Posted on 11/09/2012 4:58:17 PM PST by Iam1ru1-2
As the smoke clears from the wreckage of the Romney defeat on Tuesday, some intriguing yet disturbing facts are coming to light.
* Fewer people overall voted in 2012 (about 117 million) compared to 2008 (about 125 million).
* President Obama received some 6.6 million fewer votes in 2012 than he did in 2008 (60,217,329 in 2012 votes compared to 66,882,230 votes in 2008).
* One would think that such a dynamic would have helped Romney win — clearly it did not.
* Incredibly, Governor Romney received nearly 1 million fewer votes in 2012 than Sen. John McCain received in 2008. (In 2008, McCain won 58,343,671 votes. In 2012, Romney won only 57,486,044 votes.)
Why? How was it possible for Romney to do worse than McCain? It will take some time to sift through all of the data. But here is some of what we know from the 2012 election day exit polls:
The President received a whopping 71% of the Hispanic vote (which was 10% of the total votes cast), compared to only 27% for Romney (McCain got 31% of the Hispanic vote in 2008). Obama also won 56% of the moderate vote, which was interesting given that Romney (who got 41%) was widely perceived by the GOP base as being a “Massachusetts moderate.” The President lost married women (getting only 46% of their vote to Romney’s 53%). But won decisively among unmarried women (67% to Romney’s 31%).
That said, what I’m looking at most closely is the Christian vote, and here is where I see trouble:
42% of the Protestant Christian vote went for Obama in 2012. This was down from 45% in 2008. 57% of the Protestant Christian vote went for Romney in 2012. This was up from 54% that McCain won in 2008. When you zoom in a bit, you find that 21% of self-identified, white, born-again, evangelical Christians voted for President Obama in 2012.
You’d think this decrease in evangelical votes for Obama would have helped win the race for Romney, but it didn’t. 78% of evangelical Christians voted for Romney in 2012. Yes, this was up from the 74% that McCain received in 2008, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
To put it more precisely, about 5 million fewer evangelicals voted for Obama in 2012 than in 2008. Meanwhile, some 4.7 million more evangelicals voted for Romney than voted for McCain. Yet Romney still couldn’t win.
Meanwhile, 50% of the Catholic vote went for Obama in 2012. This was down from the 54% that Obama won in 2008. 48% of the Catholic vote went for Romney in 2012. This was up from the 45% that McCain won in 2008. Yet it still wasn’t enough.
Now consider this additional data:
In 2008, white, born-again, evangelical Christians represented 26% of the total vote for president, according to the exit polls.
In 2012, white, born-again, evangelical Christians represented 26% of the total vote for president, according to the exit polls.
In other words, we saw no change at all in the size of the evangelical vote, –no net gain, certainly no surge, no record evangelical turnout, despite expectations of this.
Of the 117 million people who voted on Tuesday, therefore, about 30 million (26%) were evangelicals. Of this, 21% — or about 6.4 million evangelicals — voted for Obama.
By comparison, of the 125 million people who voted in 2008, 32.5 million (26%) were evangelicals. At the time, Obama won 24% of evangelicals, or about 7.8 million people.
What’s more, in 2008, 27% of the total vote for president was Catholic, according to the exit polls. In 2012, only 25% of the total vote for president was Catholic.
Remarkably, this means that Romney got a higher percentage of the Catholic vote than McCain, but millions of fewer Catholics actually voted in 2012, despite having Rep. Paul Ryan, a practicing Catholic, on the ticket.
What does all this mean? A few observations:
During the GOP primaries in 2012, it was reported that there was record turnout by evangelical voters — they were fired up and mobilized then (though largely behind Sen. Rick Santorum.)
There were concerns by a number of Christian leaders going into the 2012 elections that Romney’s Mormonism might suppress evangelical and conservative voter turnout.
The Romney campaign worked hard to not only to win the evangelical vote but to turn out more evangelicals to the polls — but it did not work.
Despite Obama’s pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, anti-religious freedom record — a record presumably abhorrent both to evangelicals and conservative Catholics — Romney simply was not able to cut deeply enough into Obama’s evangelical and Catholic vote.
If Romney had been able win over significantly more evangelicals – and/or dramatically increased evangelical turnout in the right states – he would have won the election handily.
It is stunning to think that more than 6 million self-described evangelical Christians would vote for a President who supports abortion on demand; supported the same-sex marriage ballot initiatives that successed in Maryland, Maine and Washington; and was on the cover of Newsweek as America’s “first gay president.” Did these self-professed believers surrender their Biblical convictions in the voting booth, or did they never really have deep Biblical convictions on the critical issues to begin with?
Whatever their reasons, these so-called evangelicals doomed Romney and a number of down-ballot candidates for the House and Senate.
This is what happens when the Church is weak and fails to disciple believers to turn Biblical faith into action. Given the enormous number of evangelical Christians in the U.S., this bloc could still affect enormous positive change for their issues if they were to unify and vote for the pro-life, pro-marriage candidate as a bloc.
What will it take to educate, register and mobilize Christians to vote on the basis of Biblical principles, and what kind of candidates could best mobilize them?
This is a critical question that Christian political leaders as well as pastors must serious consider. As we have seen, just a few million more evangelicals voting for pro-life, pro-marriage candidates could offset other demographics that are becoming more liberal.
That said, we need national candidates who take values issues as seriously as economic and fiscal issues, and have strong credentials on these values issues, and can talk about these issues in a winsome, compassionate, effective manner.
We need pastors registering voters in their churches and teaching the people in their congregations the importance of the civic duty of voting.
None of this should come, however, at the expense of pastors and other Christian leaders clearly, boldly and unequivocally teaching and preaching the Word, proclaiming the Gospel, and making disciples, and helping believers learn to live out their faith in a real and practical way in their communities, including being “salt” and “light” to preserve what is good in society. What we need most in America isn’t a political revival but a sweeping series of spiritual revivals — a Third Great Awakening. As men and women’s hearts are transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they will, in time, vote for the values they are internalizing from the Bible. As I wrote about in Implosion, if we don’t see a Third Great Awakening soon, I’m not convinced we will be able to turn this dear nation around in time.
I think you said enough. But glad you can cut as paste too. Now try doing it with something applicable, like an apology to God fearing folks here on this Pro God site for one of the most asinine statements I have seen in many years.
Hey I guess I did have something to say.
I do not know about you but I am sick to death of so called conservatives and Christians who claim superiority all the while calming to liberalism.
And yeah, ago ahead and hurl “anti-whatever” tag you want to hurl at me. It's what your kind have been doing for last 4 years. I don't feel entitled. I have a GREAT job.
And I am here on FR for my country, not to pander the ego of low lives like you who wear the “conservative” badge, spit on other ethnicities and then vote for the enemy.
I am done you. Move along.
As for “God fearing” and “Pro God”.....save it! I am talking about the Evangelicals who voted Obama or didn't vote at all thereby passively voting for Obama.
Now your turn. Hurry up with your own apology and don't choke again.
This is demonstrably false and the author of this piece is an idiot. There are enormous numbers of uncounted votes, and it takes 5 minutes of research to discover this.
I think you hit upon an important point. A lot of the ambivalence over socons isn't caused by the positions they advocate, even though pro-life-related gaffes by pro-lifers are much more damaging than the ordinary kind. That ambivalence is caused by the fervency.
I watched a bit of this year's Democratic Convention, and it might as well have been a salespersons' convention. Snicker if you want - I did - but it does show that the Dems have a good idea of what kind of enthusiasm works in politics. So do the Republicans. The kind of fervency that benefits the cause is some kind of rally-ho. Other kinds of fervency tend to be off-putting.
A lot of ordinary liberals delight in unveiling put-downs, and I'm still wondering why it hasn't been hurting the Dems. Americans are legendary for responding to a putdown with the flying finger.
Although putdowns are more lethal politically in the long term, it's also a turnoff to come across as a yeller. People hate putdowns, but they don't like being yelled at either. Fervency that comes across as yelling will not be greeted with open arms and stoutened hearts - except amongst those who are already part of the faithful. The only exception to this rule is an "official victim" group. Regardless of how true Evangelicals have been treated - and I know they've been treated badly - they don't get the bye unless they get the designation. As of now, they haven't.
I'm throwing these opinions out as points to ponder.
“I am done you.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Yeah, it would be so easy to attack you and your minority ethnicity in the same way you attack me and my Christianity. But I haven’t and I won’t. So you lie when you spew crap like conservatives are “low lives like you who wear the “conservative” badge, spit on other ethnicities and then vote for the enemy.”
I told you once, and I’ll tell you again. I didn’t know you were non-white. And frankly, I don’t care. I don’t even care you are anti-Christian. But the more you post, the more you smell like a troll.
In before the zot, pal.
I wasn't spewing against conservatives. I was spewing against the Evangelicals who voted Obama or did not vote.....and their apologist like you. You can be Evangelist, Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Bahai or Hare Krishna.....if you have not voted for Romney you cannot claim to be a conservative. End of the story. Just being Christian isn't good enough.
Read my post correctly before wasting my time with your race baiting nonsense.
At over 120 million votes -- we'll probably wind up with 123-124 mil, that's over 9 million voters...But Obama got over 61 million -- and will probably wind up with 63 or more million when the counting's done.
So who were the religious voters that gave Obama well past 50 million votes????
OK, I recrunched the #s and saw that I was overemphasizing white non-evangelical mainline Protestant #s...Below are all round #s...and equal about 51.5 million...but it's over 52 million total...
Approximate votes going Obama's way from religious voters:
* Latino Catholics (5% of voting pool): Over 4.5 million votes
* White Catholics (18% of voting pool): By the time's all counted, perhaps 10 million votes
* Other Catholic (2% of voting pool): Over 1 million votes
TOTAL CATHOLIC CONTRIBUTION: Over 15.5 million votes
* Jewish (2% of voting pool) - Over 1.5 million votes
* Other non-Christian faiths (7% of voting pool): Over 5.5 million votes
* Lds (2% of voting pool): Almost half a million votes
* Black Protestant (9% of voting pool) - By time it's all been counted, over 11 million voters
* White Mainline Protestant (14% of voting pool) - About 8 million voters by time it's all been counted
* White Evangelicals (24% of voting pool, rounded off) - About 6 million voters once they've all been counted ... about 5.6 million of earlier 120 million vote count ... iow, the #s Rosenberg was using for his article...
* Latino Evangelicals (Little over 1% of voting pool) - Less than a million voters
* Other minority Christian or Protestant (4% of voting pool) (Guessing 2.5 million voters)
TOTAL PROTESTANT CONTRIBUTION: About 28.5 million
Now, Protestants are 51% of voting pool; Catholics are 25% of voting pool...so we would expect for every Catholic vote, there would be 2 Protestant votes...
Had Protestants voted for Obama the same rate as Catholics, the total above would be over 31 million -- not 28.5 million...
White religious voters probably contributed close to 25 million votes to Obama...
(And here I thought "religion" was "out of bounds" to these posters!)
I belong to this ethnicity.....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-gop/2944434/posts
And remember the producer of the movie “2016: Obama’s America”....Dinesh D’Souza? The same ethnicity. Now go ahead bash me all you want. Bring it on Mr Evangelist.
You people puzzle me, voters with your religious attitude vote about 75% Obama, and Evangelicals voted 79% (according to PEW) for Romney.
You look at those figures, and you attack the most republican voting block in America?
This is “beam me up Scotty” stuff.
(Truth isn't 'trash')
Yes we do, people of color, the non-religious, the anti-Christian, all are solid, dependable, pro-Obama voting blocks.
Who were the most pro-Romney voters in America? The Evangelicals, with 79%.
Rather than attacking the most conservative group who voted more for Romney than any other Christian group you should be asking the rest of the so-called Christians to vote like the vast majority of evangelicals.
As for the attempt to charge evangelicals with poor turnout, polling data from The Faith and Freedom Coalition, an organization in Duluth, Ga., dedicated to educating and mobilizing people of faith to be effective citizens, revealed that the evangelical vote increased to 27 percent this year, with 78 percent of them voting for Romney and 21 percent for Obama. http://www.citizenlink.com/2012/11/08/surveys-evangelical-electorate-vote-increases/
A lot of democrat voting blocks get criticized by the conservatives, but it isn’t directed at the individual members of those liberal groups.
How did the atheist vote go this election?
I know what you mean I flagged a couple of Hare Krishna threads, a Scientology thread, and six Islam threads, and the mods wouldn’t pull them.
People were calling them cults and revealing their religious doctrines to the public for open discussion.
There's your Race Card again. No one knew you aren't white and no one cares that you aren't. You're the only one bringing it up. You're the race baiter.
We don’t have the actual (pure)atheist vote, but in even this economy, the “religiously unaffiliated”, voted republican by 26%.
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