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Huckabee: We lost in 2012 because evangelicals didn’t support a more moderate nominee
Hotair ^ | 04/02/2013 | AllahPundit

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?

mor

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.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Arkansas
KEYWORDS: 2012; 2012electionanalysis; 2016election; arkansas; christianvote; christianvoters; election2016; evangelicals; huckabee; mikehuckabee; rinos; romney; romney2012; valuesvoters
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To: JCBreckenridge

Screed? You are lying about that and made it up, not only is it not a screed, I don’t even say it.

The Catholic denominations devotion to the left is what the left pins it’s hopes on.

You know very well the effect that the Catholic voter has had on America, does have on America, and will have on America, you know it, I know it, and the pro-abortion/pro-homosexual left movement knows it, yet you refuse to condemn importing them, knowing what it means to conservatism.

It seems that you must have chosen a side in the culture war against America.


141 posted on 04/03/2013 10:33:45 AM PDT by ansel12 (The lefts most effective quote-I'm libertarian on social issues, but conservative on economics.)
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To: ansel12

Like I said earlier - the effect of the Catholic voter is the same as if they never voted at all.

Democrats don’t need Catholic support. Republicans do. That’s how the coalitions work these days.


142 posted on 04/03/2013 11:06:53 AM PDT by JCBreckenridge (Texas is a state of mind - Steinbeck)
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To: JCBreckenridge

It is amazing the dedication you show in defending pro-abortion Obama voters and to importing more of them to replace the American pro-life voters.

Liberal voters and the necessity of winning them moves all American politics to the left, it moves all politicians and all parties to the left.

Democrats depend on the Catholic vote and fight to keep importing them by the millions so that they can write a new future for America and I think by now, we can conclude that they have your full and dedicated support as you continue to argue for their defense.

“However, if there is one man who can take the most credit for the 1965 act, it is John F. Kennedy. Kennedy seems to have inherited the resentment his father Joseph felt as an outsider in Boston’s WASP aristocracy. He voted against the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, and supported various refugee acts throughout the 1950s. In 1958 he wrote a book, A Nation of Immigrants, which attacked the quota system as illogical and without purpose, and the book served as Kennedy’s blueprint for immigration reform after he became president in 1960. In the summer of 1963, Kennedy sent Congress a proposal calling for the elimination of the national origins quota system. He wanted immigrants admitted on the basis of family reunification and needed skills, without regard to national origin. After his assassination in November, his brother Robert took up the cause of immigration reform, calling it JFK’s legacy. In the forward to a revised edition of A Nation of Immigrants, issued in 1964 to gain support for the new law, he wrote, “I know of no cause which President Kennedy championed more warmly than the improvement of our immigration policies.” Sold as a memorial to JFK, there was very little opposition to what became known as the Immigration Act of 1965.”


143 posted on 04/03/2013 11:31:35 AM PDT by ansel12 (The lefts most effective quote-I'm libertarian on social issues, but conservative on economics.)
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To: ansel12

“Democrats depend on the Catholic vote”

No, they don’t. Simple math demonstrates this not to be the case. Remove all the Catholic voters from the electorate. Do the Democrats lose? No.


144 posted on 04/03/2013 11:42:41 AM PDT by JCBreckenridge (Texas is a state of mind - Steinbeck)
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To: JCBreckenridge

Of course the democrats depend on the Catholic vote, why do you fight so fiercely for the democrats and their voters?

What kind of agenda is that, to want more democrat voters imported?

Since you know that Catholic immigrants are going to destroy America, conservatism, the pro-life movement, and marriage, and everything else, do you want to stop their importation?


145 posted on 04/03/2013 11:53:51 AM PDT by ansel12 (The lefts most effective quote-I'm libertarian on social issues, but conservative on economics.)
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To: JCBreckenridge

Of course the democrats depend on the Catholic vote, why do you fight so fiercely for the democrats and their voters?

What kind of agenda is that, to want more democrat voters imported?

Since you know that Catholic immigrants are going to destroy America, conservatism, the pro-life movement, and marriage, and everything else, do you want to stop their importation?


146 posted on 04/03/2013 11:53:51 AM PDT by ansel12 (The lefts most effective quote-I'm libertarian on social issues, but conservative on economics.)
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To: ansel12

I just proved that the Democrats do not depend on the Catholic vote.


147 posted on 04/03/2013 2:41:30 PM PDT by JCBreckenridge (Texas is a state of mind - Steinbeck)
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To: JCBreckenridge

All you have proved is which political agenda that you support by saying anything to defend the democrat voters and the importation of millions more of them.


148 posted on 04/03/2013 2:47:56 PM PDT by ansel12 (The lefts most effective quote-I'm libertarian on social issues, but conservative on economics.)
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To: ansel12
seriously now, it's never been considered an insult except by non holy rollers.

You have it mixed up with 'holy joe' which is an insult.

149 posted on 04/03/2013 3:12:36 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah

Aside from being a weird guy, and posting nonsense and false information and claims, you are also a liar, you must really dislike those people.


150 posted on 04/03/2013 3:26:37 PM PDT by ansel12 (The lefts most effective quote-I'm libertarian on social issues, but conservative on economics.)
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To: ansel12

I don’t see the problem with the legal immigration of millions of Catholics to America. Do you?


151 posted on 04/03/2013 3:29:55 PM PDT by JCBreckenridge (Texas is a state of mind - Steinbeck)
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To: ansel12

you mind is getting entirely too rigid to enjoy a discussion and debate board.


152 posted on 04/03/2013 3:36:47 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: JCBreckenridge
LOL, thank you, the pro-life movement doesn't stand a chance thanks to your politics.

The left wants to import as many Catholics as they can, and legal is the best of all, because they can vote very soon after arrival.

It is what the left counts on.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

153 posted on 04/03/2013 3:39:35 PM PDT by ansel12 (The lefts most effective quote-I'm libertarian on social issues, but conservative on economics.)
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To: muawiyah

LOL,your fake statistics and anti-Christian name calling are not useful anywhere in life.


154 posted on 04/03/2013 3:42:38 PM PDT by ansel12 (The lefts most effective quote-I'm libertarian on social issues, but conservative on economics.)
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To: ansel12

you are the one who is into anti-Christian name-calling.


155 posted on 04/03/2013 3:51:44 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: ansel12

One presumes they would vastly prefer Mexicans to Catholics.


156 posted on 04/03/2013 3:53:00 PM PDT by JCBreckenridge (Texas is a state of mind - Steinbeck)
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To: JCBreckenridge

Mexico being such an overwhelmingly Catholic nation which during almost it’s entire history was around 96 -98% Catholic almost as Catholic as America was Protestant when it was created, Mexicans who become Americans are usually Catholic.

Catholic Hispanics naturally make much better democrat voters than Protestant Hispanics.


157 posted on 04/03/2013 6:59:44 PM PDT by ansel12 (The lefts most effective quote-I'm libertarian on social issues, but conservative on economics.)
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To: JCBreckenridge

Mexico being such an overwhelmingly Catholic nation which during almost it’s entire history was around 96 -98% Catholic almost as Catholic as America was Protestant when it was created, Mexicans who become Americans are usually Catholic.

Catholic Hispanics naturally make much better democrat voters than Protestant Hispanics.


158 posted on 04/03/2013 6:59:45 PM PDT by ansel12 (The lefts most effective quote-I'm libertarian on social issues, but conservative on economics.)
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To: JCBreckenridge

I just realized that you probably meant that the left would prefer atheist Mexicans to Catholic Mexicans, actually just like American Catholics and atheists, they vote for the same political party.


159 posted on 04/03/2013 7:09:52 PM PDT by ansel12 (The lefts most effective quote-I'm libertarian on social issues, but conservative on economics.)
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To: ansel12

Oh. I see. So you’re saying that the Mexican Catholics who immigrate to America are Americans?


160 posted on 04/03/2013 7:52:09 PM PDT by JCBreckenridge (Texas is a state of mind - Steinbeck)
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