Posted on 04/02/2013 6:51:34 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Ed Morrisseyflagged this Politico piece earlier but I want to pay special attention to Huck's comments. Gabe Malor called BS on them on Twitter this morning. I think he's right. Huckabee's latest shot across the party establishment's bow:
“The last two presidential elections, we had more moderate candidates, so if anything a lot of conservatives went to the polls reluctantly or just didn’t go at all,” said Huckabee in a separate interview. “If all of the evangelicals had showed up, it may have made a difference.”…
Huckabee, like Santorum, was a bit incredulous at the attempt to fault social conservatives when the party nominated two individuals who largely shunned talk of culture in the general election and were uncomfortable when they had to discuss issues like abortion.
“Nobody would say that these were guys that just light ’em up at the National Right to Life Convention,” cracked Huckabee.
In other words, lower social-con turnout for Romney last year proved that the party’s already on thin ice. Move any further to the center on, say, gay marriage and who knows what might happen? Just one problem: Unless I missed something, social-con turnout for Romney wasn’t lower. On the contrary, after months of liberal concern-trolling that conservative Christians might not show up on election day for a Mormon, evangelicals gave Romney the best turnout among their demographic that any modern GOP candidate has seen. Remember this exit-poll comparison published by Pew a few days after the election?
Not only did Romney match Bush’s share of white evangelicals from 2004, when Dubya and Rove famously used the gay-marriage issue to mobilize social cons, he actually did ever so slightly better among evangelicals than he did with Mormons. But wait: To say that Mitt matched Bush’s share isn’t to say that the same number of evangelicals turned out for both. It could be that 20 million voted in 2004 versus only 10 million in 2012, with the GOP nominee winning 79 percent of each. Is that what happened? According to the exit polls, no. In 2004, white evangelicals made up 23 percent of an electorate composed of more than 122 million voters; last year, they made up 26 percent of an electorate consisting of more than 127 million voters. As a share of the electorate and of total voters, Romney actually improved on Bush’s performance. The only way Huck is right is if the rate of growth among the white evangelical population between 2004 and 2012 should have pointed to even greater turnout last year than what we saw. I haven’t seen any data to that effect but I’m willing to be corrected.
If Huck is right that Romney’s too moderate for social conservatives’ liking, why’d they turn out for him in such high numbers? Simple: They’re not single-issue voters. Skim through the graphs compiled by the NYT’s Thomas Edsall a few days ago. On subjects like harmful government regulations and strong defense, white evangelicals top white mainline Protestants and white Catholics. They’re conservative more or less across the board, which is what the party establishment’s counting on if the nominee has to finesse the issue of SSM with a federalism dodge three years from now. The X factor is whether Huckabee, Santorum, or some other prominent social conservative pol will turn gay marriage into a litmus test. That’s what was missing from 2012 — maybe evangelical turnout for Romney would have been lower if Huck had agitated against him by reminding voters of his pro-choice past. But he didn’t. Social conservatives were roundly unified behind Mitt in the interest of defeating O, even when they denounced him as being the lesser of two evils. The one silver lining for the GOP in potentially having to face Hillary in 2016 is that she’s sufficiently polarizing to maybe keep social conservatives in the Republican tent even if they’re unhappy with the nominee’s position on SSM. With a lesser known Democratic nominee, the impetus to unite and defeat the great liberal threat might not be as strong.
Wow, so after 150 years the shrinking number of Catholics who are white finally voted more republican than the collective category of blacks and Episcopalians, and lesbian ministers, and people of all races, and all denominations who are all placed in the category of “protestant” a category that has only gone democrat 3 times in history and for the last time in 1964.
Now how does that help America as we import millions of Catholic voters?
Sorry Huckster, as posted if you think moderates are the answer then you are a part of the problem. YOUR moderates keep getting their asses kicked up one side and down the other and three wins your kind have racked up were 1988 when it was essentially through GHWB would be a third Reagan term-not, and you squeaked by literally by the skin of your teeth GWB. Your track record SUCKS!
I predict by 2016 the GOP only gets 20% of the popular vote as most of their base has been ridiculed, talked down to and treated like dirt by you and your kind and ran out of the so-called “big tent” party. But alas liberals democrat or republican are the most intolerant bigots around. Good luck winning again with your squishy moderates.
A safe House district is not even remotely the same thing as a statewide election. Sheila Jackson Lee has been winning her inner city Houston district overwhelmingly (over 70%+ of the vote) for well over a decade, but she could not win statewide in Texas were she to be the Dem nominee for a Senate seat.
He was a safe bet to defeat Obama-wannabe McCaskill right up until the GOPe stabbed him in the back.
Akin was the guy the Democrats spent nearly 2 million dollars to help nominate during the GOP primary. Why do you keep ignoring this? They spent this money because they knew he was the most likely to blow up his own campaign by saying something ridiculous. And sure enough he did. Yes, if Akin hadn't imploded he was a good bet to win - but he did implode.
All GOP had to do was zip it, and Akin would have won.
What Akin said was too dumb to ignore. The Democrats were waiting for a prominent Republican to slip up and utter something silly they would fit into their "war against women" meme. Akin gave them the ammo they needed.
But so animous are they against a Christian Conservative that they continue to throw daggers at him even as recently as CPAC
Nonsense. He was a bad candidate. Period. He was the worst of the 3 primary options - and it was no accident the Democrats saw the same and invested nearly 2 million bucks to make sure he got the nomination.
good for you.
modern unbiased research reveals almost all the stories about everybody were not well grounded in truth. makes history harder to put together.
The evidence already posted in the thread shows this to be a lie.
Again, White Catholics are less likely to support Obama than Protestants.
If Protestants were more like Catholics, Obama would have been defeated.
And makes it easier for crackpots to believe whatever they want despite any and all evidence! King James was not just a Nancy, he was a homosexual buried beside two of his lovers.
Actually, in Missouri both McCain and Romney won statewide. It was Akin that failed miserably at that.
It is amazing to see Obama voters so fiercely defended, and such a bizarre lie told.
Catholics voted for Obama, and Protestants voted against him, and you want America to vote more like Catholics, well so does the rest of the pro-abortion left, and they are counting on it.
It is amazing to see Obama voters so fiercely defended, and such a bizarre lie told.
Catholics voted for Obama, and Protestants voted against him, and you want America to vote more like Catholics, well so does the rest of the pro-abortion left, and they are counting on it.
Then why did White Catholics vote against Obama and were more strongly against Obama than Protestants?
While clinging to racial supremacy within the Catholic church doesn’t change the Catholic vote in America, or come close to matching the 69% of the “white” Protestant vote, or the 80 to 85% of the second largest Christian denomination in America, it does represent some change among that racial niche within the Catholics, it is a big improvement over the 52% of 2008, but it is too little too late.
Whites have been leaving the Catholic church for some time, but the remaining ones have become less democrat than they were historically and have recently started voting pro-life.
In 2012 with all the Catholic issues against Obama, the whites who still remain in the Catholic denomination reached an historical high point of voting 59% republican but that doesn’t change the fact of the catholic vote, it always has been democrat with a few exceptions, and will remain democrat.
The Catholic denomination is not a racial group, it is a single church denomination.
The mystery remains about why a democrat voting block gets such a fierce defense from you, and why supposed Catholic pro-lifers are not discouraging the importation of millions of Catholic voters when we all know that it means defeat for life, for marriage, for stopping the homosexual agenda and for conservatism in general.
“Whites have been leaving the Catholic church for some time, but the remaining ones have become less democrat than they were historically and have recently started voting pro-life.”
Evidence shows the opposite, at least in America.
The Protestants are losing people. Those who are left are less conservative. Catholics are becoming more conservative, and more conservative than their protestant brethren.
Go to that chart at the top of the page and look at how Catholics vote, and how Protestants vote.
You know that the catholic vote is a vote for democrats, you also know that that the Protestant vote is a vote against democrats, what effect do you think importing millions of more Catholics will have on the political issues that concern Christians in America?
“catholic vote is a vote for democrats”
Not so. Let me ask you a question.
Is 1/1 = 52/100?
>> IF Akin had been a RAT, they never ever would have tossed him under the bus.
Akin was trashed here too!
I’m glad Akin stayed in if only to rub it in the face of his “conservative” antagonists.
I can’t stand the fickle #s that take up space on the Right. They’re backstabbing cowards and charlatans,
You just aren’t playing with a full deck are you?
You think that the republicans win the Catholic vote and the democrats win the protestant vote, and you want to cling to that illusion and lie and promote it on the internet for some bizarre reason, while conservatism is overwhelmed and destroyed by the importation of more catholic voters.
The last time the Republicans won is when they won the Catholic vote. So yes, I believe Republicans need the Catholic vote in order to win.
Why? Because protestants are more liberal these days.
So you know that Protestants already vote republican.
You know that Catholics already vote anti-republican.
You know that the democrats are importing millions of Catholic voters, and have been for years, what effect do you think that will have on the pro-life movement and our success in politics?
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