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.
BS- republicans lost because htel eft promissed the peopel more- and the left won because romney didn’t even want the presidency and it showed and peopel picked up on it-
The pubklic has goen from a majority who look at the ideologies of either side and vote thusly, to one where they look at which side promisses them ‘more free stuff’ and vote thusly- We’ve goen from a ‘what can we do for our coutnry’ country to a country that feels it’s the govenrment’s responsibility to support them- when Fox news asked a colored woman why she voted or deaer leader, she replied ‘So I can get me some of that obamamoney” and when asked where she felt hte govenrment was goign to get them oeny to give it to her she got a crap eatign grin on her face, shrugged her shoudlers, and said “I don’t know- It’s free”-
I knew then and there our coutnry was in serious trouble- and hwne they voted him back in a second time DESPITE the FACT that he has done everythign he could to destroy this country and our constitution, I KNEW beyond a shadow of a doubt that htis coutnry has lost it’s friggin mind and is more concerned abotu ‘gettign hteirs before the pie runs out’ than it is abotu ensuring future generations have a decent moral and profittable - all they care about is gettign hteir ‘free’ crack and alcohol money before it runs out
The Republicans need to run a candidate with an actual IQ over 160, period. Politicians are inherently too stupid to fix anything. That’s how you get to become a candidate, you make yourself stupid and conduct business as usual.
Romney exclueded Palin and excluded the Tea Party from his convention and campaign. He followed the advice of the GOP Consultant Class and lost. The lastest in a long line of “moderate” GOP losers. Thanks, Mitt. Thanks, McCain. Thank you Bushes for bringing us to ObamaNation.
I think the reaction of elite Republicans to the internal struggle is enlightening.
As a socon, I want a candidate I can support and if the party was interested in my support, they’d find a candidate that could ask for my vote with a straight face.
The Republican Party refused to do so in the last cycle, instead expecting me to tailor my beliefs to their own.
Sounds sort of ... liberal, to me.
If the Republican Party wants to earn my vote back, it needs to appeal to me rather than to expect me to back the machine. That’s what the other party does.
None if his contemporaries doubted that he was gay. He was gay. He didn’t try to hide it.
Missouri voters did support Romney in November 2012 - overwhelmingly in fact. The state seems to be trending Republican as even McCain eeked out a win against a big Democrat tide. Romney defeated Obama by nearly 10 points. It was Akin, despite the advantage he should have had running in a state that was going Republican so strongly, that the Missouri voters flatly rejected by 15 points. That's just how awful a statewide candidate he was.
But, only until recent highly non-conservative republican actions (gun-control, invasion-amnesty, gay-approval, abortion-approval) have folks begun to experience the rift between country club republicans and grass roots conservatives.
Nonsense. That rift has always been there. Establishment versus outsider, realists versus ideological purity, moderate versus solid conservative, etc. It's nothing new. Ronald Reagan famously spoke to this in 76' and 80'. It's where all this talk about a new party comes from prior to every election cycle and dissipates when folks realize our 2 party system isn't going to change.
Akin was a bad candidate. Period. There is a reason the Democrats spent nearly 2 million bucks trying to get him nominated. Huckabee did us an enormous amount of damage endorsing him and then giving him cause to remain in a race he had no chance to win. If you can't understand this, there is probably no helping you. Missouri voters are not going to come around the idea they should vote for someone who thinks women's bodies magically seal up to prevent pregnancy in the case of legitimate rape. Yes, all of us here on FR would have voted for Akin over Claire, but we are not a good representation of actual general election voters.
You really can't trust ANY of the nobles and court people around him.
Catholics supported Obama as usual.
Michelle Bachmann endorsed Akin although the tea party and Palin were against him.
The left of the republican party will try and blame the predicted defeat of an incredible political loser, Mitt Romney, and his negative effect on the ticket, on a senate race.
Since when do grossly incompetent presidential campaigns get explained away by a senate race?
You apparently will believe what you want to believe - for whatever reason - but the homosexuality of “Queen” James is really not a case of him just being a “Nancy”.
Akin isn’t? What is he radical about?
“First of all, the election was stolen. The Stupid-Ass Party folded and didn’t do a thing about it.”
Bingo!!!! Romney could have stood on his head and whistled Dixie and it would not have made one bit of difference. None of this other demographic crap matters, nor will it going forward, if they don’t figure out a way to stop the Rats from electronically stealing elections. IMO, it is just that simple! All of the GOP resources need to go towards this. Nothing else really matters. This is a new age of election fraud. Find the computer people hired by the Rats, or develop your own, and pay them more. Do whatever you have to do, because if you don’t you will never win another national election again!
“Catholics supported Obama as usual.”
Do you ever tire of that lie?
2012, is the first year that White Catholics were more likely to support Romney than Protestants as a whole. :)
Too bad the Catholic denomination isn’t a race and immigration isn’t about the importation of millions of members of the denomination.
Michelle Bachmann endorsed Akin although the tea party and Palin were against him.
The left of the republican party will try and blame the predicted defeat of an incredible political loser, Mitt Romney, and his negative effect on the ticket, on a senate race.
Since when do grossly incompetent presidential campaigns get explained away by a senate race?
“The Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people; it is wholly inadequate for the governance of any other.” John Adams
“Catholics supported Obama as usual.”
Do you ever tire of that lie?
That is an unfortunate lie you just made, trying to deny the Catholic vote when the chart is at the top of this very thread.
Did you take a look at that White Catholic vote which was 58-40?
Is the problem Catholicism? Obviously not.
“Catholic denomination isn’t a race”
Indeed it’s not. Which is why it’s not the Catholic denomination as a whole which is responsible for the election of Obama.
White Catholics are more likely to reject Obama than your average Protestant. :)
The Catholic vote has been the same for more than a 150 years, and will remain the same forever, the left is counting on and plans their future on it.
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