Posted on 01/19/2008 3:15:19 PM PST by Checkers
I don't think the Mormon card is a legitimate card to play against Mitt Romney. Love him or hate him, there are plenty of reasons to vote for or against the man besides his religion.
But if the entrance polls are accurate - that 25 percent of the GOP caucusgoers were Mormon, and that 94 percent of those voters voted for Romney - then the post-victory spin from his rivals is going to be, "Well, what do you expect? He mobilized the Mormons, and they put him over the top." (To his credit, he also won evangelical Protestants and Catholics, but by much narrower margins.)
If accurate, that's a wildly disproportionate turnout for that demographic. As MSNBC notes, they're 7.5 percent of the state's population.
I can hear the cries of, "so what?" Yes, Nevadans are free to vote for or against any candidate on whatever basis. But I'm almost as disturbed by those who vote for a candidate because of his or her religion as I am by those who vote against a candidate because of his or her religion.
I mean, I'm Catholic (and a lousy one at that), but if I put the religious denomination above all else, I'd end up voting for Mario Cuomo, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Bob Menendez, etc. ...
UPDATE: Having said all that, if I were a Mormon, I might want to vote for a Mormon candidate, just to give candidates who ask, "don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" a poke in the eye...
ANOTHER UPDATE: And does this disqualify my earlier comment that this state was outside Romney's "comfort zone?" ... Eh.
(Excerpt) Read more at campaignspot.nationalreview.com ...
If every Mormon in Nevada stayed home today, Mitt would have won anyway.
“Having said all that, if I were a Mormon, I might want to vote for a Mormon candidate, just to give candidates who ask, “don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?” a poke in the eye... “
Thank you, Mike Huckabee.
Honesty, there’s nothing wrong about voting for a candidate you personally identify with.
Why should voting for someone of the same faith be any worse than voting for your home-state hero? No one condemns that.
(I’m not a Romney fan, but this is just silly.)
I’d be as eager to vote for someone who shares my enthusiasm fog guns, for instance.
I dunno. Sounds like the proportions in which African-Americans vote for Democrats. What’s the big deal?
If 0 Mormons showed up Romney still would have won Nevada. If Mormons voted the percentages (52% romney, 13, 13, 8, 8, 4, 2% split on everyone else), Romney STILL would have won Nevada.
Only way Romney would have not won is if all the Mormons voted for the same person besides Romney.
So if it’s okay to vote FOR him because he’s a Mormon, it must be okay to vote AGAINST him for the same reason, right?
Besides that the REAL story is that fraking Ron Paul came in second.
What I thought was interesting 0 was more people voted for Romney than voted for all the other candidates together including Clinton and Obama
And RON PAUL beat everyone but Romney!!! This is a message that the MSM doesn’t want to deliver. All constituional true conservatives are very proud of Ron as his ideas continue to gain in popularity and approval. Congratulations Dr. Paul. Make them eat it.
Does that mean when McCain wins we can say “Well what you expect, he mobilzed the moron vote and that what put him over the top”.
Nevada has a big Mormon population, second only to Utah, if I’m not mistaken. Mitt’s win there is not a surprise since the dynamic for D’s and R’s is quite different for one movement than another.
Unlike Huck.
“If every Mormon in Nevada stayed home today, Mitt would have won anyway.”
That’s because Mitt’s running for the Presidency of the US, not the Presidency of the Evangelicals.
Geraghty is losing it. His boy is going down.
[But if the entrance polls are accurate - that 25 percent of the GOP caucusgoers were Mormon, and that 94 percent of those voters voted for Romney - then the post-victory spin from his rivals is going to be, “Well, what do you expect? He mobilized the Mormons, and they put him over the top.” (To his credit, he also won evangelical Protestants and Catholics, but by much narrower margins.)]
A lot of people here are owed an apology. We have been called bigots for bringing up the Mormon issue, and pointing out that Mormons do indeed vote as a pack. However, if the bigot term is appropriate for us, then it is abundantly clear that there is the Mormon “bigot” vote. And it is clear that there is a de facto Mormon push to elect Mitt as much to promote Mormonism as because of his abilities (or RINO tendencies).
Oh well, when Mitt crashes and burns in the general election when all his whitewashed problems surface, I will be waiting for the apologies (oh so patiently).
Well, Nevada definitely has a smaller Mormon population than California, Arizona, and Idadho. But it is one of the larger populations—about 12% of the state.
Remember the Florida 2000 recount? The Democrats were high-fiving each other over being able to disqualify military votes on the most minute of technicalities. A week later, they were whining to count every vote (including those of doofuses who couldn't punch out a chad) in certain favored counties. They looked like total hypocrites and the supreme court ended up using their favorite amendment (the 14th) against them.
This year the Mormon haters were high-fiving each other for putting the Huckster over the top in Iowa and, they hoped, ending Romney's campaign. Instead, he encouraged the objects of his bigotry (plus those like Catholics who've has the same kind of crap thrown at them plus a good share of Protestants who've outgrown them) coalesce around the targeted candidate because he did a good job of not playing the victim card.
It is too bad, because I think there are better candidates out there (Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson), but neither may be viable after Florida. Pennsylvania isn't until April 22 and, unless it looks like a brokered convention where Fred has a shot, I may end up voting for Mitt.
You are mistaken. Nevada is 4th in percentage of LDS and 8th in absolute numbers.
Glad he won and not Mitt or Huck, but unhappy it was “identity politics” Mormon voters that made it happen. Same reason I have issue with the Huck supporters only supporting him bc he’s a Baptist Minister.
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