Posted on 01/10/2012 4:05:41 AM PST by Kaslin
NASHUA, N.H. -- Is New Hampshire too white, too old and too godless to play a key role in selecting the next president?
"The rap on Iowa: It doesn't represent the rest of the country -- too white, too evangelical, too rural," NBC's Andrea Mitchell famously said shortly before the Jan. 3 caucuses. Other critics called Iowa too old.
If such concerns about Iowa are legitimate, then so are concerns about New Hampshire. For example, the first-in-the-nation primary state is actually whiter than Iowa. According to the 2010 census, New Hampshire is 93.9 percent white, 2.8 percent Hispanic and 1.1 percent black, while Iowa is a virtual rainbow at 91.3 percent white, 5 percent Hispanic and 2.9 percent black.
As far as age is concerned, both states have higher-than-national-average numbers of residents above retirement age. In New Hampshire, 13.5 percent of the population is 65 or older; in Iowa, it's 14.9 percent. Not a lot of difference.
As far as rural is concerned, yes, Iowa is full of farms. But New Hampshire isn't exactly a great urban center. In fact, the primary and caucus path does not lead to any really big cities until the Florida primary on Jan. 31.
Then there is religion. During the run-up to Iowa, pundits talked endlessly about Iowa's evangelical Christians. Are they too conservative to pick a president? Are their views on social issues too extreme? Are they really representative of the country as a whole?
Many of the questions were ill-informed. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life's "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey," Iowa is, in fact, slightly less evangelical than the rest of the country: 24 percent of Iowans are evangelicals, while 26 percent of Americans are.
Iowa does have a higher percentage of mainline Protestants than the rest of the country. So when one combines the evangelical and mainline strands, Iowa is more Protestant (54 percent) than the rest of the country, which is 44 percent combined evangelical and mainline.
And New Hampshire? Its combined number is 34 percent, meaning the state is less Protestant than the rest of the country by about the same margin that Iowa is more Protestant. Will pundits see that as a problem?
There is one big difference between the two states, and that is the number of people who have no religious affiliation. According to Pew, about 15 percent of Iowans say they have no affiliation -- nearly right on the national average of 16 percent. But in New Hampshire, 26 percent have no religious affiliation -- well above the national average.
So is New Hampshire just too godless to pick a president? Of course not. States differ in their balance of faith and non-faith, and when you add up the early voting states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Nevada -- you get a pretty good mix. New Hampshire is as qualified as any to make a political statement. But it will be interesting to see if commentators who fretted about Iowa's religiosity will be equally concerned about New Hampshire's non-religiosity.
In the heat of a campaign, it's difficult to speak with much subtlety about the role religion plays in voting. The entrance polls measure religion very crudely, says John C. Green, professor of politics at the University of Akron and a top authority on evangelicals in politics. A lot of the evangelicals in Iowa may belong to mainline Protestant churches or even be Catholic.
Many such distinctions were lost in the punditry. Also, the statistics above describe each state's entire population, not just its most politically active residents. Which means that, yes, lots of political activists are evangelicals. But lots of evangelicals aren't active in politics.
Finally, there was a lot of bias in the pundits' descriptions of Iowa and conservatives in general. A number of commentators are alarmed to see conservative evangelicals in great numbers playing a key role in politics, and out of that concern, they ask whether Iowa is too evangelical. New Hampshire is a little more moderate, so the religion question doesn't occur to them.
Also, most pundits live in the Northeast or in Washington, so New Hampshire seems almost in the neighborhood. Really, what's the problem?
NO
you have a primary election day for ALL states....then x months later you have general election day.
the parties would still have their conventions after the primary election and pick the candidates either by the most votes or have a brokered convention.
NY BLOWS....it is a leftist paradise...if my wife would leave her old/sick parents I would have moved to flyover country years ago....
I hate it almost as much as I hate New Hampshire.
but none of this has anthing to do with making the selection process fair for the whole country.
Winnow out the candidates after the 1 day national primary at the conventions.
spreading it out over months is counter productive in our Republic.
I don’t want a brokered convention. I prefer people’s choice. Primary winner take all.
OK fine, but do it all the same day.
until they close the primary, then no..
oh...ps
in NY only Republicans get the vote in the Republican primaries...
you granate brains need to get your schmitt together.
I’m sure your reasons for hating New Hampshire are filled with merit. Is it just the primary or do you have other equally valid reasons?
Andrea Mitchell is too pock-marked to be on TV, yet . . . there she is.
The question is really not “Is NH fit to pick a POTUS”, but rather “How come the choices are so limited by Super Tuesday, when folks like me get a chance to vote?”
I went to your lovely state once...
pretty, nice camping, I would go again.
the people there look and sound like anyone from New England. some are rock ribbed conservatives and there are a slew of liberal buttwipes too.
I do not hate New Hampshire....I do not like your primary system, as it effects the whole country for some reason. This is something that should be addressed with a constitutional amendment. By the look of things it is not on anyone of powers front burner, so relax. but it should be.
I'd vote for 'too liberal'. I'd prefer to see more conservative states vote first for a change.
The average American IQ is a mere 100. This explains their collective instinct to base decisions on what everyone else is doing and what the TV tells them to do, as well as their tendency to vote for who looks good on TV. 100 IQ’ers can barely understand the issues. PS -Advertisers know this and exploit it - why else is Madison Ave. a success?
I don’t have a solution, yet this is an unfortunate fact. Maybe we should bring back the days of having to own property to vote. It sounds very out there, yet has its merits. Property owners may not all have superior IQ’s, yet a person must have some intellectual vision/acuity to think ahead enough to own property. Also they care more and will be more informed on issues.
I am being somewhat facetious, but look at what is happening and the types “the herd” votes into office.
Believes the Bible literally.
I hope she doesn’t have a FR account :-P
It should be that you should serve your country for 2 years in some capacity (military or social service — even tax-collectors, road builders, helping the aged etc.) and THEN you get the right to vote. If not, you don’t get to vote — you get all the other rights, but voting depends on you proving that you have the responsibility and experience
This is a good line of reasoning for winnowing out the completely uninformed and/or illegal counterfeit voting.
Awww, I was going to make a comment about Cow Hampshire. (That’s what a lot of people called it when I lived there.) You shouldn’t have said “herd instinct.” :)
“It means they don’t seek Him inside an organization and/or a building”
Amen, to that brother.
100% agreement
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.