buggery, or the anti choice extremism that puts Ron Paul into the sphere of deviance. Nor is it poll numbers or money raised.

    What puts him into the sphere of deviance aren’t his nutty policy positions–it’s the sane positions, especially those regarding defense spending and foreign policy, that makes him, unlike Bachmann, unacceptable both to the Very Serious Republicans and to the traditional media.

  28. 28.

    magurakurin

    December 16, 2011 at 9:12 am

    @merrinc: I’d love to see Paul win Iowa, for sure. If nothing else it will be awesome to see the media wanks continue to ignore him. But I sort of agree as well about your assessment of Paul in regard to wars and drugs.

    Truth be told, if the Devil came to me and told me that it was a done deal and one of these jokers was going to be the next President but I was chosen to decide which one, here’s what I would do: After 24 years of sobriety I would go to the liquor cabinet and take my wife’s bottle of Jameson’s. I’d pour myself a big glass and take a long hard drink. Then I’d sigh a bit and finish off the glass. As I began to fill the glass again, I’d look the Devil in the eyes and say, “Paul.” Then I’d take another long drink as I began to search for anyone who had anything I could snort, smoke or swallow to go along with what would become a long, dark night of substance abuse.

    Thankfully, that will never happen.

  29. 29.

    jonas

    December 16, 2011 at 9:13 am

    The deal breaker with Paul and evangelicals is his stance on Israel and Iran. Here he’s really a Buchanan-style paleocon, whereas the rest of the GOP field has practically pledged to move the White House to Jerusalem if elected. During the debate, he basically stated that Iran’s nuclear threat is a bunch of ginned up bullshit and he’s not having any of it, and they all looked at him like _he_ was the insane one.

  30. 30.

    El Cid

    December 16, 2011 at 9:15 am

    @jayackroyd: Exactly. If Ron Paul had the same views but was pro-imperialist, he’d be, well, a typical modern conservative.

  31. 31.

    Svensker

    December 16, 2011 at 9:17 am

    @jayackroyd:

    This and completely this.

  32. 32.

    El Cid

    December 16, 2011 at 9:17 am

    @magurakurin: There is a line of thought in my mind which is tempting: why sink the ship slowly and await drowning, longer and longer? If people want the ship to sink, why, then, let’s step up to the task and blow the stern off. If people want this nation to sink by choosing any other GOP President, then, by God, maybe it’s time we send her down quickly and get through with all the last prayers.

  33. 33.

    SensesFail

    December 16, 2011 at 9:18 am

    Charles Pierce made a great point in this post yesterday concerning how Ron Paul’s extreme positions require (or at least should require) the other candidates to defend the federal government:

    This week, Ron Paul declared Medicare and Medicaid to be unconstitutional. Period. Full stop. (We pause to note here that there’s “no provision in the Constitution” for an Air Force, either.) The rest of you want to claim that you’re really trying to “save” Medicare by adopting the plan (that will kill it) put forward by zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan? Fine. Get up on TV, in Iowa, in front of the fringiest of your fringy base, and declare, as Republicans, that Ron Paul is wrong, that Medicare and Medicaid are constitutional. I’d buy a ticket to see that.

    Also this week, Ron Paul said that the federal government really had no business insisting that we all drink pasteurized milk. (No kidding. He really said that.) Let’s see the rest of you argue with him, standing up for regulation and the FDA.

    Look, even Andrew, who I suspect is partly just messing with us now, sees the point. (And who amongst us can argue with his final point?) Ron Paul is it, lady and gentlemen. If you want to calibrate your party’s precise capacity for crazy, Ron Paul is the most stringent measuring device you have. He is the logical end of all your easy arguments. He’s the walking reductio to your inherent absurdium. And he’s beating you all like drums at the moment.

  34. 34.

    squirrelhugger

    December 16, 2011 at 9:18 am

    “He’s also a staunch anti-abortionist, a good solid family man, and he comes off as authentically honest.” If authentically honest can be used to describe a person who on one hand claims a fundamental principle of not regulating society without unanimous consensus, such as outlawing murder, and on the other hand a fundamental principle of demanding control of every woman’s uterus because a minority of citizens have a vigorously-disputed moral position. But for the GOP base, yeah, I guess that’s authentically honest.

  35. 35.

    patrick the pedantic literalist

    December 16, 2011 at 9:22 am

    I think you have to be careful about cause and affect with Ron Paul. Kevin has contended before that we know Paul’s high water mark because we saw it four years ago and he is not going above that. I may agree, but I wonder if his high water mark four years ago was because media — and especially Faux News whom conservatives listen to — ignored or discounted him, and Faux once again has created “reality” for a candidate. With numbers like Paul’s, I would like to see how he does with equal treatment. I agree that I don’t think he’ll go too far above his core constituency, but, when polling in double digits, neither I, Kevin, nor the media should decide ahead of time.

  36. 36.

    MattF

    December 16, 2011 at 9:23 am

    Paul has that true “crazy uncle” aura– it’ll appeal to some people, but anyone who actually wants to win in 2012 will stay away.

    And also, by the way, any politician whose main virtue is ‘consistency’ is not really a politician. The recent winger flirtation with Noot pretty much proves that even our down-home neo-Fascists understand this.

  37. 37.

    Xenos

    December 16, 2011 at 9:25 am

    Paul has street cred with the serious white supremacists, both open and crypto-. He does not talk the talk, but he walks the walk alongside all manner of creeps who try to mainstream and propagandize for the lost cause. I can’t bring myself to even joke about him.

  38. 38.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 9:30 am

    “Only 8 percent of Republicans surveyed indicate that they will not support Romney because he is a Mormon.”…in the general race for president that is.
    Pew’s title is a lie.
    I think 8 percent of his own base is enough to deny Romney the presidency in a tight race.
    Did Pew change the title of that section of the survey?
    The one i’ve been linking for the past two months was titled some thing like, anti-homosexual sentiment declines, anti-mormon sentiment remains the same.

    ahhh….they repackaged the data to make it more palatable for the horseracers.
    I still think Romney cant win a general election. Because of the 65% rule.

  39. 39.

    magurakurin

    December 16, 2011 at 9:33 am

    @El Cid: LOL. Yeah, I can see where one could get to that point. Of course I’d watch the ship sink from afar on the other side of the Pacific as I enjoyed some more cesium 137 tainted beef to go along with my strontium 90 bone supplements.

    The Wizard: “I mean…we’re all fucked. More or less.”

  40. 40.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 9:33 am

    @Xenos: this is absolutely true. Both Rand and Ron get funding from the Birchers and the Klan.

  41. 41.

    Chris

    December 16, 2011 at 9:36 am

    @MomSense:

    Boy, Huckabee must be kicking himself for sitting this one out. This year was made for him.

    Nah, he’d just have been another Not Romney, without the novelty factor he had in 2008. Wouldn’t have lasted any longer than the others.

  42. 42.

    Barry

    December 16, 2011 at 9:40 am

    @merrinc: “Paul is wrapping up the youth vote in Iowa. Is it not conceivable that he could pull a large part of it away from Obama, too? ”

    What part of ‘Given the fact that Paul has always had a dedicated band of fanatic supporters willing to give him money and organize support for him, but at the same time has never in his life managed to gain even double-digit support nationally,…’ did you not understand?

  43. 43.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 9:44 am

    If the anti-Mormon voters were willing to flirt with a serial philanderer like Newt, shouldn’t Paul at least get a few days of attention before they figure out that he’s unelectable, too?

    Is Ron Paul an atheist?

    Newt washed himself in the blood of the lamb with a public mea culpa- technically that is salvation by faith like a death row criminal.
    You have to understand the born-again mentality.

    and oh hei, suzanne, Khalid, catsy– didnt i say mormonism would become an issue in Romney’s base, however distasteful it is to you?
    tolejasotolejasotolejaso
    :)

  44. 44.

    Linda Featheringill

    December 16, 2011 at 9:44 am

    @merrinc: #22

    On the other hand, part of me would like to see him be the nominee not just because Obama would clean his clock, but because we might actually move some of the conversations back to the left a bit.

    That has occurred to me, too. Paul as the nominee could start some very interesting conversations. We might be treated to the sight of politicians explaining why they embrace their positions.

  45. 45.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 9:46 am

    lol, Paul is a baptist.

  46. 46.

    Barry

    December 16, 2011 at 9:47 am

    @El Cid: “There is a line of thought in my mind which is tempting: why sink the ship slowly and await drowning, longer and longer? If people want the ship to sink, why, then, let’s step up to the task and blow the stern off. If people want this nation to sink by choosing any other GOP President, then, by God, maybe it’s time we send her down quickly and get through with all the last prayers.”

    Because the ship doesn’t ‘sink quickly’ – after all that the GOP did during 2001-09, they still got 7% of the national vote for McCain/Caribou Barbie, and retook the House in 2010. I’m sure that there’s some point at which the American people would stomp the GOP (and media lackeys, and ‘think tanks’, and Wall St) out of power for a generation, but I don’t want to find out where that point it.

  47. 47.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 9:50 am

    @Linda Featheringill: oh yes, like the “interesting” Rand Paul conversations we had right before the christofascists elected him.
    no thnx.

  48. 48.

    BrYanS

    December 16, 2011 at 9:52 am

    Psssst….

    He doesn’t totally 100% support Israel whatever they do.

  49. 49.

    Linda Featheringill

    December 16, 2011 at 9:52 am

    @Samara Morgan:

    tolejasotolejasotolejaso :)

    Cute way to say it. :-)

  50. 50.

    Barry

    December 16, 2011 at 9:54 am

    Sorry, ‘they still got 47% of the national vote’.

  51. 51.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 9:55 am

    I wonder what Sully’s Good Friend TNC thinks of Ron Paul….anybody know?

  52. 52.

    Linda Featheringill

    December 16, 2011 at 9:55 am

    @Samara Morgan:

    Rand Paul.

    Yeah, you’re right.

    The truth is, I find Ron Paul interesting and Rand Paul bizarre. I wonder why. Especially since Rand may well be the logical extension of Ron.

    Hmmmmm.

  53. 53.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 9:59 am

    @Barry: and they got 55% of the white vote. More than Bush got, but less than Reagan at 60%. And since the percent white vote is shrinking in the electorate, if minorities vote for O in the same percentages they did in 2008, Romney would need an unimaginable 65% of the white vote to beat Obama.
    In spite of the titlespin, i think that is a SERIOUS impediment to Romney gettin’ to be president.
    And Pew says 8% of the white vote (because republicans are pretty much all white at this point) wont vote for him.

  54. 54.

    Waldo

    December 16, 2011 at 10:09 am

    The real problem for Paul is that, unlike the rest of the field, he doesn’t pander to the base on EVERY ISSUE. (Dude wants to legalize heroin and cut defense spending but doesn’t want to bomb Iran? WTF?!!)

    For most of us, that makes him a somewhat principled crackpot. For base voters, he’s a dangerous free-thinker whose very existence upsets the us/them, good/evil worldview that helps them get through the day without taxing their atrophied critical thinking muscles. He should count himself lucky to be tolerated, much less embraced, by the base.

  55. 55.

    JGabriel

    December 16, 2011 at 10:21 am

    Nikki Haley (SC Governor) endorses Mitt Romney.

    The South Carolina GOP Presidential Primary has picked the ultimate nominee in every election since it was founded in 1980, and the SC Governor (when it’s a Republican) has a lot of influence in the primary — not just endorsing, but input into how the primary will be held, distribution of voting booths, etc.

    I know if I were betting on Intrade, I’d look to invest in Romney now.

    “Today is the day that I’m throwing all of my support behind Mitt Romney for president,” Ms. Haley said, speaking from South Carolina. “What I wanted was someone who knew what it was like to turn broken companies around.”

    … And sell them off to the highest foreign bidder.

    .

  56. 56.

    bemused

    December 16, 2011 at 10:22 am

    I’m bored with this clown show. It’s basically the same old, debate after debate. I’d like to see the GOP create a hologram candidate combining the statements of the current candidates plus the Republicans who backed out of running that were big hits with the base and just project hologram conservative onto future debate stages.The rightwing audience is stunned silent thinking their prayers have been answered, their true conservative has finally arrived. Hologram spars with the candidates out-blathering Newt and Mitt. The base cheers wildly, then slowly, slowly begin realizing hologram is just a hologram but they’d still rather vote for a 3-D image.

  57. 57.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 10:24 am

    @Waldo: its the perception of unelectability that really scares the base off, and like Sully says, the media fosters that.
    And like Drum says, its sensible, because Paul really is unelectable.

  58. 58.

    Amir Khalid

    December 16, 2011 at 10:29 am

    @Samara Morgan:
    I never said Romney’s Mormonism wasn’t an issue with the Republican base. I took issue (and still take issue) with your contention that it is the overriding issue with the Republican Base. I do not believe that being Mormon by itself is necessarily enough to kill his chance of nomination. After all, there are plenty of other reasons to dislike him: his lack of firm convictions, his me-too right-wing policy agenda, his aura of phoniness, his inability to handle himself in a tight corner, und so weiter.

    Now Pew has found that only 8% of Republican voters find his religion disqualifying. That seems to bear out my take on it, rather than yours.

  59. 59.

    Linda Featheringill

    December 16, 2011 at 10:31 am

    @Samara Morgan:

    Ah. The 65%. I noticed that you referred to it before.

    [really, really got to get to work now.]

  60. 60.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    December 16, 2011 at 10:33 am

    Spreading Santorum again, eh?

  61. 61.

    Ian

    December 16, 2011 at 10:35 am

    @Southern Beale:
    Weird, normally I think taking felons right to vote away is wrong.

  62. 62.

    Amir Khalid

    December 16, 2011 at 10:49 am

    @JGabriel:
    As I understand, Nikki Haley’s approval rating among South Carolinians is well underwater. Haley seems to have proven as incompetent in office as any other Teabagger pol.

    So Romney has won, in quick succession, endorsements from Ann Coulter, a fast-fading right-wing pundit; Christine O’Donnell, a TeaBagger kook who lost a US Senate seat that was there for the Republicans’ taking; and Nikki Haley, who would probably not win an election for governor if her state held one now. Well … I suppose he must take what he can get.

  63. 63.

    priscianusjr

    December 16, 2011 at 10:53 am

    @lol:

    … the black guy they don’t even consider a Christian.

    … the black guy they consider a nazi communist Muslim.

  64. 64.

    Comrade Javamanphil

    December 16, 2011 at 11:03 am

    @bemused: Freak shows do tend to become boring once you’ve seen them a couple times. In retrospect, the debate-a-week schedule may have been a brilliant strategy for this incredibly weak GOP field as many voters have become complacent about the crazy things each of these candidates spouts. Will be interesting to see if/how Obama highlights the crazy of his opponent.

  65. 65.

    Comrade Dread

    December 16, 2011 at 11:06 am

    No. Ron Paul will be sunk the second large numbers of fundamentalist dispensationalists find out that he is against submitting the interests of the United States to the dictates of the Israeli government.

  66. 66.

    mds

    December 16, 2011 at 11:10 am

    Not only is Paul insufficiently deferential to evangelical “Christian Zionist” Jew-murdering fantasies, he reversed his longtime position on DADT by supporting the repeal (one of only 15 House Republicans to do so). It’s not necessary to get down the list to the drug legalization stuff: those two alone mean he is dead to the bulk of the Talibornagain crowd.

  67. 67.

    JGabriel

    December 16, 2011 at 11:10 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    As I understand, Nikki Haley’s approval rating among South Carolinians is well underwater.

    I’m not sure that matters to the Republican base, and in any event, I think it’s Haley’s role in running the primary that is more important to Romney’s chances than her endorsement.

    If you think I’m insinuating that the SC primary typically possesses a high level of ratfucking, party manipulation, and generally corrupt behavior, designed to ensure a win for the national GOP machine’s favored candidate, then you are thinking correctly.

    .

  68. 68.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 11:11 am

    @Amir Khalid: well add the 8% of anti-mormons to the X% of other WHITE voters that will not vote for him for different reasons.
    I think the headline is just horse race spin. The 8% of WHITE anti-mormon republican voters could easily cost the Willard the election. but no one will talk it about it because…..ONE– its rude, and TWO– it spoils the horse race race.

    Why, then, did Bush win the White House while McCain suffered humiliating defeat? The answer is that in eight years the nonwhite portion of electorate soared — from 19 percent of voters to 26 percent of voters. Among these voters, Obama won by a 4-to-1 margin — easily wiping out McCain’s big advantage among white voters.
    __
    For two reasons, these numbers command close attention for anyone concerned about the Republican future.
    __
    First, there is no chance that white voters will ever again comprise 74 percent of the electorate. Most projections for 2012 suggest that self-identified whites will comprise 70 percent or, at most, 72 percent of those who cast presidential ballots.
    __
    Second, it would be hard for any Republican to improve significantly on McCain’s hefty 12-point margin among whites, which means that without an improved showing among Hispanics, blacks and Asians, GOP contenders will lose every time.
    __
    The math here is brutal and eye-opening. If Obama in 2012 wins the same percentage of the combined black, Asian and Hispanic vote that he won in 2008 (82 percent), then in order to beat him the GOP candidate would need to win an unimaginable 65 percent of all white voters — whose numbers include such stalwart Democratic constituencies as gays, atheists, Jews and union members.

  69. 69.

    kindness

    December 16, 2011 at 11:15 am

    Does anyone really care about Iowa?

    I mean, it’s fucking Iowa. I would like Barack to get their electoral votes come 11/12 but I don’t really expect that to happen. It’s Iowa for god sakes and they are on a Xian revival or something so it seems.

  70. 70.

    priscianusjr

    December 16, 2011 at 11:20 am

    @Linda Featheringill:

    I find Ron Paul interesting and Rand Paul bizarre. I wonder why. Especially since Rand may well be the logical extension of Ron.

    I too find Ron Paul interesting. The one thing you can say about him is that he is a man of principles and he sticks to them. The result is that he agrees with the left on some important issues, but for completely different reasons, and disagrees radically on most. Charles Krauthammer once said that Ron Paul is living in the 1920s. This is one of the very few statements Krauthammer has ever made that I think is correct. If you look more deeply into Paul’s intellectual DNA, you will see that it’s true — he is so conservative that he holds to principles that were mainstream Republican not only in the 1920s, but even prior to World War I. Paul’s outlook reminds me of an elderly gent I knew when I was young — he was a protestant of Anglo-Dutch extraction born in upstate NY in 1874. He hated FDR with a passion. At the time (early 1960s) I did not even know there were such people.
    In Paul’s case it’s not a revival of a world view, it’s a direct survival. It is indeed interesting that such a man can still hold political office and attract a passionate following at the beginning of the 21st century. His ideas are coherent but they apply to a world that has not existed since the 1920s.
    As for Rand Paul, I don’t know if I would call him bizarre, or a logical extension of his father — but I do not find him interesting, to me he’s just another wingnut.

  71. 71.

    Amir Khalid

    December 16, 2011 at 11:26 am

    @Samara Morgan:

    well add the 8% of anti-mormons to the X% of other WHITE voters that will not vote for him for different reasons.

    I keep on saying, and you keep on refusing to understand, that the X% may well turn out to be far more significant than the 8%. What’s the highest Romney has polled this cycle? In the mid-20’s, right? Add the dead-set-against-Mitt 8%ers, and he only gets to the low 30s. That would still not secure the nom for him. I would still argue that Republicans don’t like Mitt more because he’s Mitt than because he’s Mormon.

  72. 72.

    DanielX

    December 16, 2011 at 11:26 am

    @Amir Khalid: Those endorsements rank right up there with the (imaginary) Herman Cain endorsement of Newt Gingrich. They make perfect sense and are seen as positive by a subset of the 27%. To everyone else, including a lot of Republicans who see Ann Coulter as the rabid harpy that she is, not so much.

    Dr. Paul is perceived by the Republican establishment, or what’s left of it, as unelectable even by comparison with the rest of these lunatics. Gold standard? Not only no, but HELL no. Therefore he gets no love from Fox or anyone else, regardless of how well he’s polling. Also, too – those semi-sane parts of his philosophy that might appeal to a broader audience, such as a less (I just can’t help myself) invasive foreign policy, ending the war on drugs – oops, War On Drugs – make him anathema to various parts of the GOP constituency.

    Whether it be evangelicals, neocons, corporate Rs, law and order Rs or whatever, there’s something to offend a good portion of the wingnut faithful right there. Plus the idea of ending Medicare (among other things) just scares the bejeezus out of anybody 65 or older, 65 just happening to be the average age of Fox News viewers. So his insane, as opposed to semi-sane, policy stands (end the FDA now!) offend just about everybody else. Ergo, he can’t win, so no Fox fluffing for Ron Paul.

  73. 73.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 11:29 am

    @Amir Khalid: you see…i think this is a LIE.

    Romney’s Mormon Faith Likely a Factor in Primaries, Not in a General Election

    33% of white voters vote democrat, carter to obama. That is a floor, clinton and obama got more.
    Add the 8% of white republican voters that wont vote for a mormon and that is 41%.
    The GOP candidate in 2012 needs 65% of the reduced white vote to beat Obama, and can only get 59% according to Pew.
    Romney is unelectable.
    QED

  74. 74.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 11:32 am

    @Amir Khalid: it doesnt really matter because we dont have poll data on the other reasons.

  75. 75.

    Joel

    December 16, 2011 at 11:33 am

    @cat48: You know, I felt a little bad for Paul when Sasha Baron Cohen practically assaulted him in the Bruno movie. But I should have known better: Baron Cohen’s victims are always carefully chosen.

  76. 76.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 11:37 am

    @Amir Khalid: and those “other reasons” may not affect the presidential vote like anti-mormon sentiment.

    “Only 8 percent of Republicans surveyed indicate that they will not support Romney because he is a Mormon.”

    If Romney loses 8% of the white vote to anti-mormon sentiment, he simply cannot win.

  77. 77.

    Martin

    December 16, 2011 at 11:37 am

    My attitude is this:

    If we propose being an actual democracy, one where anyone can rise to the office, then anyone in the race ought to get the same airtime and attention, regardless of their polling. That doesn’t mean the polling can’t be reported on, but anything else amounts to the media biasing the process by biasing our exposure to the candidates.

    If you are on the ballot in all 50 states, you’re a contender no matter how nutty you may be or how much some subset of the supposed base hates you – you should get invited to the sunday shows same as everyone else, to every debate, so on.

    Polls aren’t elections. Only elections are elections.

  78. 78.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 11:40 am

    @Martin: wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which fills up the fastest, Martin.
    Media is subject to the marketplace, and no one pays to see a dead horse enter the race.

  79. 79.

    bemused

    December 16, 2011 at 11:42 am

    @Comrade Javamanphil:

    I certainly hope Obama highlights the crazy. No one should take it for granted that the crazy is self-evident. Too many people are not that rational.

  80. 80.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 11:45 am

    @Amir Khalid: and maybe im WRONG.
    But you are gunna hafta show me. And not just wave your arms around.
    ;)

  81. 81.

    DanielX

    December 16, 2011 at 11:55 am

    @priscianusjr: Sort of reminiscent of that statement of somebody’s about how Fat Tony Scalia possesses one of the finest legal minds of the 19th century, ain’t it? Although I doubt Paul approves of any of the sitting justices. But Ron Paul’s appeal lies in the fact that his positions – like them or not – are completely consistent with each other, god bless his Neanderthal libertarian heart. He doesn’t believe in intrusive government in any way, and that includes regulation of personal behavior as well as economic behavior. Which – again – makes him objectionable to a lot of Republicans. They love the whole concept of doing away with large portions of the federal government, but doing away with the government’s power to engage in panty sniffing and control what substances people consume? That would be crazy.

    And, of course, they see no intellectual inconsistency at all in regulating one form of behavior and not the other, which personally I find both odd and offensive.

    Sidebar: But then I spent four years of torture in a Jesuit high school, and if there’s one thing the Jesuits teach it’s consistent and logical thinking based on fact. As long as it’s not concerned with religion, that is – as a non-Catholic, I thought it hilarious to suppose out loud that INRI above a crucifix stood for Initiate Nail Removal Immediately. Couldn’t believe how offended the Irish Jesuit (i.e.; Psycho Brothers For Christ) teaching the class got. If I’d been Catholic I shudder to think what he would have done; as a non-Catholic all I had to put up with was some screaming and detention.

  82. 82.

    JGabriel

    December 16, 2011 at 12:02 pm

    @Samara Morgan:

    33% of white voters vote democrat, carter to obama. That is a floor, clinton and obama got more. Add the 8% of white republican voters that wont vote for a mormon and that is 41%.

    I detect a bad assumption here. If they’re too bigoted to vote for a Republican Mormon, they sure as HELL ain’t gonna for a black Democrat.

    That 8% is either voting third party, or not voting at all.

    Edited to Add:

    The GOP candidate in 2012 needs 65% of the reduced white vote to beat Obama, and can only get 59% according to Pew.

    Or maybe I should finish reading the post before commenting.

    .

  83. 83.

    Amir Khalid

    December 16, 2011 at 12:12 pm

    @Samara Morgan:
    You are the one making an assertion, i.e. that being Mormon is why Mitt can’t win the nomination. Not I. I do not assert the opposite. I say only that other reasons may be more important than that.

    So it is you, not I, that must come up with proof.

  84. 84.

    MonkeyBoy

    December 16, 2011 at 12:16 pm

    @JGabriel:

    If they’re too bigoted to vote for a Republican Mormon, they sure as HELL ain’t gonna for a black Democrat.

    Why the dichotomy? The third alternative is just not voting which while morally different than voting for Obama is effictively the same.

  85. 85.

    Jim Pharo

    December 16, 2011 at 12:19 pm

    What a lot of blather! Romney’s the winner. This is just like 2008, except everyone has taken one step forward in line. Five seconds after Romney has it locked, he will be Obama Lite. He will be in favor of everything that Obama is in favor of that is popular, against everything that is unpopular, and come November just under 50% of Americans are going to pull the lever for Romney.

    There. It’s sorted.

  86. 86.

    gaz

    December 16, 2011 at 12:29 pm

    It isn’t mentioned much, but unlike a lot of his libertarian brethren, Paul is as comfortable with Jesus as he is the Gold Standard. He’s also a staunch anti-abortionist, a good solid family man, and he comes off as authentically honest.

    Could be his stance on legalizing drugs that turns off the god-botherers.

    Also, needs MOAR war.

  87. 87.

    gaz

    December 16, 2011 at 12:31 pm

    @DanielX:

    Fat Tony Scalia possesses one of the finest legal minds of the 19th century

    WIN!

  88. 88.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 12:33 pm

    @JGabriel:

    That 8% is either voting third party, or not voting at all.

    all the survey says is they are not voting for mitt because of anti-mormon sentiment.
    So how become Willard is perceived as electable?

  89. 89.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 12:36 pm

    @Amir Khalid: no my assertion is just that BASED ON KNOWN DATA Willard cant beat Obama. And i supported my assertion with linkage and polling.
    You seem to be asserting something about unknown data, but im not sure what you are trying to say.

  90. 90.

    Glen Tomkins

    December 16, 2011 at 12:39 pm

    Agree with all of this except the idea that none of them are electable. Every single freaking one of these freaks would instantly become a non-freak if nominated by one of our major parties.

    None of them is as much a freak as Reagan was before winning the governorship of CA, then the R nomination. They all (okay, maybe Cain is the exception here, but he’s withdrawn) have reasoanble pre-nomination resumes, comparable to having been governor of CA. Getting the nomination of one of our two major parties would immediately move them all the final step into inherent ideological respectability.

    Sure, any one of them could still blow it after the nomination. And one way they could blow it is by saying things so out there ideologically that they overcome the presumption that winning a nomination from a major party establishes that the candidate is some sort of centrist. Perhaps Paul is likely to go this route were he the nominee. But I think you can only say that because he is the exception that proves the rule that your typical politician in the 2011 USA will say whatever it takes to maximize his or her election prospects. Winning the nomination would instantly remove any positive incentive for saying crazy things that only appeal to their base, and therefore none of them, except maybe Paul, would continue to say crazy things that only appeal to their base.

    And I wouldn’t count out even Paul. Some of the things he believes in that lie outside the mainstream, such as that we need to get out of Afghanistan now, are quite non-crazy. It is extraordinarily refreshing to hear any politician willing to speak that heresy, and frankness and honesty in even an occasional area where you agree with him, and where he has taken obviously big risks to speak the truth, could go a long way to people giving his other non-mainstream ideas the benefit of the doubt. Since most of those ideas that are plainly crazy, such as the gold standard nonsense, are about abstruse topics, any tendency to give him the benefit of the doubt is less likley to run into firm and fixed walls of resistance, things the voter who likes his stance on another issue can recognize are just crazy.

  91. 91.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 12:44 pm

    @MonkeyBoy: yup. 59% of the white vote is not enough. as long as the 8% dont vote for Willard, he is effectively denied their votes, no matter what they do with them.
    Obama won with 365 ec votes in 2008, and 43% of the white vote.
    But O only needs 270 ec votes to win and only 33% of the white vote– because there are less white voters and more minority voters than in 2008.

  92. 92.

    Ian

    December 16, 2011 at 12:53 pm

    @gaz:
    Moar keeping unconscious people on life support too.
    edit- i mean comatose

  93. 93.

    Anoniminous

    December 16, 2011 at 1:00 pm

    Too soon to throw The Newt under the WaPo.

    Despite the fluid forecasts, Gingrich has some reason for solace. Gallup finds his numbers are strongest among conservatives, older voters and rank-and-file Republicans, which are groups that tend to vote more regularly in Republican primaries.

    Gingrich’s numbers have fallen under a relentless 24/7 attack and it remains to be seen if support will continue to fall. That’s certainly been the history of the Not-Romney Flavor of the Moment and one shouldn’t discount that either.

    In the meantime, the attacks on Gingrich have affected Romney’s polling numbers not at all. He’s still got the same 24% national support he’s had since Feb. 2008. It is possible a candidate can have that low support numbers and win their party’s nomination: see McGovern in 1972. Which doesn’t bode well for a Romney candidacy.

    So, the continuing story of the GOP “slouching towards Nominee” is: the GOP insiders want Romney, the base doesn’t.

  94. 94.

    Barry

    December 16, 2011 at 1:10 pm

    @Samara Morgan: :Newt washed himself in the blood of the lamb with a public mea culpa- technically that is salvation by faith like a death row criminal.
    You have to understand the born-again mentality.”

    I’d say ‘white-washed himself’. If he wasn’t a right-winger, then they wouldn’t accept him.

  95. 95.

    Barry

    December 16, 2011 at 1:12 pm

    @Linda Featheringill: “The truth is, I find Ron Paul interesting and Rand Paul bizarre. I wonder why. Especially since Rand may well be the logical extension of Ron.”

    My theory is simple – one Rep has no power; one Senator does. The minute a Paul had a shot at actual power, all of those actual libertarian ideals were shucked off like the facade that they were.

  96. 96.

    mclaren

    December 16, 2011 at 1:12 pm

    @Glen Tomkins:

    None of them is as much a freak as Reagan was before winning the governorship of CA, then the R nomination.

    Bingo!

    Why does no one else remember this?

    Ronald Reagan gibbered crazed drivel non-stop from the early 1960s, when he toured the country giving bizarre speeches for GE in which he compared Medicare with “an anthill of totalitarianism” and described psychedelic light shows at rock concerts as “foul displays of prurience too extreme to describe here, with the lurid play of strobelights on naked bodies.”

    Reagan was the guy who appointed an evangelical Jesus freak so extreme as Secretary of the Interior that the guy openly proclaimed conservation unnecessary because Jesus would arrive in the Second Coming long before we cut down the last of the old-growth forests.

    The main difference twixt Ronnie and the current crop of lunatics is that Reagan managed to come across, miraculously, as a kindly friendly folksy neighbor while he spouted his insane hate-filled lunacy. Ronnie delivered with a wink a smile insane lines like “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with” (about ending the protests against the Vietnam war in late 1969), and then, when National guards opened fire on unarmed antiwar protesters at Kent state and shot them down like dogs, Reagan snickered, “I was only joking.”

    And people loved it. They laughed and snickered right along with him. Even students whose aid got savagely cut flocked to listen to him speak…and they applauded him when he explained how he was going to cut student aid even more.

    That’s a rare talent.

    You only get one snake oil salesman that good every couple of generations.

  97. 97.

    Anoniminous

    December 16, 2011 at 1:15 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    I would still argue that Republicans don’t like Mitt more because he’s Mitt than because he’s Mormon.

    The GOP base doesn’t like Mitt and without polling data it’s hard to say exactly why. However, given the GOP base is squarely Fundie/Evangelical and F/Es are vehemently anti-Mormon it’s reasonable to suggest one reason the base doesn’t like Mitt is his religion.

  98. 98.

    Xenos

    December 16, 2011 at 1:18 pm

    Samara- Where do you get that 65% figure? And the 33% figure?

    I really like the sound of it, but it comes off as wishful thinking. Got a link you can throw out here?

  99. 99.

    Xenos

    December 16, 2011 at 1:21 pm

    @mclaren: I was just a kid then, but MAN did I hate Reagan. Being a GenXer, though, meant most of my peers were just fine with that shit.

    Bad times, bad times. Still not over, too.

  100. 100.

    catclub

    December 16, 2011 at 1:24 pm

    @DanielX: “But Ron Paul’s appeal lies in the fact that his positions – like them or not – are completely consistent with each other,”

    Except for his deep racism and anti-abortion cred.
    Some one else mentioned that Paul is uber popular with the militia and Neo-confederate crowd. By accident?

    He opposed the Civil Rights Act, which means that he would have no problem with the government _enforcing_ the racist preferences of merchants who want to throw black folks out of their stores.
    He would also have no problem with a federal anti-abortion amendment. He might say he would _prefer_ the states do it,
    but he would not oppose such an amendment.

  101. 101.

    Glen Tomkins

    December 16, 2011 at 1:44 pm

    @Samara Morgan: Fundamentalism and Mormonism

    Your argument that Romney is unelectable because he can’t afford to lose the 8% of white voters who say they can’t vote for a Mormon, rests on the assumption that this 8% will actually follow through on not voting for a Mormon even if the alternative is to stand by as the Kenyan Usurper is re-elected.

    No doubt there is an extremely strong argument from ideological consistency for fundamentalist Christians to abhor Mormonism. The whole point of Biblical literacy and Biblical inerrancy is lost — disastrously, categorically, with extreme prejudice, lost — if you let people get away wioth just inventing whole new books of the Bible. They think that heretic Christians and secular humanists are going to hell for trying to interpret this or that scrap of the existing Bible figuratively. But the worst of us, on our worst day, never actually proposed to set up some new book we had written as if it were now to be part of the Bible, and carry full Biblical authority. The very existence of Mormonism, not even considering some of the particular theological filigress it engages in, is an outrageous blasphemy to Biblical literalists.

    I think that people who are not very sensitive to the fundamentalsit belief structure underestimate this problem. To them, the Mormons and the fundies both seem to believe in the same things, because those of us outside that belief structure think in terms of the range of social issues that define the political spectrum, and see no daylight between Mormons and fundies. But the difference is very real to people inside that belief structure, it gets to the core of their self-image, and it is not at all surprising that this 8% would tell pollsters they can’t possibly even consider voting for some disastrous blasphemer.

    But if it comes to it, I doubt that a single one of the that 8% will actually vote any different than they would for whoever else is the R nominee.

    Fundies have a long, well-thought-out, thoroughly hashed over, history of compromising their beliefs when it comes to politics, and a rich tradition of arguments that support that behavior, make it seem positively virtuous. Of course the Elect are, and always will be, only a tiny minority in this sinful world. To get anything done in the inherently worldly realm of politics, which is inherently very much of the Kingdom of This Earth, and not at all of the Kingdom of Heaven, they have to accept the necessity of making tactical alliances with the ungodly.

    Specifically to the case of voting for a Mormon, they can turn to the Biblical treatment of the Samaritans as an example of a people who are categorically wrong theologically, who nevertheless have gotten the morality right. The Samaritans were polytheists and polygamists, a line-up of theological sins that happens to match up pretty well with the Mormon deviations. The fact that the Mormons agree with them on the social issues, are in fact often more faithful in respect to those issues, will just complete the analogy for them. If Romney is the R nominee, by the time E-day arrives, these people will have convinced themselves that the bits about the Samaritans in the Bible were put there specifically to instruct them in their duty to vote for Romney in the year 2012.

    That 8% told the pollsters what they did because they believe that their faith has to instruct them in their political behavior, that there is no other true guide possible. They believe that everything that happens in the world is foretold and controlled by what is written in the Book. If Romney is the R nominee, they will all vote for him, because they will have less trouble convincing themselves that God wants them to vote for Romney than that he wants them to vote for Obama, and the third possibility, that maybe God wants them to figure it out for themselves, is not an alternative they can entertain without leaving behind fundamentalism.

  102. 102.

    El Cid

    December 16, 2011 at 1:52 pm

    @Barry: No, I meant that if people vote in ways in which they seem to want the nation unravel and end, then, by God, let’s find the freakiest, most insanely destructive GOP leaders we can and put ourselves out of our misery instead of limping into the grave more slowly.

  103. 103.

    Glen Tomkins

    December 16, 2011 at 2:19 pm

    @mclaren: I don’t disagree with Reagan being a rare find, a success that is hard to reproduce in its fulness. I would put more emphasis on two factors beyond his talents as a salesman, though.

    I would maintain that a good bit of his success at making crazed and cruel policy acceptable, was his ability to disconnect the often vicious ideas he was selling from any concrete reality. It was always morning in America around Reagan, even when he was peddling nightmares. I attribute a good bit of that to the Alzheimers, which was clearly there from the beginning of his presidency. He literally didn’t have to struggle over any discrepency between ideology and humanity, there was no cognitive dissonance, because there was no connection to higher centers of cognition and conscience left. Dubya tried to imitate him, hell, they all try, but Dubya the most obviously, and with the most obvious failure, because Dubya was always too smart and aware, he always let a little sneer sneak in when he was saying something particularly vicious. No one wants the cruelty to be obvious.

    Perhaps more importantly, the more success Reagan had, the more the chattering classes had to pretend there was something real and powerful at work to explain the success. Real and powerful and good, of course, because the idea that the people might vote for evil cannot be allowed, not if your job involves flattering the people that they are wise and benevolent in all things. The people voted for Reagan twice, therefore that alone dictated that he be seen as wise and benevolent. He was president when the Ds lost their dominance of half a century, therefore he must have been epochally wise and benevolent.

    These freaks we have now may have trouble reproducing the cognitive disconnect that allowed Reagan to be such a gosh-darn cheerful destroyer, but they will certainly benefit from the chattering class’s worship of success. The inherent radicalism and personal freakishness of any of the field will instantly become a non-topic of discussion the moment they win the nomination. The winner will become a maverick and a character, not a radical or freak, simply by virtue of succeeding where all the lesser freaks have failed.

    Great actors need a supporting cast, and our media is nothing if not supportive of success. Comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted is their motto.

  104. 104.

    Chris

    December 16, 2011 at 2:26 pm

    @mclaren:

    I’d say the big difference between Reagan and the current crop is that America was, to put it bluntly, a lot whiter back then, and if there’s one thing Reagan knew how to do, it’s pandering to white identity politics. The current crop have to deal with an America where there are far more people for whom that’s a turn-off.

    Reagan had a much easier political landscape to work his brand of politics.

  105. 105.

    Chris

    December 16, 2011 at 2:32 pm

    @Glen Tomkins:

    Dubya tried to imitate him, hell, they all try, but Dubya the most obviously, and with the most obvious failure, because Dubya was always too smart and aware, he always let a little sneer sneak in when he was saying something particularly vicious. No one wants the cruelty to be obvious.

    Really? Maybe I’m not remembering right, but Dubya always gave me exactly that Reaganesque sense of “yeah, I really don’t know what the fuck’s going on at all, I just work here.” Ditto Palin. The sneering viciousness, I see that a lot more in our current crop of candidates, though.

    One other point when it comes to Reagan: the man also had the incredible good fortune to be there when the Soviet Union started to come apart, which enabled him (or the people who built his myth) to claim credit for it, which gave him an incredible popularity boost as The Man Who Won The Cold War. That’s another thing Dubya tried to duplicate, but it ended up backfiring pretty badly.

  106. 106.

    Barry

    December 16, 2011 at 3:07 pm

    @Anoniminous: @Anoniminous: “In the meantime, the attacks on Gingrich have affected Romney’s polling numbers not at all. He’s still got the same 24% national support he’s had since Feb. 2008. It is possible a candidate can have that low support numbers and win their party’s nomination: see McGovern in 1972. Which doesn’t bode well for a Romney candidacy.”

    I subscribe to the ‘continual Number 3’ theory; the others rise and fall, but Mitt’s always there. He can sail through primaries this way, racking up the delegates. Others might win some primaries, but in general Mitt’s losses will be spread among a couple of people, so Mitt will have the plurality of delegates.

    “So, the continuing story of the GOP “slouching towards Nominee” is: the GOP insiders want Romney, the base doesn’t.”

    The base will vote for the GOP nominee, and even more so after a few months of 90-odd% of the right-wing media backing him.

  107. 107.

    Barry

    December 16, 2011 at 3:11 pm

    @El Cid: “@Barry: No, I meant that if people vote in ways in which they seem to want the nation unravel and end, then, by God, let’s find the freakiest, most insanely destructive GOP leaders we can and put ourselves out of our misery instead of limping into the grave more slowly.”

    And my point was that we won’t ‘put ourselves out of our misery’; we’ll just intensify it, and find out that a cleansing Gotterdammerung is myth.

  108. 108.

    Barry

    December 16, 2011 at 3:16 pm

    @Chris: “I’d say the big difference between Reagan and the current crop is that America was, to put it bluntly, a lot whiter back then, and if there’s one thing Reagan knew how to do, it’s pandering to white identity politics. ”

    There was some article pointing out that back in (the 80’s? or earlier), if McCain had won the same share of the white vote, he’d have won, even with 0% of the non-white vote.

  109. 109.

    Chris

    December 16, 2011 at 3:40 pm

    @Barry:

    I believe it.

    A 1980s party competing in a 2010s world. It’s a credit to the Bushies that they saw this coming and tried to adapt, making inroads into the Hispanic vote (not enough to flip it but every little bit helps). The teabaggers nullified all the progress they made and then some.

  110. 110.

    Catsy

    December 16, 2011 at 3:55 pm

    and oh hei, suzanne, Khalid, catsy—didnt i say mormonism would become an issue in Romney’s base, however distasteful it is to you?
    tolejasotolejasotolejaso

    Great bouncing cherry-flavored gummi Christs, what in the fuck are you blathering about?

    Oh, right, I remember now: you seem to think that we disagree that Romney’s Mormonism is likely to affect his electability with the Republican base. I remember now because this is the same idiotic non-response you’ve been blatting out every time you open up on the subject and start jerking off this poor straw man again.

    For example, here, wherein I wrote to you:

    Zandar and others keep pointing out that (for example) mocking Christie’s weight is shitty behavior and that he has more than enough legitimately awful policies and attitudes that can be attacked without resorting to calling him a “fattie”. The same with mocking Romney’s religion.
    ____
    Your consistent response to these arguments has been to “counter” that these attributes make these men unelectable and reassert that it’s not wrong to point that out.
    ____
    You’re missing the point. Entirely. No one—none at all, not in this thread or in any other—is disputing that some voters will be turned off by Christie being overweight or Romney being Mormon. Nor is anyone saying that it’s wrong to point out the fact that some voters will be turned off by this.
    ____
    We are saying that it is wrong to exploit and pander to those prejudices ourselves.

    Or this thread, where among other things I wrote:

    I don’t think anyone’s disputing that there are people prejudiced against Christie for his obesity, or against Romney for being a Mormon. There is room for plenty of speculation and reasonable disagreement about how much of a factor those prejudices might play in a general election, but nobody seriously disputes that those prejudices exist.
    ____
    That is not the same thing as deciding to empower and validate bigotry by pandering to it and using it as a political weapon.

    These are not the only examples either. We have all explained this to you multiple times. At this point a reasonable person really has to assume that you’re either arguing in bad faith or not paying attention to what people say to you beyond figuring out what you’re going to write in response to prove them wrong.

    In any event, you are a lunatic troll and a waste of everyone’s time.

  111. 111.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 5:18 pm

    @Glen Tomkins:

    rests on the assumption that this 8% will actually follow through on not voting for a Mormon even if the alternative is to stand by as the Kenyan Usurper is re-elected.

    that may be.
    But my point is that its worth discussion. Why should Romney be percieved as “more electable” than Gingrich? If the poll is accurate he cannot win the presidency.
    @Catsy: all i am saying is that the Mormon Factor is an issue, as much as the BJ Moral Scold Patrol deplores it.
    If 8% of white voters (and we do acknowledge that the GOP is pretty much all white, dont we?) wont vote for Romney because of anti-mormon sentiment, he cant win.
    Mormonism is a a trait unique to Romney and Huntsman. And anti-mormon sentiment presents a disadvantage in appeal to independent white voters as well. Anti-mormon sentiment is unchanged since the last polling. It seems very resistant to education and familiarization.
    I do not understand why Romney is perceived as more electable than the rest of the field. He has a specific disadvantage with evangelical voters. And WECs make up 50% of the GOP base.
    THey may vote for Romney in the general…..but they may not.

  112. 112.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 5:21 pm

    @Catsy:

    ” We” have all explained this to you multiple times.

    Would that be the royal “we” or the BJ Morality Thought Police “we”?

  113. 113.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 5:24 pm

    @Catsy:

    That is not the same thing as deciding to empower and validate bigotry by pandering to it and using it as a political weapon.

    who is advocating that? im just citing stats and doing simple maffs…..which are apparently sadly beyong your grasp.
    ;)

  114. 114.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    @Barry: the electorate was 90% white in the 70s.
    In 2008 it was 74%.

    there is no chance that white voters will ever again comprise 74 percent of the electorate. Most projections for 2012 suggest that self-identified whites will comprise 70 percent or, at most, 72 percent of those who cast presidential ballots.

    That is why losing 8% of white voters is a significant threat to Willards presidential ambitions.

    Demographics is destiny– Nate Silver

  115. 115.

    Samara Morgan

    December 16, 2011 at 5:35 pm

    @Glen Tomkins:

    Specifically to the case of voting for a Mormon, they can turn to the Biblical treatment of the Samaritans as an example of a people who are categorically wrong theologically, who nevertheless have gotten the morality right.

    they can…..but will they?
    May i recall this to the BJ collective hivemind?

    Prominent evangelical leaders are warning Sen. John McCain against picking former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as his running mate, saying their troops will abandon the Republican ticket on Election Day if that happens.
    __
    They say Mr. Romney lacks trust on issues such as outlawing abortion and opposing same-sex marriage and because he is a Mormon. Opposition is particularly powerful among those who supported former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in the Republican presidential primaries earlier this year.
    __
    “McCain and Romney would be like oil and water,” said evangelical novelist Tim LaHaye, who supported Mr. Huckabee. “We aren’t against Mormonism, but Romney is not a thoroughgoing evangelical and his flip-flopping on issues is understandable in a liberal state like Massachusetts, but our people won’t understand that.”
    __
    The Rev. Rob McCoy, pastor of Calvary Chapel in Thousand Oaks, Calif., who speaks at evangelical events across the country, told The Washington Times, “I will vote for McCain unless he does one thing. You know what that is? If he puts Romney on the ticket as veep.
    __
    “It will alienate the entire evangelical community – 62 million self-professing evangelicals in this country, half of them registered to vote, are going to be deeply saddened,” Mr. McCoy added.

  116. 116.

    El Cid

    December 16, 2011 at 5:54 pm

    @Barry: Oh, in my suggestion, I wasn’t suggesting a cleansing end, just an end, a complete unraveling. It’s the opposite of the ‘worst before better’ myth.

  117. 117.

    Catsy

    December 16, 2011 at 5:55 pm

    @Samara Morgan:

    all i am saying is that the Mormon Factor is an issue, as much as the BJ Moral Scold Patrol deplores it.

    That is not all that you are saying or have said on this, and there is no “BJ Moral Scold Patrol” that deplores any factual analysis of the prejudices of the GOP base.

    Would that be the royal “we” or the BJ Morality Thought Police “we”?

    That would be the “we” as in “every single fucking person whose arguments you persist in misrepresenting over a period of months”.

    who is advocating that?

    You.

    For example, back in this thread, where Cat Lady made a comment about Romney’s “magic underwear”, prompting Wag at #38 to reply:

    Can we, as adults, just agree to stop using the whome “magic underwear” BS. …. Making fun of Morman’s choice of undergarmets is no different than making fun of Muslim women who choose to wear a headscarf.

    Your response to this was:

    STFU about this shit. The Otherside is perfectly willing to rape us, skin us and eat us. If magic underwear is a detriment for voting MORMON lets use it. This isnt debate class in high school.

    Soonergrunt quoted Wag’s comment “for truth”, to which you immediately responded:

    meh. the other side are Reavers. they are going to rape us to death and patch their clothes with our skin…if they can. quit yur PC whining.

    In plain language, your position was that we should exploit the bigotry of the Republican base by attacking Romney’s religion, thereby engaging in that bigotry ourselves. And you described objections to our doing that as “PC whining”.

    And that is neither the first nor the last time. It is simply the easiest to plainly document, the occasion on which your batshit lunacy was most clear.

    Every single time you do this, the “BJ Moral Scold Patrol”–in order words, people who object to your specious bullshit–push back and point out that there is a difference between acknowledging and analyzing the bigotry of the Republican base towards Mormons and to what degree that affects his electability, and encouraging and indulging in that same bigotry ourselves.

    Every single time. As quoted above.

    And every now and then, as today, you pop into a thread to crap out some trimuphalist gibberish like this, trumpeting some poll or another that “proves” that being a Mormon hurts Romney with the GOP base. An assertion that nobody, including me, has ever disagreed with. And despite the fact that we have repeatedly pointed out in every. single. fucking. one. of these threads that you’re arguing a point that nobody disagrees with as if we were putting up some kind of fierce protest against the brain-dead obvious notion that being Mormon will hurt Romney with the fundies.

    But I guess if you get off on dry-humping that straw man so much, have at it. It just makes you look like a complete idiot with very selective memory and reading comprehension.

  118. 118.

    mclaren

    December 16, 2011 at 6:47 pm

    That is why losing 8% of white voters is a significant threat to Willards presidential ambitions.

    You folks are talking as though only 8% of the white voters are rabidly fanatical Christians who believe that voting for a Mormon would send them to hell for all eternity.

    Bear in mind that the stats show that 51% of Americans don’t believe in evolution and instead believe that God created humans in their present form. More than 60% of Americans believe in the literal existence of the devil — yes, a creature with cloven hooves and horns who walks among us (perhaps inhabiting malls next to K-Mart, or, possibly, your local Tast-E-Freeze).

    What American say they will do and what they actually do are two completely different things.

    Given the level of religious frenzy in this benighted country, it’s likely that closer to half of all Republican voters would rather not vote than vote for Romney.

    Where do I get that crazy outlandish wild number from?

    From the documented facts. Let’s take a look at the poll numbers:

    Even many Republicans underestimate the centrality of evangelical voters in the GOP’s nominating process. In 2008, self-identified evangelical Christians constituted 44 percent of all Republican presidential primary voters, according to a cumulative analysis of state exit polls by former ABC polling director Gary Langer. Candidates who rely almost entirely on evangelicals—such as Huckabee, Gary Bauer in 2000, and televangelist Pat Robertson in 1988—have never come close to winning the GOP nomination. But evangelicals are plentiful enough that any candidate whom they deem completely unacceptable faces a formidable obstacle—and not only in the Deep South, where they are most heavily concentrated.

    Evangelical Christians represented a majority of 2008 GOP primary voters in 11 of the 29 states in which exit polls were conducted. In Iowa and South Carolina, two states that along with more-secular New Hampshire have proved decisive in Republican nomination contests since 1980, evangelicals provided exactly 60 percent of the vote. In 10 other states, including many outside the Deep South, evangelicals represented between one-third and 46 percent of the vote.

    Source: “Romney’s evangelical problem,” NationalJournal website, 21 May 2011.

    In a December poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, evangelical Republican voters remain much more opposed to Romney than others in the GOP. Only 10 percent of evangelical Republicans support Romney, whereas nearly three times as many other Republican Christians do. 35 percent of evangelicals say there is “no chance” they would vote for Romney, compared to only 21 percent of other Christians.

    Source: “Evangelicals’ Complicated Relationship With Romney and Gingrich,” Christianity Today website, December 2012.

    From the second poll we discover that 90% of the Christian evangelical Republican primary voters are vehemently opposed to voting for Romney in any way, shape or form, while in the first article we learn that between 50% and 60% and Republican primary voters are Christian evangelicals. Put those two data points together. What’s 90% times 50%? 45%. What’s 90% times 60%? 54%. That’s the percentage of Republican primary voters who say they are opposed to voting for Mitt Romney (or any Mormon).

    Let’s allow the final word to go to the former campaign director of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign, who said in a focus group:

    “A lot of the evangelicals believe God would give us four more years of Obama just for the opportunity to expose the cult of Mormon… There’s a thousand pastors ready to do that.”

    Now you know why Craig Berman resigned from running Newt Gingrich’s campaign just one day after he joined it.

    We’re talking facts and logic here. Bruiting about numbers like “8% of voters” is highly deceptive when in actual documented fact 50% to 60% of Republican primary voters turn out to be Christian evangelicals, and only 10% of them say they can support Romney because the other 90% believe that Mormonism is a satanic cult and voting for a member of a satanic cult is on the level of supporting the antichrist (who, incidentally, Christian evangelical voters actually believe will appear on the national political scene within the next several years).

    There’s an online “Rapture Index” you can look up giving the estimated likeilhood that Jesus Christ will return to earth in the Second Coming and the seas will boil and the Beast with a Thousand Heads will arise and start eating people. From what I know of Christian evangelical primary voters, the big debate right now is not whether to support Gingrich as opposed to Romney, but rather whether Romney is the actual antichrist, or merely a front-man for the antichrist.

    Google the phrase

    Mitt Romney and the “Mormon Plan For America”

    in order to see a Christian minister suggest that Mitt Romney is the antichrist planning a Mormon putsch.

  119. 119.

    Glen Tomkins

    December 16, 2011 at 8:58 pm

    @Samara Morgan: I’m not at all convinced that Romney is more electable than Newt. In fact I think that Newt would be their strongest candidate, at least among the folks now in the field. I just don’t think that, for the general election, the Mormon issue will have any traction, that it’s the reason Romney is less likely to beat Obama than Gingrich.

    The Mormon thing might have some effect on the primary contest, maybe even a big one. Theologically, it is indeed quite a scandal for a fundie to have to vote for a Mormon. In any election in which there is any half-way viable alternative, yes, the Mormon factor would get a whole bunch of these people to rally behind Anyone-but-Mitt. But there would only be a viable alternative in the nomination contest. In the general, voting for the other side, even just staying home and standing by to let the other side win, is simply not acceptable

  120. 120.

    gaz

    December 16, 2011 at 9:04 pm

    @Catsy:

    Oh shit. Watch out!

    Catsy’s gunnin’ for that comment of the year award.

    Is BJ still accepting entries?

  121. 121.

    Glen Tomkins

    December 16, 2011 at 9:10 pm

    @Samara Morgan: They talk big about following their consciences, and the unalterable Will of God, etc., but in the end the politically active R fundies have rallied behind every R presidential candidate by E-Day, no matter what their religion or lack thereof.

    The tough and categorical talk is just their playing chicken to help their position in the nomination fight. “Nominate someone we like or we walk!”. They say it every year during the nomination fight, then vote for whatever godless sinner the party nominates on E-Day. They hate choice more than they hate godless sinners who at least also hate choice.

    And the beauty of fundamentalism is that anything can be justified by their customary highly selective appeal to scripture. They’ll take the analogy to the Good Samaritan because they’ll lap up anything that lets them vote against the people they hate despite the fact that that means they have to vote for someone whose theology they hate.

  122. 122.

    Chris

    December 17, 2011 at 12:52 am

    @Glen Tomkins:

    I lean towards your interpretation.

    Just going off of the fundies I know from when I explored that particular brand of religion… Certainly these guys couldn’t stand Mormons. Just as certainly, that hatred isn’t even in the same ballpark as their hatred for Muslims (which they still believe Obama is or might as well be), their hatred for liberals (Christians included), and their hatred for the other minority groups that support liberals.

    To them, the difference between a Mormon and a black liberal they think is a Muslim is like the difference between cough medicine and a cyanide pill. Whatever they might say now, most of them will vote Romney when push comes to shove. At least that’s my opinion… and if I’m wrong, then I’m wrong, and it’ll suck to be Romney. (I’m sure we’ll all shed a tear…)

  123. 123.

    gaz

    December 17, 2011 at 1:20 am

    @Glen Tomkins:

    They hate choice more than they hate godless sinners

    fuckin hell, but it’s true!

    Nicely done, sir.

    You can haz cheezburger

  124. 124.

    Samara Morgan

    December 17, 2011 at 7:16 am

    @Catsy: shorter catsy– get off our lawn!
    you dont link Kay’s thread where i and others pointed out that people that have experience of mormons dont liek them either….for good reason.

    Zaftig Amazon – August 15, 2011 | 3:08 pm · Link
    __
    All this flaming back and forth about how neighboring states hate Mormons has me amused; I’m compelled to add my $0.02. I grew up in Colorado, and spent several summers working in Utah. Living within Mormon-majority areas was very irritating, because the Mormon church used its organizational muscle to take over local government and other institutions. Becoming a boy scout or girl scout often required attending Mormon religious services. Winners of school student offices were usually decided in Mormon religious classes. A lot of jobs were closed to you if you were a Gentile (non-Mormon), and especially if you were a woman. If you opened a small business, joining the Mormon church was vital, if you wanted your business to succeed. And a large fraction of Mormons felt it was OK to screw over Gentiles as far as the law allowed. The polygamists were a humorous afterthought, until Ervil LeBaron’s crew managed to kill more than 30 people over a 15-year period; some of the victim’s bodies have never been found (Under the Banner of Heaven covers this pretty well). Granted, my experience in this is a couple of decades old, but I am under the impression that Utah has become even more conservative since then, except for Salt Lake City, which has been over 50% Gentile for some time.

    I think “Only 8%” is certainly a reason that Romney might lose, contrary to whoever wrote that Pew headline. Its spin, and its non-empirical… has Pew morphed into Rasmussen?
    I think mormon croniism would be a dreadful thing to have in the federal government. Here in Colorado mormons have taken over whole small town governments.
    AND i fucking think i should be able to POINT THAT OUT on a soi-disant liberal blog without a bunch of old harpy moral police gettin’ up in my grill.

    A lot of people here, front pagers and commenters both, say stuff about conservatives just as bad as my reaver analogy.

  125. 125.

    Samara Morgan

    December 17, 2011 at 7:20 am

    @Glen Tomkins: like i keep sayin’ that might be true. the privacy of the voting booth is like the privacy of the grave, right?
    But Pew cannot say with authoritah that that 8% won’t present a problem for Romney in the general. That is OPINION. OPINION does not belong in statistical analysis.

  126. 126.

    Samara Morgan

    December 17, 2011 at 7:33 am

    @Catsy:

    your position was that we should exploit the bigotry of the Republican base by attacking Romney’s religion, thereby engaging in that bigotry ourselves.

    A lot of people here whine about how liberals are spineless. Im not advocating exploiting the GOP bases anti-mormon sentiment….no need.
    Im just saying being too PC to even discuss how awful a mormon president would be for America is ridikkulous.
    You are taking the position that its bigotted to even talk about it.
    /shrug

    so dont. dont discuss it. dont participate.
    you arent disputing my facts, you are disputing my attitude.
    par for the course here. No one here can argue with logic– its all emo, all the time.
    “we are better than that”
    /sneer
    well im not emo, im scene.
    do you know the difference between emo and scene?
    emos cut themselves– teh scene cut others.

  127. 127.

    Samara Morgan

    December 17, 2011 at 7:50 am

    @Catsy: and there a whole lot of reasons a MORMON president could be very awful for America. But apparently we cant discuss any of them because its “bigotted” to even mention mormoninsm as a factor. we are supposed to be religionblind?
    Because its not PC to talk about crazy religions?
    (cue attack on Islam from the BJ JAFI cohort)

    A bunch of the old harpies here whined about Coles ugly chick at the bar metaphor too.
    Moral scolds.

  128. 128.

    Samara Morgan

    December 17, 2011 at 7:57 am

    @Chris:

    At least that’s my opinion

    and that mormonism wont be a factor in the general is Pew’s OPINION.
    OPINION and statistical analysis do not mix.

  129. 129.

    Samara Morgan

    December 17, 2011 at 8:06 am

    @Glen Tomkins:

    I just don’t think that, for the general election, the Mormon issue will have any traction, that it’s the reason Romney is less likely to beat Obama than Gingrich.

    That is your OPINION. The data is that 8% of republicans which is 8% of white voters say they will not vote for Romney ever. That is a BEEG PROBLEM. The disaffection of 8% of his own base based on his religion.
    And Pew cannot say that their own data is meaningless.
    They didnt ask that question. They could have SPECIFICALLY asked people who would vote against Romney in the primary if they would vote for him in the general.
    They did not ask that question. They asked if the respondents in that subgroup would ever vote for Romney– and half the subgroup said no.
    Losing 8% of the white vote is a non-trivial factor when the GOP needs 65% of the white vote to win.

  130. 130.

    El Cid

    December 17, 2011 at 8:26 am

    I think it’s worthwhile to recall that in discussions of the political effects of Mormonism, there is the matter of one’s individual religious beliefs which people aim to respect; but there is indeed also the institutional and organizational power and role of a particular incorporation: the Mormon church. It’s perfectly legitimate to be extremely concerned about the empowerment of that body.

  131. 131.

    Samara Morgan

    December 17, 2011 at 9:19 am

    @El Cid: Do you think its because mormons do not believe in the separation of church and state?
    Because they dont.
    They believe Jesus wrote the constitution.

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