Sometimes I get emails that are so spot-on I ask if I can just publish them, and I did, so here you go:
I have been saying for years that no way, no how will the American South line up behind Romney, for the simple reason that he’s a Mormon.
I don’t understand why this hasn’t gotten its due in the media. But for generations, evangelical Christians have been told from the pulpit that Mormons are cult members. Just like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Heaven’s Gate and Moonies. They’re not subtle about it either. There’s always that one Sunday a year when they have the special Sunday School lesson about the crazy stuff all that those “other” religions believe, and Mormons are always always included with the craziest of the crazies. This isn’t something voters might be willing to say to pollsters, but they ALL think it. Mormons are cult members. It’s as ingrained in evangelical / Southern Baptist dogma as the hostility toward gays. But you wouldn’t know this from listening to Chuck Todd’s analysis. In spite of his other flaws as a candidate, I honestly think if Mitt wasn’t wearing magic underwear, he’d have had this thing locked up from the get go.
I think that’s why (in addition to all the racist stuff about food stamps) we saw South Carolinians lining up behind an ethically challenged, admitted man whore like Newt — because as bad as he is, at least they know he’s not a goddamn cult member. I have seen this coming for years.
Also – am I the only person who dreads a possible Newt v. Obama general? As crazy as Newt is, I think it’s pretty clear that we can’t count on the media to correct or debunk a damn thing he says. “IS Obama a European soshulist radical who wants everyone dependent on Food Stamps? That’s the focus of this morning’s Meet The Press…”
Also, too — I want to rip my dick off every time I hear anyone say that Newt is a “brilliant” or “good” debater. He’s just a brazen sociopath who occasionally talks in complete sentences. The shit he says in debates is “brilliant” in the same sense than going down to the Dairy Mart with a ski mask and a Glock 9 is a “brilliant” way to make 600 bucks.
I know DougJ loves the Newt candidacy, but I’m with this emailer.
JCT
THIS
The only thing that partially mitigates my worry about a Newt candidacy is his standing/”approval” among women and people of color.
But he has clearly shown that he will say fucking ANYTHING out loud and in public to get elected. The guy has no obvious filter or taboos and if the idiot media just goes along with it we may be in trouble.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
But isn’t Newt a Catholic?
cathyx
Hey! I’ve been saying since the beginning that the republicans will never elect a Mormon.
beltane
Today brings another charming example of Conservative Values: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/23/1057640/-Conservative-Hater(s)-kill-family-pet-of-Democratic-campaign-manager?via=siderecent
For those of you who don’t want to click the link, the pet cat of a Democratic campaign manager in AR was killed and “Liberal” written on its corpse. A few bad apples, I’m sure, and yet what it the Republican base but a few million bad apples strewn across the country. The stench of all these bad apples is becoming nauseating.
Svensker
Yes. I was fine with Newt — until the Repub women in SC went for him and suddenly the momentum is shifting. The Repubs are enthusiastic about him, you can just feel it. When I listened to his winning speech and then heard his very nice, normal sounding, articulate daughters speak, I got a big, deep pit in my stomach.
gogol's wife
The Dairy Mart metaphor is really apt.
But doesn’t M_C get any credit here?
Gust Avrakotos
File this under ‘Duh’!
Along with water is wet yada yada.
Good last paragraph though. More of that please. We already know the rest of the stuff you BJ lemmings are masturbabing over.
Gust Avrakotos
File this under ‘Duh’!
Along with water is wet yada yada.
Good last paragraph though. More of that please. We already know the rest of the stuff you BJ lemmings are masturbating over endlessly.
Paul in KY
I grew up Methodist. Pretty moderate version. We had lessons in Sunday School (I was about 14) where Mormonism was presented as a cult and as not being Christian.
As for Newt, I look forward to our slim, cool, sharp President hilighting the contrasts between his vision & the fat toad’s vision.
schrodinger's cat
I agree, Newt is scary. If he becomes the President, the damage he does will make the Bush Presidency look like a walk in the park.
EconWatcher
You realize, of course, that this thread is toko loco bait.
beltane
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: He’s Catholic at the moment but that is always subject to change. Newt would convert to Islam in a heartbeat if he saw it as the most promising path to power.
surlygurl
Wow, I could not agree with this e-mailer more. But don’t tell that to Joe Scarborough! Just this morning, he was extolling how in his deep evangelical upbringing, they always considered the Mormons to be on “their side” in the social issues department. And NEVER a bad word was said EVER about Mormons. But I wasn’t buying it…and it’s only because of Mitt’s religion that he isn’t the obvious and inevitable Republican nominee.
EconWatcher
@gogol’s wife:
I see you got to it first. M-C looks likely to be proben right.
Litlebritdifrnt
OT – but did you guys see this
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/chris-christie-bruce-harris-supreme-court_n_1223888.html
Chris Christie appoints openly gay African American to Court.
Man them there RWNJs are going to lose their crush on him real quick and in a hurry if he keeps this up.
Shinobi
It’s true, I seriously doubt that most of the religious folks in this country will vote for a Mormon. Fortunately I would never agree with a Mormon on enough things for this to become an issue for me.
Betty Cracker
I think the emailer is right about Southern evangelicals and Mormons. I was raised in the Southern Baptist church, and we were certainly told they were cultists (though Catholics also got tarred as idol worshipers).
As to the second point, I think under normal circumstances — even given the bleak economy, etc., Obama would win against Newt in a landslide, whereas an Obama-Romney race would be unnervingly close. But as a friend of mine once said, this country is always one national trauma away from full-blown psychosis.
So yeah, in a way, I’d rather have a 49% chance Romney would win than a 10% chance Gingrich would. Romney is a conviction-free liar who would damage the US, but Newt is even scarier.
Gust Avrakotos
I see IT Guy Cole has broken the site again. No edit links, theme randomly disabling, and he STILL hasn’t fixed embedded image links spanning the width of the page….lol.
Give me 2 hours and I could probably fix most of it……but I have better things to do.
kdaug
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Is now. I think Calista converted him.
stratplayer
I don’t think Newt has the self-discipline to sufficiently moderate his rhetoric to gain any real traction in the general outside of the reddest Deep South states. I simply cannot see his brand of fever-pitched, Manichean hysteria taking majorities in any of the crucial swing states. Even in defeat, however, Gingrich will no doubt succeed in injecting even more poison into American politics that will take years to purge.
Villago Delenda Est
In defense (ooh, this pains me like you would not believe) of Chuck Toad, he and other MSM spokesmodel types probably simply do not grok all that Southern Baptist sermon stuff, and it doesn’t enter his head to take that into account, because it is a totally alien culture to Ivy League/Near Ivy League educated types like him. Ever since 1960, religion isn’t supposed to be that important. Heck, Ronald Reagan got away with never going to church (for ‘security reasons’, snicker) with the Jeebus bothered, but Bill Clinton never got credit for going to church, either.
It just is off their radar, they can’t imagine people being that upset with Romney’s choice of religion, so they don’t bother to mention it.
But, along with Rusty, why aren’t they objecting to Noot? After all, he LEFT good old Protestantism for the whore of Rome, apparently because his mistress who became wife #3 insisted, which basically doubles down on the whoredom aspect.
Then I remember they’re not consistent in their various bigotries, and just shake my head and regret there’s no efficient way to remove them from public life that doesn’t involve totally compromising every ethical principle I imagine I support.
Linda Featheringill
@gogol’s wife:
She should.
Mike Goetz
Newt is formidable amongst Republicans, sure, but let’s not rip our dicks off just yet. He has a 25% or so favorability rating overall and there will be no need whatsoever for the media to debunk or correct his logorrhea. Obama will take care of that. I have no fear or dread of Newt whatever.
Zifnab
Meh. Newt is a bomb-thrower. He’s got disapproval ratings hovering in the 50-60% range. The man has a short temper, few Washington political allies, and will self-destruct on a moment’s notice. He also has no campaign apparatus – just legions of GOP voters that hate him the least.
That’s why he’s so fun to watch. He’s a fat, lazy, hateful, egocentric, womanizing slob. It’s like the GOP is getting ready to run Limbaugh for President. And I can’t imagine a better standard bearer for the party.
Brian R.
Sorry, but the Mormon issue is overblown.
Sure, as the emailer notes, this is going to be a big issue with evangelicals, but not that big. Evangelicals made up a huge chunk of the Iowa voting pool, you know, and Mittens did all right there. Sure, it hurt him in SC and will likely hurt again in Florida.
But then what? Mormonism is going to be a strength for Mitt in some of the very next primary states (Nevada, Colorado), or neutralized by close familiarity with the Romney name (Michigan).
What other big southern contests are out there? Georgia is Gingrich’s home turf, so it would be his anyway. Meanwhile, Newt’s not even on the ballot in Virginia, where the governor has embraced Mitt.
Being a Mormon will hurt Mitt a bit in the South, but that won’t matter. He’ll still get the nomination, and when it comes down to the general election, the people who think he belongs to a cult are the same ones who think Obama is a Kenyan Muslim sleeper agent, and they’ll vote for the lesser of two evils.
Tony J
Well, because –
Is true. But talking about the problem would turn a big old spotlight on the insanity at the core of the modern Republican Party now that a Mormon is still (sort of, in that Money + Establishment backing + math > Wingnut support for a candidate that isn’t even on the ballot in some upandcoming Primary states) the front-runner to capture the GOP’s nomination before the Convention.
How would reporting on the crazy running through the GOP’s core electorate, and one of the major reasons behind their dislike of Romney, help the Media present the Election as a genuine horserace?
Plus, they’d get shouted at from the Right.
chopper
@gogol’s wife:
was toko-loko the first person to bring up romney’s Mormon problem?
nancydarling
I’m with you Cole. If there is a European financial melt-down or another terrorist attack, the American electorate could lose its collective shit and elect a Repub. If that were to happen, I would much rather see Mitt as president because at least he’s not totally insane.
If we keep lurching along like we have been so far, Obama can beat either one of them in the general.
Mike Goetz
@Zifnab:
“He’s a fat, lazy, hateful, egocentric, womanizing slob.”
What are his bad points, though?
Southern Beale
Your modern pro-life party.
Lock up the family pets, Democratic candidates. This is intimidation, no question about it. DOJ should get involved, IMHO.
Liberals who dare to run for office in a conservative district shouldn’t have to worry about this shit.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: If the other flavors of Christianity are so demonized. What do they say about Jewish people, Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims then?
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@schrodinger’s cat:
The damage his nomination would do is bad enough. Just imagine the patent absurdities that would be accepted at face value and become conventional wisdom thanks to the fluffery that’d surround Newt. It’ll happen the same with Romney, but Newt’s brand of mendacious fuckery would be another level.
As it’s been said, Newt is “a stupid person of what a smart person sounds like”. Unfortunately, we’ve been fed such anti-intellectualism to the point of ingraining it on the national psyche that this is probably a massive advantage.
Schlemizel
Its nice to see I am not the only one who sees the major pitfall with an Obama v. Salamander match up.
I think the possibility of a Gingrich Presidency is greater than a Romney one & that scares the crap out of me.
Who would have thought a draft-dodging, know-nothing, do-nothing wasteral from Connecticut could beat a decent, hard working American like Al Gore?
Special Patrol Group
Even though I seen this at Sully’s house of wank, I do wonder what would be the result of a Romney vs. a Gingrich loss to Obama in November. If the latter, would the GOP pull back to the center and become slightly less bugfuck insane? If the former, will they lurch even further to the right?
Or will they just keep heading right, dragging David Broder’s still relevant corpse behind then?
Either way, the outlandishly desperate Mittens v. 2.1: Attack Doggie at tonight’s debate should bring new levels of unintentional comedy to our great nation. Can’t wait.
Villago Delenda Est
The thing is, from a day to day life standpoint, leaving out all the theological baggage, Mormons are not that far from Southern Baptists in how they live their lives. They’re very strong on family units, they’re ridiculously clean cut and polite, they’re very much against pre-marital sex and aggressive hand holding. Not sure if they’re as militant about dancing, but wouldn’t shock me if they were. They’re huge into prosperity gospel sorts of attitudes. They are most definitely NOT DFH types, out to corrupt our youth with sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, unless you consider the Osmonds to be in the same ballpark as Aerosmith.
schrodinger's cat
@nancydarling:
I don’t know why this is taken as a given. If there is financial meltdown in Europe, voters may actually prefer having someone who is calm at the realm, rather than a hyper-excitable man-child. They did in 2008.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I’m torn. Newt is frightening because so many of those bitter and insecure assholes want somebody mean to knock the President down a peg. Never mind that it ain’t gonna happen – that’s their fantasy that Newt fulfills.
And part of me is with DougJ in believing that there are too many people who are simply repulsed by Newt for him to be anything other than toxic to the entire GOP ticket outside of South Carolina. I’d just as soon not find out. I’ll take my chances against the magic underwear, than you very much.
trollhattan
Now that the emm ess emm is even stomping around Mexico talking to the Mexico Romneys I suppose the Mormon thing is coming more to the fore. Do I understand correctly that Mormons don’t believe other Christian faiths “qualify” for their version of heaven, so at least there’s some form of quid pro quo at work here versus the various churches?
I think Mitt’s problems are 80/20 Mitt/Mormonism. Mitt is far and away his own worst enemy, and the Mormon thing is icing on the turd.
Brian R.
If you’re even remotely worried about Gingrich winning the presidency, just take a look at this chart and relax.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
smintheus
@kdaug: But the point stands. The fact that wingnuts are fleeing Romney into the arms of a Catholic shows that what they object to isn’t merely or primarily his religion. But the flirtation with Santorum points to the same thing. Newt is more successful because he’s better at pulling the nutters’ levers over resentments and faux repression, and because they think he’s the smahht one who can tie Obama into knots in debate. They’re tired of having the candidate who’s plainly stupider than the Democrat.
As for Newt, his nomination would be terrible for the country though I suspect that Axelrod thinks the bomb-thrower would be good for Obama.
Jennifer
Eh, I gotta disagree, because the numbers don’t support the premise. I mean, no doubt there’s a lot of anti-Mormon sentiment in SC, but turnout there was almost 35% higher this year than in 2008, and Romney got 100,000 votes more than he got there in 2008. You don’t get higher turnouts without energizing the troops and “Romney belongs to a cult” would not, I think, motivate them to come out in such high numbers. It’s much more plausible that it was Newt’s race-baiting rhetoric that energized the turnout – though Romney added 100,000 votes over his 2008 showing, Newt bested him by 70,000 and both of them got more votes than John McCain got in 2008. I don’t think the anti-Mormon bias theory explains either the higher turnout or Romney more than doubling his 2008 vote total.
My theory is much simpler: voters in the SC primary were less concerned with who could win a race against the president than they were with seeing someone call him a ni**er to his face, and Newt did a good job convincing them that he was the only guy who would do that.
28 Percent
The Tea Partier I lunch with has said that he can’t see voting for either Newt or Romney and (this is what blew me away) “Obama hasn’t turned out to be as liberal as I thought he was going to be.”
Also, too, when it comes to the Media + Newt 4 EVA problem, I just don’t see the problem. The man is not what you’d call a “relationship builder” or a “people person,” to a degree that it would take one hell of a caterer to make up for it, and Newt’s from the wrong state for top notch barbeque. Two weeks on the bus and everybody covering him will be making fun of his history professor schtick and submitting stories that would make MoDo’s stuff seem dull-clawed.
schrodinger's cat
@schrodinger’s cat: Typo in my comment, should read helm not realm.
Damn you, edit function. Tunch plz give it back.
techno
Mitt’s other BIG problem that is not being covered by the media is that he is a real-life Gordon Gekko. Virtually every person in this country was SERIOUSLY damaged by the corporate raiders in the past 25 years.
I don’t make political predictions as a rule but the idea that a Mormon Gordon Gekko is going to be elected to anything in this country just does not compute.
MikeBoyScout
Willard was always going to have his “Mormon” problem in the southeast.
Gnoot is making the most of his opportunity.
The RomneyBot 3.x may well be glitchy enough that he collapses entirely before he gets to better more solid ground, but I doubt it.
No, the MSM will not cover Gnoot honestly if he somehow becomes the nominee, but they’ll smooch Willard’s ass too.
Gnoot, however, is well known and the electorate won’t need as much MSM hand holding.
Look, for Democrats there’s never been a better time for buttered popcorn. Sit back and enjoy the laughs. It’s all good.
El Cid
Even when I’m feeling that Newt Gingrich would be such a terribly repulsive candidate (he’s just a fucking jerk with laughable grandiosity eruption issues) that he might lead to a truly historic ass-whooopin’ — and I don’t always feel that way — I never like the idea of a Presidential campaign which even more strongly stirs up the meanest, most populist right-wing elements.
It’s not good for even our weak levels of democracy anyway.
On Romney and Mormonism and the voting of various Christianists, I don’t have a personal feel or a handy grasp of strong data on whether or not their view of Mormonism as evil cult would outweigh their voting behavior than ridding America of the Kenyonesian Stalinist Alinsky anti-Christian black black black oppressor who thinks he’s so fancy and smart and whose wife is angry and has a big ass and wants to take all our kids’ hamburger and pizza away and institute Sha-Na-Na law.
FlipYrWhig
IMHO the whole Mormon thing is way oversold. Mitt Romney’s problems have everything to do with the fact that he is slippery and unlikeable, and he’d be slippery and unlikeable as a Baptist or Methodist too. The Gingrich boomlet is all about belligerence
wasabi gasp
Don’t go rippin’ your dick off, but at least get a grip.
flukebucket
There is no doubt about it that South Carolina (and eventually Georgia) will vote for Newt because he is the one and only one in their minds that can put that ni$$er in his place. And they would not care if he was Mormon, Muslim or Atheist. The Boy has forgotten his place and needs to be reminded along with the rest of the country about where that place is. And this has nothing to do with racism. They all have PLENTY of black friends!
Culture of Truth
Sure, I’m dreading media coverage of the campaign, and Newt on my tv in general. But as much as the media like to mock Romney, I think they’d give him more of a pass on the “Eurosocialist!1!” stuff than Newt, because they think Mitt is basically a decent person and competent businessman who is a bad campaigner, while they see Newt as an arrogant, grandiose, semi-delusional braggart who is also a hypocrite and a maybe a racist too. They will either subtly destroy him or treat him with kid gloves in which case Newt will destroy himself. I hope.
trollhattan
@28 Percent:
Whoa, how long did it take to pull yourself back into the chair? Do you imagine they might actually vote for Obama or simply stay home?
Schlemizel
@Paul in KY:
I grew up Methodist also but never heard any of this. Despite being fairly conservative my church was very accepting (heck the Rev that confirmed me marched w/ Dr. King in Montgomery).
But later, when I thought it would be good for my kids to be ‘churched’ (see Hienliens comments about when in Rome) I ran into several guys my age that were pretty vehement about that religion.
I’m old enough to remember the days when one of the “Ks” in KKK stood for “Kat-o-licks” but I guess with the agreement about ownership of the uterus the papist are not tolerable to them.
beltane
@Villago Delenda Est: Southern Baptists and evangelicals in general are NOT ridiculously clean-cut, polite, etc. Teen pregnancy, adultery, divorce, sexual promiscuity and substance abuse are rife in evangelical communities. Sometimes I think that evangelicals are in the business of amassing personal sins and that their brazen hypocrisy is just the icing on the cake for them.
I’m not a big fan of the LDS, but the Mormons I know are all much nicer, more decent people than their “Christian” counterparts, who tend to be scumbags of the highest order. Amanda Marcotte once speculated that the contrast in the way Mormons and evangelicals actually live contributes to the latter’s hatred of the former because it shows them up as being the frauds they are.
Doc Sportello
Bring on the Over-Inflated Amphibian; he won’t be getting any independent votes.
Take a look at the Favorability Ratings at TPM. Romney’s at -5.6%, Santorum is at a -7.9%, Ron Paul is at -12.9%, and Gingrich is at -32.9%. The only candidate who faired worse is Perry, at 34.7%.
Gingrich has a real skill at stirring up the lizard brain of the GOP, but the rest of America finds him (appropriately) loathesome.
bemused
I never underestimate the propensity of republican voters to dump their “rock solid principles” and choose anyone with an R after their name, no matter how odious to them over a Democrat, particularly a non-white Dem.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jennifer:
This.
In support of the theory, we’ve got the woman who thanked Noot for putting Wan Williams in his place. In those exact words.
They pine for someone to call Obama an ni*CLANG* on national television. They can taste it.
Yevgraf
Up until the day he died, my dyed-in-the-wool Southern Baptist grandfather despised Mormons. He probably had less nice to say about Mormons than he did Catholics, Jews or blacks (in that weird Southern way, black folks he knew, he liked – it was the amorphous “whole” that he despised).
Apparently, in the late teens and early 20s, Mormons went recruiting all over the South. My great-grandfather was lazier than shit, and went for it due to some notion of loans and church help for members. Of course, we’re talking about a sharecropper who had 12 kids just so he could have them scratch out some free farm work for him.
Anyway, my grandfather saw the whole exercise as dishonest, and felt like the LDS folks were facilitating it.
PeakVT
Unless there is a non-fringe third-party candidate, I don’t think there will be mass defections by southern Evangelicals if Romney is the nominee. But most of those states are so red that losing a few percent won’t make any difference. The question is what effect, if any, Romney’s religion will have in Midwestern swing states like Ohio.
FlipYrWhig
They want someone who’ll kick some ass. Romney doesn’t provide that thrill. We went through this in ’04 with Dean. We wanted someone who was as pissed off as we were. That’s where they are right now. Mormonism has fuckall to do with it. YMMV.
Dee Loralei
Remember how bad those rallies were when Sarah Pallin roiled the base?And John McCain would have to step in to calm things down? Newt at the top of the ticket would make those rallies seem like an ice cream social. Newt’s rallies would be on par with Nuremberg. And yea, I did it, and yea, I mean it. Sic Godwin on me.
Newt would poison the body politic so much that we’d be lucky if there were only a few face stomps performed on a few liberals or Obama supporters. The country can’t handle that much toxicity, not now. We can’t handle an escalation of the cold war between the two factions right now. Not with the economy still in the shitter for so many. Not with so many African Americans, Hispanics, women and gays still battered and bruised from the last 3 years. The fire starter is already spread, the kindling is laid, Newt would be the spark. I don’t want to experience that sort of campaign. I know that is why Newt has so many Republican supporters, because they do want it. And I know even with Romney at the top of the ticket, much flame fanning will occur, I just don’t think it will be as incendiary as it would be with Newt.
And I do not especially want to contemplate a world in which Newt Fucking Gingrich has a non zero chance of becoming President.
nancydarling
This is probably going to hit the national news tomorrow, so I’m going to go ahead and post it here. Someone killed Ken Aden’s campaign manager’s cat, wrote “liberal” on the body and left it on his front porch. A disturbing picture of the cat is in the story.
http://bluearkansasblog.com/?p=8417
Ken Aden is running for the Dem nomination in Arkansas’ 3rd congressional district. He’s got an uphill battle as this is red NW Arkansas and there is big money against him. He’s a good guy and I will be involved in his campaign.
trollhattan
@El Cid:
The contrast between Noot and Obama would be stark, indeed. GWB could get a certain number of (unthinking) votes simply because he was a brush-cuttin’ bicycle-ridin’ healthy dude. I’ll wager enough votes to have carried him in 2000.
Contrasting Obama versus Noot would be like comparing a greyhound to a jellyfish–hardly seems fair. At least Mittens can land 737s on his shoulders.
BDeevDad
@FlipYrWhig: I’m with you. The Republicans want someone who is going to attack, attack, attack. They think that John McCain was too nice to Obama in 2008 and that’s the only reason he lost.
boss bitch
They are currently doing the same with Mitt Romney’s lies. There is a truck full of lies Mitt has told that the MSM has failed to address.
Schlemizel
@Schlemizel:
make that NOW tolerable to them
graves007
All of them are cult members. Mormons wear funny underwear and worship a convicted fraudster, while Catholics go to church and pretend grape juice is blood and a cracker is ‘the body’. It’s all the same mythical tripe.
Villago Delenda Est
@El Cid:
Harmony.
The musical styling of Satan himself.
Citizen Alan
It’s not surprising that Shiite Baptists would favor a Catholic over a Mormon, especially when there’s no other option on the table. From the perspective of an anti-Catholic bigot, Catholicism is still superior to Mormonism because anti-Catholic bigots view the Protestant Reformation as the moment when the flaws of the previously existing Catholic Church were purged to make something closer to what Christ wanted, but they still acknowledge that the Catholic Church was THE Church for centuries before that. Mormonism, OTOH, came out of nowhere less than two hundred years ago, and it’s vision of Jesus Christ is so at odds with what mainstream Christians of every denomination (Catholic and Protestant) believe that He might as well be a space alien from Planet Xenu. I remain convinced that if Romney is the GOP nominee that Obama can win in Mississippi.
beltane
@FlipYrWhig: You may be right. If Glenn Beck were running, I’m sure the wingnuts would flock to him in droves despite his Mormonism. The Republican base is clamoring for a nominee who isn’t housebroken and they just don’t trust Mitt to take a dump on the floor they way Gingrich will.
Brachiator
A lot of the south is not evangelical. Come back and talk to me after the Florida primary, and a few others.
I fear no Republican.
People keep throwing around the word sociopath as though it’s applicable. It ain’t.
And Newt can be a brilliant debater. You can see the skills he honed as Speaker. In fact, he is as slick as Clinton (is there something in the Southern water?). He reminds me of a rhetorical Joe Frazier. He is mean and nasty, and never backs down. But like Clinton at his rare worst, he can be undone by letting him run on and trip himself up on his own supposed brilliance.
@nancydarling:
Americans don’t care about Europe’s financial mess, unless it bites them in the pocket book, directly and immediately. And a terrorist attack would more easily give advantage to the president, who would have to deal with it. The GOP challenger could only second guess whatever decisions were being made.
MidlyAmusedRainbowPerson
If Gingrich gets the nomination, we should get down on our knees and give thanks to the gods. All of them. Gingrich has 100% name recognition and favorability ratings of MINUS 32. Polls show him losing Texas to Obama. This is the clearest, best option for us. If you can’t see this, you ought to shack up with matoko-chan and spend your days randomly word-salading at each other.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
The difference between losing to Mitt Romney and losing to Newt Gingrich is simple. If Obama loses to Romney it means that there was a lot more that Obama and his supporters could have done. If Obama loses to Gingrich there is nothing more Obama and his supporters could have done.
If the “independents” are willing to vote for a sleazebag like Gingrich than no amount of reason would have talked them off that ledge.
The single most important quality a Republican candidate has to their electorate is their ability and willingness to go nuclear. The Republican base has heard Romney’s version of “nuclear” and it just doesn’t convince them. Newt’s version of “nuclear” is like music to their racist little ears.
The Republicans want someone who they think can put Obama in his place and Gingrich is the nastiest Republican there is.
WaterGirl
@nancydarling: Maybe I’m crazy, but I think if something bad happens people will choose Obama over someone else. Except for the 27%, when things are scary, people tend to stick with what they know.
Maus
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: The enemy of my enemy…
I love how Newt is the Tea Party, non-establishment, fiscally conservative, Family Values candidate. It’s beautiful.
wrb
@Dee Loralei:
this
Roger Moore
@Brian R.:
If you think Mormonism is going to be a strength in Colorado, I have a friend in Nigeria who would like to discuss a business proposition. There are enough Mormons in Colorado to really piss off the Fundangelicals, but not enough to form a really strong base for Romney. I don’t see Colorado as an obvious win for Romney.
Amir Khalid
I don’t know if m_c deserves credit for noting this. As far as I know, no one here seriously doubted that evangelical Christians were prejudiced against Mitt. Or that he’d lose primaries in states where they predominate. The question was (and is), will enough of them express that prejudice to deny him the nomination?
Now, the Republican base has been wildly irrational and fickle this cycle. Also, there are other things that put people off picking Mitt: he deserts his convictions when challenged, blinks first in a confrontation, and doesn’t exactly radiate sincerity. Plus, if the reports are true, Noot’s gaining on Mitt because right now he seems better able to fight Obama hard, and more willing to fight him dirty.
It’s hard enough to pick out the effect on Mitt’s chances of a prejudice people aren’t willing to cop to. It’s harder yet when there are other reasons for going with someone else.
Bobby C
You wouldn’t know that Southern Babtists/evangelicals are anti-Mormon if you heard Joe Scorbourgh this morning on Morning Joe. He said that in his up bringing as a Southern Babtist the Mormons were treated as brothers. They loved their Mormon brothers and sisters. Either he is lying or he wasn’t paying any attention to what was being said in church.
Villago Delenda Est
@Citizen Alan:
Mormonism: the Scientology of the 19th Century.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
If Gingrich gets the nomination, we should get down on our knees and give thanks to the gods. All of them. Gingrich has 100% name recognition and favorability ratings of MINUS 32. Polls show him losing Texas to Obama. This is the clearest, best option for us. If you can’t see this, you ought to shack up with matoko-chan and spend your days randomly word-salading at each other.
Emma Anne
I don’t know. Maybe it is time to lance this boil. Show people what they are choosing when they empower Republicans. Keep handing the low information voter reasonable-looking Republicans like W and McCain and Mitt, and you allow them to ignore reality. Then they vote R’s in at the next midterm.
It wouldn’t be pretty or pleasant, but maybe it is necessary.
Catsy
@gogol’s wife:
No, because contrary to common belief her schtick isn’t just that Romney’s Mormonism makes him unelectable–it’s that liberals should be unafraid to exploit the bigotry of Republican voters by saying bigoted things about his religion. I can link to a number of different comments where she’s made this quite explicit.
I don’t like the LDS religion any more than I like most other magic-sky-person religions, but I draw the line at validating and exploiting bigotry by engaging in it ourselves.
The only thing M_C deserves credit for is being a relentless and tiresome one-note troll.
Okay, maybe two-note if you count the way she gets moist over Assange.
The Moar You Know
m_c’s been saying this for weeks now, and she’s been right about it for weeks now. It’s not really an issue outside of the South, but the GOP can’t even get the car in gear without the South.
Gonna be a fun next few months as the JesusCons and the big money boys see just how much blood can be spilled.
El Cid
@Brachiator:
It’s always good to clarify, but I think most people mentioning this possibility are assuming (correctly or incorrectly) that there would be a noticeable objective effect felt here and that that’s what would be a significant voting motivation, and not voters’ theoretical views on European economic developments.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@Catsy:
Cudlip!
Ahem. Sorry. BJ is taking an eternity to load/process comments and I am so annoyed I almost reverted to Tebowism as expounded by the Prophet Samara.
Amir Khalid
@gogol’s wife:
I don’t know if m_c deserves credit for noting this. As far as I know, no one here seriously doubted that evangelical Christians were prejudiced against Mitt. Or that he’d lose primaries in states where they predominate. The question was (and is), will enough of them express that prejudice to deny him the nomination?
Now, the Republican base has been wildly irrational and fickle this cycle. Also, there are other things that put people off picking Mitt: he deserts his convictions when challenged, blinks first in a confrontation, and doesn’t exactly radiate sincerity. Plus, if the reports are true, Noot’s gaining on Mitt because right now he seems better able to fight Obama hard, and more willing to fight him dirty.
It’s hard enough to pick out the effect on Mitt’s chances of a prejudice people aren’t willing to cop to. It’s harder yet when there are other reasons for going with someone else.
Hungry Joe
The GOP could go with a Sandusky/Gacy ticket and still have 42% of the votes in the bag. Then the economy goes (further) south, Obama sneezes or something during a debate, and the next thing you know Sandusky is bringing Youth League Football to the South Lawn. Sorry, but the prospect of Gringrich getting the nomination is just too damn scary. With Romney as president, yeah, we’d be screwed, but not SCREWED.
chowkster
2 things –
1. Newt is a Papist and
2. Take a look at this link from TMP: h
dww44
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: Am currently reading “In the Garden of Beasts” about an American family’s foray, via our country’s ambassordorship, into early Nazi Germany in 1933. Scary similar stuff filled with examples of how supposedly sane,educated, and well-traveled Germans bought into Hitler and the Nazis and accorded them the legitimacy that the movement needed to become the evil entity that we remember.
“All that evil needs is for good men to do nothing…… Well, this is what is happening to the GOP and, honestly, as bad as Romney is on many fronts, the nomination of Gingrich would surely cement the party’s embrace of evil. And, don’t overlook Gingrich’s ability to tamp down the idiocy after his nomination, and make a real go of the race in the general. I am genuinely not sure that the GOP establishment has any ability to put a stopper on his candidacy. It is frightening from a number of angles.
And, then, remember on the first day of his Presidency, Newt would rescind,via executive order, every single regulation to protect the people that’s on the books. He would also ignore all the Supreme Court rulings with which he disagrees. He’d also probably drop a bomb on Iran within the first week. There is no moderation with Mr. Gingrich.
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: That they’re all going to Hell too.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat:
That they belong to the devil and are going to roast in hell for all eternity. Well, except Jews: They’ll get a special last-minute conversion chance, but if they turn it down, it’s lake o’ fire time.
wrb
@WaterGirl:
Depends on the type of bad, I think.
Dramatic bad, I suspect Obama does well.
Unemployment and foreclosures increasing month by month for reasons about which people disagree and for which “some say” Obama is at fault (even if the real reason is in Europe) could spell trouble.
It is amazing that he’s polling about even with Romney with people hurting as badly as they are. If the economy changes from slow improvement to decline many people will vote for a change of course.
RalfW
If Newt is the GOP candidate and Europe hits major default and the global economy sucks shit, I can see a massively bellicose demagogue like Newt gaining the electoral upper hand.
In which case the American experiment (not the think tank, the whole damn 50 states) goes out in a blaze of ignominy sometime not long after January 2013.
Alex
With Newt, there’s a chance that the media can point out that he’s insane. With Romney, they’re just letting his insanity slide. After all, everyone knows that in his heart of hearts he doesn’t believe anything he says and just wants to be elected President.
El Cid
@Emma Anne: I view it this way: it’s really dangerous to assume that some particular venomous nasty right wing populist campaign would fail and thus severely damage that movement or party, but I do think it’s a possible outcome.
So if it did end up being a Newt candidacy and as nasty and brutish and class war authoritarian populist as it might very well be, in this case I think we could come out of it all better off.
I’m just not comfortable enough assuming that would be the outcome.
But there certainly is part of me that knows that there would be at least some honesty in letting these fuckers finally throw these cards directly on the table rather than showing them off to their friends all the time while the dealer pretends to not see.
RalfW
OT, @erikkain is twittering about Citizens United.
He’s nattering that CU is so far more a problem for Republicans than for democracy (more or less).
I twiddled a bit and he’s saying CU and Super PACs are different issues.
I’m not in-the-loop enough on campaign finance to know if he’s right or wrong. Anyone?
Exurban Mom
@Gust Avrakotos: I fixed the “embedded links go the distance of the page” problem by changing browsers. Firefox fixed it for me. IE was part of the problem for me, I think.
Chris
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
I’m a Catholic who used to hang out in fundie-heavy environments back in the day and here’s two things you can take from me out of personal experience. One, being a Catholic is not okay, like, at all, in any way shape or form. Two, it’s also not even in the same ballpark as being a Mormon. They fucking hate these guys.
Not saying it’s what’ll ultimately determine their vote, but yeah, there is a difference as far as they’re concerned.
Kane
In his stump speeches, Newt often reminds voters of his age and that he is a grandfather. I think he does this in part to imply that he is a loyal family man now and the he is out of action and no longer capable of sexual escapades. But men like Newt seldom believe that they have lost their prowess with the ladies, especially in the age of Viagra.
It may be nothing or it might be something, but watch the video clips of Newt at the book signings or when he is making the rounds in public. The man has a roving eye.
Paul in KY
@Schlemizel: This was a small Methodist church in Central KY. I think they were scared we might light out for another of these sects (7th Day Adventist, Jehovah Witness, Maranathas, etc.) & had this class as a way of schooling us on how ‘bad’ these false prophets were.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
I imagine most fundies suspect he’ll leave Catholicism for a younger, blonder religion in the next year or so.
Suffern ACE
@Bobby C: Yeah. That’s what we did in Sunday School. And that was the point of the special guest the minister brought in on a Tuesday to discuss.
I mean, I spent two Sundays in Junior High learning how to spot the satanism and devil worship in Star Wars and 2 weeks on what makes the Adventists bogus and why we should avoid the Salvation Army. The Mormons in that environment did not get a pass.
Mayur
@RalfW: I think Kain is simply being myopic. The reason why CU is looking bad for the Rs right now is because there is ample opportunity for anonymous attacks against competing primary candidates by their competitors. Ds don’t have to worry about this right now because the potential for ratfucking is low; CU would allow massive outpourings of money to disrupt a Democratic primary, but there isn’t really a contested primary this time around. The real problems for our democracy come around 2016, when massive ratfucking (mostly on the Democratic side, or rather TO Democratic candidates) will occur, primarily as a result of that decision’s loosening of the purse strings on massive, anonymous campaign financing.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: I think spending an eternity, with the kind of folks who vote for Newt, is a special kind of hell itself.
28 Percent
@trollhattan: Who knows – he’s from such a conservative district (VA-4, an R+4) that his Congresscritter is a done deal – if the Kaine/Allen Senate race is looking like it’s not going to be close, I could see him staying home.
What I’m really looking forward to is finding out what my mother, who completely changes her politics about once a decade and is currently filling out the Conservative Catholic bingo card, has to say about them. Last fall when she was all about Herman Cain (just before the harassment claims hit) her prayerful assessment of Obama was, and I quote, “even Bush could have done a better job than that incompetent jackass.”
I’m sure it sounded a lot better in the original Latin.
kc
Also – am I the only person who dreads a possible Newt v. Obama general?
No, I know some Republicans who dread it more than you do.
Newt v. Obama? We should be so lucky.
Arclite
This email reminds me of this joke:
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.
Martin
Sorry, but I love a Newt candidacy. But I’m an optimist. Yeah, I know the electorate is fucking stupid, but there are limits to that stupidity, and Newt is a hand grenade and someone dropped the pin.
Seriously, the guy has a nearly -40 approval rating. The electorate doesn’t need the media to feed them what to think. They can see it first hand, and Americans fucking hate asshole blowhards and Newt could give the Donald a run for the money on that count. They despise this guy. They despised him in 1996 and they despise him now. The GOP may love him, but that only proves they’ve become the sociopath party, not that America has.
Honestly, can anyone invent a better GOTV/rally the base message for Dems than the idea of President Gingrich? Dem voter enthusiasm will go to 11. And you win elections by turning out your side. You don’t think Sarah helped get Obama elected? You don’t think SNL has more impact on the attitudes of the average voter than MTP? Tina Fey probably delivered more votes for Obama than the entire Village did for either side.
kc
I live in SC. Republican voters here voted for Newt becuase he’s an offensive asshole, and they like that.
Brachiator
@El Cid:
It’s still too vague a hypothetical to worry about. But if the US had to materially respond to a European financial crisis, the advantage still goes to the US president, not to the GOP challenger, unless America goes all Ron Paul and insists that we do not get involved.
I haven’t been following the GOP debates. Too painful. Has anyone gone beyond the “Obama is European” BS and asked any of the candidates what they would do to support European efforts to shore up their financial system? Aside from “Everything Obama says is wrong,” has any of the candidates been asked or offered any substantive assessment of how Obama and Treasury deals with their European counterparts?
And I suppose that those who are unhappy with Obama will always find or manufacture a reason to support their uneasiness. Doesn’t much matter whether it’s connected to anything real.
Catsy
To the point, I just do not have a fear of Newt Gingrich. At all. When the first rumors came of him throwing in his hat, I prayed that the FSM would love us enough to give us Gingrich as the GOP nominee, and never believed they would be that stupid.
Newt is not, in fact, a good debater. What he is is an outstanding demagogue. He lies freely and with skill, he understands the use of language, and he knows how to appeal to a person’s baser motivations.
What he cannot do, and has never demonstrated an ability to do, is articulate a coherent argument for conservative policies that does not rest upon a foundation of insults, smears, fear of the Other, and boilerplate pablum. There are conservatives who can. He is not one of them.
Additionally, Gingrich has no ability whatsoever to appeal to anyone who is not already firmly in his camp. He has no ability to appeal to independents, or to bring in crossover Democratic votes.
But most importantly, Newt Gingrich makes explicitly clear just how much he despises and loathes the media–and the feeling, by and large, is mutual. GWB and McCain got free passes on a lot of things because they cultivated a buddy-buddy relationship with the press, and played to their vanity. Gingrich, by contrast, views the media as an outright enemy that he’d like nothing better than to destroy, and insults them openly. He will not get kid gloves treatment.
The wingnut base is reveling right now in the notion of Newt Gingrich, Towering Intellectual and Historian, wiping the floor in a televised debate with The Affirmative Action Socialist Barack Obama–or at least, the fantasy Barack Obama that exists only in their minds, someone who can’t speak without a teleprompter, who got where he is because of preferential treatment rather than merit, and who can’t defend his accomplishments.
Let them indulge this fantasy.
Gingrich is a paper tiger. Anyone who isn’t already a right-winger either dislikes him, or grows to dislike him in direct proportion to how much they’re exposed to him.
Violet
I wonder how the Mormons will feel if Mitt, the first Mormon candidate with a real shot to become a presidential nominee, is denied his chance by the southern evangelicals? Will they eventually go along for vote for Newt? Or would they defect out of disgust and vote for Obama?
Tractarian
I’m sorry, I get that people don’t want to be overconfident, but did I really just read that John Cole agrees with an emailer who “dreads” an Obama vs. Newt general election?
I just have to laugh.
I mean, I understand the potential for the news media to obscure differences and give credence to lies. But this is Newt F’in Gingrich we’re talking about here. He’d need more from the MSM than simple “he-said-she-said” respect. He’d need all the networks to turn into Fox – all anti-Obama, all the time – in order for him to rehabilitate his image among the general electorate.
No, I am not scared of Newt in the slightest. (Not saying he has no chance–if we plunge into a depression, he’ll likely get elected–but that goes for any Republican.)
In fact, I’ll throw out this idea:
If Newt gets the nomination, there will be a third-party conservative run, and Newt will end up with percentage of the vote that should sound very familiar.
4tehlulz
Never mind Newt, does Romney want to win?
Mitt Romney Hires Michele Bachmann’s Debate Coach
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Romney was going to be a hard candidate because he looks and acts like a reasonable businessman Republican.
Newt was going to be a hard candidate becase he is willing to say anything and sounds smart to stupid people.
Paul was going to be a hard candidate because he appeals to those, especially the young naive, that are against Americans involvement in wars and against the drug war.
They were all going to be hard for some reason that seems to only pop up when they get near or in the lead.
As for the press not checking what they say, we have an acronym for that: IOKIYAR.
My job is to help Obama crush whoever is the nominee, but I’ll say this, when a candidate puts Texas in play, I gotta give him a second look.
28 Percent
@Catsy: This. With a Gingrich candidacy, all Obama has to do is to set some lobster ravioli on to boil on the Air Force One hot plate and the actual election becomes just a formality.
handsmile
First and most importantly, John Cole’s emailer better get himself some titanium boxer shorts or the male equivalent of a chastity belt if he is so compelled to attack his privates because of media squealings over Newt.
Fortunately, if he can restrain himself, his equipment will be safe, because Newton Leroy WILL NOT BE the 2012 GOP presidential nominee. For reasons similar to why Rick Perry or Herman Cain were never going to be that nominee (as I wrote here often).
While 51% of the US Senate may no longer constitute a majority, I remain confident that 27% of the electorate does not constitute a majority in a national election. Related to this is the fact that many establishment Republicans refrained/abstained from voting for McCain in 2008 because Caribou Barbie was the vice-presidential nominee. Off-the-charts crazy does not fare well with the party’s power brokers.
The unfavorability ratings of the emotionally volatile, financially erratic, thrice-married, disgraced former House speaker among “independent” voters (as flagged by Doc Sportello above #54) is the key metric.
Finally, yes, props are due to Samara Morgan (or whatever her nom de guerre). She has been banging away on the ‘No Mormons” drum for months here (and as taken some abuse for that alone). Cudlips, alla yuz!
MikeInSewickley
Folks, if anyone does not think that we may be reaching a tipping point on politics in the U.S., please check out this article at ThinkProgress.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/01/23/409443/arkansas-democratic-campaign-manager-comes-home-to-find-childs-cat-murdered-liberal-written-on-dead-body/
I know I’m supposed to favor humans more than animals or pets but I’m really beginning to think a lot of humans are just no damn good and to do this to prove a point, well… Civil War, here we come.
Mark S.
I don’t agree with most of the analysis but that was a great line.
DanielX
Egg-zackle, for the first paragraph. Newt knows just how to tickle that part of the wingnut brain that’s a legacy from the reptiles. He knows it well enough and strokes it well enough that they’re willing to ignore all that other stuff about corruption, adultery and just generally being an asshole. I mean, you’d think that after all that business a while back – you know, blowjobs! rule of law! impeachment! – that righteous Christian voters would regard Newton Leroy about as fondly as shit on their shoes. South Carolina proved that just ain’t so.
Also, too – in regard to paragraph 2, don’t underestimate Newt’s appeal outside South Carolina. There are a lot of Republicans in my home state who will spoon Gingrichian horseshit right up without sugar on top, because it’s what they want to hear. Tea Party folks in particular detest Mittens, for any of a variety of reasons, among them being that Mittens is too civilized and too cerebral. They don’t want civility, they want shit flinging and to be told what they want to hear, and there’s nobody better at either of those things than Newt. Whether what Newt says has any relationship with truth or reality? Feh. They don’t need no stinkin’ reality. I mean, you’re talking about people who believe what Rush Limbaugh says on the radio. I rest my case.
randiego
Gingrich is a 68 year old, porcine, corpulent windbag. A heart attack waiting to happen. Wouldn’t surprise me if he chose Palin as VP; let the fun begin.
Catsy
I think–at the risk of delivering an unintended insult–that Alan Grayson would be a useful comparison here. Not because I think ill of Grayson, who is one of my favorite pols. But because trying to run him as a Democratic candidate for president would be just as disastrous for the Dems as Gingrich would be for the GOP.
Most of Grayson’s appeal among progressives comes from his willingness to fight–aggressively and unapologetically–for progressive principles. He sometimes takes liberties with truth and facts, something his fans–myself included–need to acknowledge for the sake of keeping ourselves honest. He makes news by making intentionally controversial statements that dramatize the problems with conservative actions and policies. He’s a hero in the party to many people, and for good reason.
The main problem with Grayson is that he is abrasive, combatitive and even offensive to anyone who is not on our side. He does not apologize for this, nor should he. But it has the effect of limiting his appeal. A Grayson candidacy would turn off independents and galvanize conservatives, who would come out to the polls en masse just for the chance to vote against him. I adore Alan Grayson, but I would not make the mistake of thinking he’d be a good candidate for president.
Newt has all of those problems–and more.
DanielX
@randiego: Could be worse, he might choose Joe Lieberman.
scav
They’re pushing hard on the envelope of cognitive dissonance with practically any of their options but especially with these two. And we’re taking a base with a proven ability to swallow. I somehow still expect see-sawing roller-coastering for a bit. I don’t think this is a movement, this is a tantrum.
Ben Cisco
He is their “dream” given flesh. He gives them the chance to relive a glory that never existed.
__
“Any handhold in a storm” is their motto, and they think they’ve grabbed a life preserver. In fact, it is an anchor.
__
He will fail, and he will take a party with him.
Tone In DC
Obama takes Texas in polling versus the Salamander.
The southern states may not be as wingnut gonzo as I might have suspected.
The Moar You Know
@Violet: I DO NOT mean this disrespectfully – I don’t think you really understand the fundamental issues that Mormons have with black people.
Let me just say that the scenario you describe will not happen.
Samara Morgan
and its the same reason Ronmey cannot win in Colorado.
He is a mormon and we have experience with the polygs.
dead existentialist
@RalfW: If Ewick says it, it’s wrong.
Samara Morgan
and no its not the same as niggering him.
skin color is genetic, and following nut-bag religions is a choice.
Krankor
I actually had a somewhat heartening moment overhearing a conversation at the doctor’s last week down here in the buckle of the bible belt. First of all, the TV in the waiting room was tuned to CNN instead of FoxNEWS for the first time since I’ve been going there (this place actually has a painting of Jesus assisting in an operation… it is kitsch-a-rifically AWESOME!). A bit on the TV about Romney started a conversation between a couple of older women and an older man (all quite, quite white). The gist was that Obama was a good man who had been dealt a bad hand and that Romney was a multiple-wife-wanting cultist. Alas, they all agreed they wanted Santorum to get the Republican nod.
Samara Morgan
@The Moar You Know: or the fundamental demographics.
Mormons make up 2% of the population. less than muslims or jews.
WECs otoh make up 30% of the population and 50% of the GOP base.
wasabi gasp
A Shepard Fairey of Gingrich captioned HATE. Hate takes a whole lot more energy than hope. Americans are pretty fucking lazy.
g
am I the only person who dreads a possible Newt v. Obama general?
Not at all. I fear it not because I don’t think Obama can win handily, but I fear it because Iknow that Gingrich will do and say anything, and bring the worst and lowest of his base out to do it. I don’t think it will prevail, in the end, but I think Gingrich will rip American discourse apart and give voice to some of the ugliest sentiments in our country.
handsmile
@Catsy: (#122)
A most astute comparison and explication!
It brings to mind the words of another Democratic hero, honored for traits similar to those of Alan Grayson:
“I did not think I had lived a good enough life to be rewarded by Newt Gingrich being the Republican nominee….He would be the best thing to happen to Democrats since Barry Goldwater.”
So sayeth Barney Frank, while announcing his retirement last November.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Tractarian:
The point here, I think, is that it’s a mudfight with a pig. Even if you win, both of you are dirty, and only the pig enjoys it.
Obama might end up re-elected handily against Newt, but the media, in all its glory and ‘balance’ and aversion to ‘Truth Vigilantism’, will undoubtably let itself be lead by the nose into pitching the Conventional Wisdom even further rightward than ever, in an effort to be ‘fair’, tell ‘both sides of the story’, and not step on anyone’s toes as far as ‘issues people need to talk about or consider’. You know, like whether Obama is the most Evil Communistic Usurper ever.
jl
For the record, I worry deeply about the general with any of this cycle’s GOP candidates (current or already dropped out).
I don’t want to use the word ‘dread’ since simply using it makes me dread a general election with the GOP candidates in it. And I don’t want to dread it at this time, just worry a lot.
...now I try to be amused
@28 Percent:
HA! Obama is indeed good at driving Republicans stark raving mad. He’d play Newt like a Stradivarius. Like the “devil” went down to Georgia.
Jennifer
@g: yeah, but he might well destroy his party in the process, making it radioactive to anyone not already in the 27%.
Ugliness is never a good thing, but maybe we’re going to have to, as someone said above, just lance the boil and get it over with. Better to do that with someone who’s so loathed that there’s not a possibility that they could actually be elected than to put it off, maybe.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@beltane:
Or nookie. Callista’s got to be approaching her enjoy-by date.
...now I try to be amused
@g:
Republicans are already doing this, but they manage to keep low-information independent voters from hearing it. I can’t help but think that Gingrich will do all of us a favor by ripping the mask off.
Samara Morgan
@Betty Cracker:
actually, any jews get the dead-baptism treatment.
which brings up an interesting demographic question.
Mormons are 2% of the population. Muslims are 5%, Jews are 5%. WECs are ~30%. If 40% of Americans wont vote for a mormon, does Mitt have a snoballs chance in hell of being the next president?
note: muslims wont for Mitt because he is a missionary, and jews wont because they fucking hate that dead baptism thing.
Violet
@The Moar You Know:
I’m fairly familiar with Mormons, having worked in an office full of Mormons, some of whom tried to convert me along with several of my non-Mormon, African-American co-workers. A weird, kind of fascinating experience.
Based on that experience, I think there is less of an issue with race among the younger Mormons, but that it is still an issue.
My question really was more along the lines that if it becomes obvious that Newt beat out Mitt for the nomination, and that Romney was spurned because of his Mormonism, they might be pretty offended. And Newt’s hardly a paragon of family values and the family is very important to Mormons. So I kind of wonder what they’d do? Stay home? Quietly vote for Obama? Vote for Newt anyway?
Judas Escargot
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
The Catholic Church has spent the past few decades getting all the Liberal/Social-Justice out of it. So Catholics (at least the devout ones) get to be Honorary Evangelicals now.
Amir Khalid
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
If Noot ever converted to Islam, I’d watch him very very closely in case he was sneaking any fancy wine or bacon cheeseburgers when he thought people weren’t looking.
Brachiator
@El Cid:
An angry right wing populist GOP could keep going for some time, since it is reflection of the anger and fear of a core of its base.
What damages or kills a party is that the anger that spawned it is no longer connected to anything real. Consider the history of the Whig Party:
The GOP has been taken hostage by the Tea Party People, and by their fantasies that an elitist, aristocratic President Obama is usurping the will of Real American White People(tm). But the Whigs could never agree over the most important issue of their time, slavery, and the current GOP cannot decide to be pro-populist or pro-oligarchy, even as the economy continues to struggle.
AA+ Bonds
Wow, it’s like a whole bunch of my posts lined up together, thanks John
AA+ Bonds
It’s also a good way to give proper credit to Samara Morgan who has been spitting more truth on here about Romney’s Mormonism than anyone else
Bubblegum Tate
@28 Percent:
They’d kick him out of the Tea Party for being a commie if he said out loud.
Catsy
@…now I try to be amused:
This is another of the reasons why I welcome, not fear, a Gingrich candidacy in the GE.
Newt has very little in the way of a brain-mouth filter, and too much ego and vanity. Remember all of those telling moments during the 2008 election where Obama provoked Grumpy into saying something intemperate simply by being calm, collected, intelligent and unflappable? You know, that one.
Guarantee you we will see moments like that on the campaign trail–hell, we already have–let alone the debates themselves.
Newt’s foot spends so much time in his mouth that he brushes his teeth with a shoehorn and Kiwi polish. He’ll do an ample job of digging his own grave, but Obama will be standing there waiting to hand him a fresh shovel.
Newt also is not accustomed to getting calm, competent, intelligent pushback on his nonsense. His aggressive style works very well for cowing journalists and shutting off follow-up questions in a format where he gets to control the flow. It will not work in a debate vs. Obama.
It’s old hat by this point, but still true: think back to when Obama faced down the entire GOP Congress on their own turf and handed their asses to them.
I doubt we’ll have a ni*CLANG* moment, but I have every expectation that we’ll see something nearly as nasty come from Newt when it’s his own ass getting handed to him in the same way.
Sly
The South won’t line up for Romney moreso because he’s “from Massachusetts” than due to his Mormonism.
When you hear Southern conservatives grasp for some articulation as to why Romney seems inauthentic, its because he isn’t one of them. And he isn’t one of them because he’s a Yankee. Gingrich is authentic because he is one of them, his membership in the “Whore of Babylon” notwithstanding.
The South is, was, and always will be the heart of American conservatism. And American conservatism has two principle features: it is reactionary, which is commonly known, but it is also sectional. They fear the power of a national government because only a national government can prevent them from abusing their power over others.
Tom Q
As far as what’s bringing Romney down: the base (rightly) thinks he’s not one of them, he’s a Mormon, and he’s a crappy/inauthentic campaigner. He’s a candy mint AND a breath mint. You can’t isolate what’s hurting him.
And as far as the general election…christ, what wusses Dem are. This whole “one little event could swing the whole election” notion…I know it’s widely believed in the prss, but can anyone point me to an election whose outcome was reversed by such an event? All evidence is, voters go by the preponderance of the evidence.
And the good news: Obama wins that argument hands-down. He’s set the country right on foreign policy, he staved off a second Depression, he saved the auto companies, he nailed our greatest enemy, he’s personally greatly admired (and in some places loved). The lingering employment problem is literally the only thing between him and resounding re-election, and the news there (which people seem determined to ignore) has been getting better for several months. Even Paul Krugman noted it today. Barring a sharp, horrific reversal, Barack’s numbers will glide upward all Spring/summer. By Labor Day, you guys won’t believe you ever doubted his re-election.
If Newt’s the nominee, he’s McGovern. If Romney takes it, he’s Mondale. Either will go into the hall of great losers. Barack’s got this.
Samara Morgan
@Tom Q: well….we doubted his election in 2008, and he got a landslide. i remember being incredulous that the GOP didnt manage to snatch the football away again .
Democrats are Charlie Brown.
Samara Morgan
@Sly: well…Colorado wont line up for him because of his mormonism.
We arent in the South.
fasteddie9318
It doesn’t require much debating skill when one is able to lie, outrageously and with impunity, with no danger of being taken to task for it by the media.
ruemara
You guys are nuts. I’m sorry. This is a ridiculous opinion that’s based in the world view that everyone is so stupid and venial. And that’s bugfuck nuts. Newt will win with the most craven, died in the wool bigots and neoconservative haters. whether that wins the nomination, who knows? But it will not win the general. Hatred as a virtue does not win the general. At no point in time can any of these GOP candidates elucidate an actual point of policy to create jobs or fix a fucking problem. I will not participate in the Democratic/Liberal/Progressive Festival of Pre–emptive Pants Shittery.
rdalin
“The shit he says in debates is “brilliant” in the same sense than going down to the Dairy Mart with a ski mask and a Glock 9 is a “brilliant” way to make 600 bucks.”
Best analogy I’ve heard in a while.
Elie
@Dee Loralei:
I completely agree with you… these are dangerous times to put Newt gasoline near this much kindling… Its not whether he would win or not. He wouldn’t. But he would destroy so much, it would feel like he did…
I can’t stand Romney and although I know he would say almost anything, he is just not likely to be as effective in hate mongering nastiness as Noot.
WaterGirl
I never doubted that Obama would run in 2008, and I never doubted that Obama would win in 2008. I believe he will win again this year, but the idea of a Net candidacy is still scary because of all the hatred and violence he stirs up.
That’s what brought us Gabby Giffords and the death of this innocent family cat, and that will bring us more violence before all this is settled. I hate these people with the heat of a thousand suns.
LowProfileinGA
@beltane: …and if he could find a hawt Muslin gal who’d blow him.
General Stuck
Weighing in late to this thread, that is an excellent topic for liberals to think through. And yes, a Newt presidency would be a bit scarier to me. But if you’ve followed Sanitarium through the years, he is one bat shit crazy motherfucking theocrat, and there would no doubt, as he tells you himself, of having us all be jasysus freaks.
A Romney POTus holds his own fears, as he is a poseur, phony, willing to do anything, and would to get a second term, if elected to a first.
It is the GOP proper that is our problem , imo, these days. The candidates are but caricatures of a deeper crazy from the 27 percenters that are the majority in that party, and we will just have to deal with them from one day to the next.
The thing about Newt, is that he doesn’t have to fake it. He is the real deal southern wingnut, along with various other scary traits. And is a grifter at heart, not only for money, but for ego and stature as well. Would he be any more dangerous than the others, I doubt it, really. But who knows.
A Newt contest would open up several other possible outcomes, one of which would be a head on fight with the party he represents, in body and spirit. Winner take all on the ideological field of play, and I like our chances in that regard, and a chance to marry the crazy wingnut candidate with the GOP proper. It opens the outcome to a possible serious dem majority in government, and a mandate like few others. Possibly even a political tectonic shift that could last a while, to maybe fix this fucked up country.
I see us in a pol war, and don’t fear the reaper. That if it prevails, it was meant to prevail all along, and we will get what’s coming to us. Mitt doesn’t offer those brass rings, and I can’t help but think if Limbaugh, or Hannity, or whatever wingnut says we ought to start bombing brown people in Iran, or wherever. The coreless chameleon would stand up and salute, then bombs away. Pick your poison, and have faith in the MUP. The POTUS election is the mother of all fish bowls, and the media cannot change that much. In the end.
Samara Morgan
@Brian R.: not in colorado.
we know about mormons here.
there are two groups of Coloradoans that will not vote for a mormon.
1. Focus on the Family and WECs.
2. Everyone else that isnt mormon.
Gust Avrakotos
I’m thinkin Not Republican Cole’s next post will be another Obama concern troll about the mislead
Gust Avrakotos
I’m thinkin Not Republican Cole’s next post will be another Obama concern troll about the mislead AP headline that Obama has to appear before a Judge in Georgia because of another Oily Taintz lawsuit. And Cole would probably try find a way to troll in favour of the Birtherstan clowns.
catclub
@dww44: Germany in 1932 also had a 47% unemployment rate… I repeat, 47% unemployment.
We are not there, and do not look to get there.
I am still astonished that the hyperinflation of 1923, which all of Germany, except its plutocrats, weathered until the collapse of the depression, is what we now hear about, that motivates the Germans now to keep inflation low.
Why not wanting to avoid ultra high unemployment and world-wide conflagrations?
My theory is that the plutocrats run everything, so their deep feelings are all that matter. Kinda like the deeply held opinions of David Broder (or David Koch) are the true national pulse of the US.
The Dangerman
Gingrich is not to be feared; he is the bastard son of Goldwater. Obama would sweep everything not in the deep South (and would take a few of those, too).
The best part of Gingrich’s surge is that the Powers That Be in the party have NO interest in putting him on the top line, up to and including knifing him in the back at the convention (et tu, Brute Force).
Mike E
@Villago Delenda Est:
Shhh, you’ll make
the baby jeebusTom and Katie’s kid cry!Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
Any Republican victory in November would be terrible. Doesn’t matter whether it’s Newt, Mitt or [Brokered Convention Savior of the Party].
Four things. A Republican president will kill health care reform. A Republican president will pack the Supreme Court with Right Wing Morans. A Republican president will back all state level attacks on immigrant, union, reproductive rights and gay rights. A Republican president will insist that Bush tax cuts be made permanent.
And that’s just for starters.
Hatred and violence would be little more than a side dish.
Satanicpanic
Uh, I will believe this They won’t vote for a Mormon, even if it means a Mooslim will win Theory when I see the exit poll results. Otherwise, this just reminds of all that Bradley Effect talk in 2008.
trollhattan
The much anticipated Rubio endorsement may have dropped in value a tiny bit.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/01/that-rug-really-tied-the-room-together.html
Or is this another “feature, not bug” sort of things?
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: I’m pretty sure Glenn Greenwald is a Whig.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
Ha! You may well be right, here.
WereBear
I keep saying it over and over: people didn’t vote for W because he was a frat-boy screwup. They didn’t know that.
They bought him as sold: a Bad Boy who had Come to Jesus. He won’t cheat on his wife and embarrass us! He’s got all those friends of his father’s to help him steer the country. He’s not some stick up his ass guy, he’s fun! He’s kompassonate, by gum.
Newt is KNOWN. Let the Republicans put him up for the nom (though I don’t think the FMS loves me that much.) Let them be perfectly clear just what kind of people they are.
Let them try to sell us Newt.
pluege
I agree gingrich is a dangerous candidate for the reasons the posted says: he’ll say anything and medfia won’t call him on it, especially now that they know he’ll turn on them with a vengeance if they do.
So we have ginrich the sociopath or romney the psychotic liar – with no check on the excesses of either one lining up against obama with his ‘can’t we all just get along so we can all see what a nice guy I am’ egomaniac crap. obama is in serious trouble with either one.
Villago Delenda Est
@beltane:
That’s a pretty good theory, I think. Mormons actually live the sort of lives that Southern Baptists claim everyone should live, but fall woefully short of it themselves.
What is the joke? Never go fishing with only one Southern Baptist, take another along. That way the Southern Baptist won’t drink all your beer.
rdale
Here in Eu-taw they Mormons have a general conference twice a year (which the wags call “Mormodan”), when all the faithful gather at Temple Square downtown Salt Lake City (or actually in the Supernacle, across the street; or watching the teevee in the WAArrd house in Ashtabula, or wherever) and each and every year there’s a whole group of evangelicals who gather across the street from the Temple and scream and yell and wave signs that say “Jeebus Hates Mormons!” and “Mormons = Satan” and on and on, while the little kiddies in their Sunday clothes are just trying to cross the street to get to conference. I’ve said since Mitt started making noises about the presidency that if he ever gets close to the nomination, you’ll see that on a national scale. And I was right!
rdale
@Violet: I can tell you it’s being talked about in some Utah circles, as in “they’re really going to vote for a philandering grifter instead of our hero Mitt?” I doubt it will break the hold of the GOP in Utah politics, where they’ll flat out tell you that you can’t be a Democrat and a good Mormon at the same time, but it’s still interesting to watch from the inside.
Mackenna
Although Mitt being Mormon is definitely a factor, the elephant in the room is racism.
These so-called “family values” Christians are strangely silent and nonjudgmental about Newt’s serial adultery, and his cruelty to his ex-wives. I’m guessing that’s because Newt answers their need for a Racist-in Chief.
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/01/23/Newt-Gingrich-Campaign/
Death Panel Truck
@Zifnab:
This.
…is why I’m begging the Flying Spaghetti Monster to please make Noot the nominee.
MCA
@beltane: This. Great analysis, and I’ve always felt the same way. Weird as their beliefs may be, and I’ve never met any of the castoffs who live polygamously in the desert or whatever, but the Mormons I’ve known personally have all been clean living and hard working people who aren’t advertising their piousness all over the place but have a strong moral compass, unlike a damned awful lot of Southern evangelicals I’ve come across. Even the having babies until your body just can’t procreate anymore thing doesn’t strike me as strange when seen in a sociohistorical context; that’s a basic part of any young religion’s survival strategy.
Also, Steve Young’s pretty cool.
Sammi
Grew up in the Pentecostal church. Agree with Betty Cracker that Catholics are seen as idol worshippers who are not true, born-again Christians. Every year, the church would screen the “Burning Hell” movie. (Anyone else here see it?). Anyone who did not become born again would burn in hell. This includes all other religions. All the kids were subjected to this horror film which made Nightmare on Elm St seem like Mary Poppins.
Samara Morgan
@MCA:
stupid sub-sapient cudlip.
What are mormons most famous for? (besides polygymous marriage, baptizing dead jews and Warren Jeffs)
Missionaries.
g
@Dee Loralei:
Remember how bad those rallies were when Sarah Pallin roiled the base?And John McCain would have to step in to calm things down? Newt at the top of the ticket would make those rallies seem like an ice cream social. Newt’s rallies would be on par with Nuremberg.
It’s already happening:
“He is an avowed Muslim. [applause] And my question is: why isn’t something being done to get him out of our government? He has no legal right to be calling himself President.”
In an exemplary show of cowardice, Santorum did not tell the woman that she had her facts wrong or even bother to distance himself from the previous comments. Instead, he did the opposite, giving sanction to her views. “I’m doing my best to get him out” of office, Santorum said, “and you’re right about — he uniformly ignores the Constitution.”
Ricky shows his integrity.
Samara Morgan
AllahP wants The Exorcist to ride in on a white horse.
I honestly think AllahP has forgotten that Jindal participated in an exorcism and wrote a paper on his experience for some charismatic catholic rag.
Remember the spoof porno flick Nailin’ Pailin?
There will be Jindal spoof flicks of The Exorcist and The Devil Inside on SNL.
Peter A
In all fairness, theologically speaking LDS is certainly NOT a Christian religion, any more than Islam is Christianity. Both Mormonism and Islam are offshoots of Christianity and both recognize Christ as an important figure, but to be a Christian in the traditional and generally accepted sense I would argue you have to believe Jesus Christ was literally God the creator of the universe made flesh. As far as I know Mormons believe that Jesus was not God, he was the son of God, sort of the way Apollo was the son of Zeus. That alone is a huge doctrinal difference. Of course the real reason Evangelicals hate Mormons is because Mormons represent real competition for believers, in a way that, say, Judaism or even Buddism don’t.
Bulworth
This ‘graph is pretty brilliant.