What religious voter demographics re-elected Obama? (& is it relevant if Mitt's Mormonism wasn't?]

If the religious makeup of the GoP candidate didn't matter to many FREEPERs, why is the religious make-up of certain voter demographics of sudden interest to many of these same posters?

In three post-election days, I've seen five FR threads on what Evangelicals did -- or didn't do -- at the polls...and yet NONE on what Catholics did.

Given that Catholics supported Obama by a 50-48 percent margin, wouldn't that be at least as relevant -- if not more? [Note: Going into the election, Pew Forum found that Latino Catholics were supporting Obama 73-19%, so even though White Catholics supported Romney 59-40%, since Latinos comprise more than one-third of Catholics, it flipped that overall demographic vote]

For those concerned about Evangelicals who may have voted Third Party, stop worrying: Evangelicals supported Mitt Romney by a higher pct (79-20%) than even Mormons did (78-21%) per How the Faithful Voted: 2012 Preliminary-Exit Poll Analysis

For those who were concerned about Evangelicals "staying home," some cursory evidence exists that perhaps some significant numbers did in the Deep South...But overall, it did not effect any electoral numbers as it didn't bleed over across the Florida state border. Across the board, Evangelicals turned out as well if not better than 2008 and 2004.

By contrast and comparison, if the Pew Forum exit polls are right, over 1 million less white Catholics voted in the 2012 election vs. 2008...and almost four million non-Evangelical white Protestants were AWOL as well. Given the aging portions of these demographics, it's hard to say how many of these died since 2008...without being "replaced" by a younger voter of the same religious identity.

Per Pew Forum, only 12% of the voting pool was religiously unaffiliated...and these voted Obama 70-26%.

At over 120 million votes counted for this POTUS election -- the count will probably wind up with 123-124 million --that amounts to over 9 million voters...

Yet, Obama received over 61 million -- and may garner up to 63 million by the time all the counting's done.

So who were the religious voters that gave Obama well past 50 million votes????

Below's figures are meant to be ballpark vs. fine-tuned specificities...They are based solely upon extrapolations from the Pew Forum exit polls found at the link previous in this article.

* 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

* 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
* 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 votes

Now, Protestants are over 50% of the voting pool; Catholics are 25% of voting pool...so we would expect for every Catholic vote, there would be two Protestant votes...

Had Protestants voted for Obama the same rate as Catholics, the total above would be over 31 million -- not 28.5 million...

My estimate is that Black Protestants -- 9 percent of the overall voting pool -- accounted for about 43 percent of ALL Protestant votes; and Latino and black Catholics -- accounting for 7 percent of the overall voting pool -- accounted for over 30 percent of ALL Catholic votes.

U.S.: Catholics split fifty fifty between Republicans and Democrats. Naturally, from a voting point of view, this fact should be read in light of one determining factor: religious practice. Catholics and Protestants who go to church every week chose Romney over Obama with a difference of 20%, whereas the Democratic candidate was 25% ahead in terms of the votes gained from individuals who practiced their faith less regularly. http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/world-news/detail/articolo/stati-uniti-united-states-estados-unidos-19544/

My response to you is NOT about what the Protestants did or did not do. My observation is this article is deceptive. It is not a fifty fifty split according to whomever is publishing the numbers. The split was 50% of Catholics voted for Obama, and 48% of Catholics voted for Romney. So did that other two percent stay home, vote some third party?

Where did these numbers come from? And given this article is about Catholics why the need to inject Protestants into the excuse filled article? Fact is that the majority of Catholics in the United States are liberal. It was elected and appointed liberal Catholics that produced Obama's 'deathcare' act. Are we suppose to whitewash reality?

This incarnation of liberty is over. That’s not a sad thing ... it’s what happens. The question is what’s next.

Here's one possibility from John Derbyshire. Long, but worth the read.

____________________________________________________________

As I have been saying, there is no unity among white Americans. The old splits of education, class, sex, religion, city-country, and of course North-South still divide whites, and that is the basis of most of our politics. The Republican Party is white, sure enough, but whites aren't Republican.

This will presumably be less and less the case as whites head for minority status. At some point the fact of impending minority status will sink in, and whites will begin to sink their differences and circle the wagons. At some point the Lee Kuan Yew principle will take over. I've quoted it before, and I'll quote it again, because it's very quotable in this context. Quote from Lee Kuan Yew, who was Prime Minister of Singapore for thirty years, and the power behind the curtain for a further twenty in that very successful city-state, quote:

'In multiracial societies, you don't vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion.'

http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2012-11-10.html

That may be the most dead on response I've ever gotten - thanks for sending it. And a bizarre thing happened as I was reading ... I was thinking "this is just like ...." ... and then derby went right into it.

There is one thing - not something I necessarily disagree with, but I think is left out. in reality this isn't about race ... it's about ideas, but ideas have been circumscribed by the most fatal flaw of man - mistaking the manifest for the unmanifest. That's a vague sentence, so ...

I always use the example of Golden Retrievers and Black Labs. As a human, as past employee, as an employer, as a party goer, friend, family member, member of this or that social group ... I just say "Give me the smartest, the most positive, the hardest working, the most committed" ... those are the coin of the realm in my life.

Fur color ... if you're a dog, is not (usually) and indication of anything. Nor is eye color.

I never understood racism - I just can't grasp it ... it's totally unintelligent. To me, the only reason blacks are a cogent group rallying around victimhood is not their color, but the very mistake that made their ancestors victims is the very mistake they are perpetuating, that they are somehow different. Had whites reproduced in Africa, and Blacks in northern locals, Blacks would have had a hand up in technology, and enslaved whites. It's a mistake of history whose victimes are only casually correlated to color. Just as it was blacks who sold blacks into slavery, and were already enslaving blacks, today, they are destroying themselves at a far higher rate than whites. But it could have been brown and yellow, red and green.

So where I differ from John is ... and this is where I did that "wow this makes me think of ... " thing which was followed by exactly that ... is that I don't believe most Republicans are actually racist or ethnicists. I'm making the leap that they are like me. I just don't give a sh*t ... smart, positive, hard working etc ... THAT part is about values.

But if you get sent to prison, and 3 out of 4 'colors' of people band together, under the ridiculous flag that 'oh we just happen to think alike' ... then what choice do you have? You put on the 'white' uniform not because you believe it's a uniform that means anything really, but because if you don't, you'll die.

Slaves are black as a mistake of history. But so are Republicans. Proper Republicans don't see color - we are far more like MLK's speech (as a human, I'm not sure he was so great) ... but in my experience, average breathing Republicans and even simple Democrat voters ... WE DON'T CARE about race. But now we're forced to ... because if color and ethnicity is the coin of the realm, and those wearing different color uniforms want to kill anyone in the white uniform ... if stupidity is the coin of the realm ... then out of self preservation you circle the wagon based on that.

"Prison" was the simile I had in mind just when John wrote about it one sentence later. Sure, some Aryans in prison really are racists, but I'd be willing to bet most just identify that way for survival.

There is so much more to say ... but in prison, if 4 of the 5 colors individually unite among themselves, then the 5th better do so too, even if it's only a means of survival. It's as stupid as the football team in your hometown actually being your favorite. Football's fun, so it doesn't matter - I indulge in it myself ... but human value ... once you associate based on uniform color and brand, you're f*cked as a species - everyone is f*cked, and man's progress is locked.

That's why I keep saying to friends who care about this - it's all about demographics, which is based on identity, not ideas.

The issue of racism is entirely about man having progressed to the point where possibly he can pay attention to the invisible rather than the visible, but he doesn't do so in great enough numbers.

I'd be proud to be white ... except that's not what I'm proud of ... I'm proud to be a simple dog, living on the earth, who never stops to consider if he's a golden retriever or black lab. I just want to go around hanging out with smart, hard working, passionate other dogs. But if all the other dogs are addicted to sub-sub-species - based not on ideas and merit, but based on a combination of fur color and history which is itself a result of fur color, then it's a hostile planet upon which I'm not necessarily enlightened, but smart, to circle the wagon.

People of like ideas should circle the wagon, not people of like attributes, attributes which bear no real correlation to value. I believe among most whites and east asians, we function on the principle that merit is all that matters (and hence, not surprisingly, those two groups accelerate,) and it's born out in that Obama has received 4 trillion billion more votes from intelligent people than he ever deserved, and yet blacks and hispanics vote for him at 90% and 70% respectively. Yes, it's the same as prison.

Thanks for sending that - it's been years since I read him ... he's changed, become more sure of himself on this stuff. My only disagreement, which may not be a disagreement at all, is that the fact that it manifests as 'color politics' is due to a fundamental error, but a habitual one, among man. I don't think Republicans, as much as I've had it with them, share the problem - what I see is that Obama wants people to be identified with color, because it benefits his vision or lack of one.

For Obama, that visit to his drunkard father's grave was not about anything spiritual, it was about whether he would embrace or hate one color or another. He chose his father's color, his father's ideology - the very ideas that turned him into a drunk in the first place, that killed him, and that have kept Kenya in the trash. It's really about ideas, but among an electorate that's still hypnotized by color and ethnic origin, it isn't, because their only idea is "my color, my most recent country, my false sense of identity."

Sorry - no editing ...thanks for the response.

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