This year’s Republican Primaries have been different in so many ways: the weak field, the shifting anti-Romney front runners, the large number of debates, etc. The other big distinction has been the focus on religion and religious values. Sure, Romney’s Mormonism did get a lot of attention the last time and certainly did influence the outcome, but now, as the front runner, the patterns have emerged.
Rick Santorum, as the final, anti-Romney candidate is the beneficiary of the Anti-Mormon vote. The Anti-Mormon vote tends to be defined as those who identify themselves as white, evangelical or “born-again” voters. These are the people who are staunchly conservative on social issues and are typically misinformed about Mormonism. All they tend to know about Mormonism is what they learn at Church from their pastors and/or the gaggle of professional Anti-Mormons who make their living touring the country warning evangelicals about the dangers and false doctrine of the Mormons.
The irony, of course, is there are no two groups of voters who line up so closely on social issues as evangelicals and Mormons. And to be such committed Republicans.
So, while Santorum as tended to capture the Anti-Mormon voter, surprisingly, he does not capture the majority of the Catholic vote, his religious background, except in Tennessee. Mitt Romney has largely done that. Some evangelicals have the same problem with Catholics they do with Mormons. On the other hand, Romney has received the vast majority of the Mormon vote in places where Mormons have substantial numbers like Arizona and Idaho.
Granted, all of this data is based on exit polling and in some cases, is skewed by a primary win such as Georgia, where Gingrich won by such a large margin and captured many of the votes of defined groups.
So, while it appears that Romney will eventually achieve the nomination, what will happen in the general? Clearly, these Anti-Mormon voters must despise Obama more than they are Anti-Mormon, right? And I cannot see a third party candidate doing anything but handing the election to Obama, so what is a born-again to do?
Some might say that the Romney nomination is not a foregone conclusion and that might be true. But, anyone but Romney out of the current field is a losing proposition as well.
Wheat & Tares 
There’s a picture floating around of Obama riding in a car with the lines “Not sure if republicans are serious, or letting me win” featured.
What I wonder though is why the party is shelling out millions of dollars just to get an ‘Anti-Romney’ option? Seems like a waste since we all know what the outcome will be.
NH,
“Seems like a waste since we all know what the outcome will be.”
Santorum is actually running for 2016, but even he is surprised he is still in it now, I suspect.
He needs a headstart against the likes of Christie, Rubio and others who will weigh in next time.
In 2008, Romney got out once the outcome was inevitable. That won him some good will with the Republican establishment and made him a credible heir-apparent (although Huckabee could have made just as strong a case had he cared to). Now Romney has John McCain’s endorsement (whatever that’s worth) to go with his superior organization.
If Santorum is serious about 2016, now is the time for him to get out, as the 2012 outcome is now inevitable. The longer he stays in, the more money gets wasted in the primary campaign and the less bashing Obama has to endure. That will piss off the establishment. And he’s not even leaving respectable organizations in his wake. The only possible good he could be doing (from a Republican perspective) is allowing angry tea party types to cast a cathartic vote for him, which voting for Romney would not accomplish.
So anyway, unless Santorum goes all statesman in a big hurry, he will not be the heir-apparent in 2016. It will be either Huckabee (after red-shirting this season), Jeb Bush (by right of family inheritance, which worked for W), or Romney’s vice-presidential nominee. Everybody else in 2016 will be running for heir-apparent in 2020.
I’ve been intrigued wathcing the Newt / Santorum vote splitting, which I believe will get more pronounced in the next wave (and then ultimately fade). It’s possible that having both Newt and Santorum in the fight helps Romney by dividing the anti-Mormon vote until the primaries are out of the southern states.
Mathematically it’s hard to imagine any other outcome besides a Romeny win based on the delegate count. But it seems you have to lose Newt & Santorum together or the loss of one will feed the other. It will be interesting to see if Newt has any relevance beyond Georgia.
I loved the headline ‘will mitt get bible-belted?’, because it doesn’t look good for mitt in the south. I agree that it is probably good for romney to have newt and santorum split the anti-mormon vote.
Santorum will get the anti-everything vote. There is no positive, constructive reason to vote for someone who is so narrow minded, regressive and out of touch with the realities of American society.
I suspect some of those folks in the South are sayin’ to themselves:
“We’ve seen that one girl, but where are the rest of his wives?”
or
“I heard he was born in Mexico, have we seen his birth certificate?” (BTW, his dad was…)
Alice,
“Santorum will get the anti-everything vote.”
Not the anti-gravity vote, that goes to Newt! 😀
Alice #6 FTW!
What makes you guys think Romney isn’t running for 2016?
Should Mitt win, and it looks like he could win, I would guess voter turnout would go down because groups won’t vote for Obama, and won’t want to vote for Mitt…so just not vote.
Heber,
“I would guess voter turnout would go down because groups won’t vote for Obama, and won’t want to vote for Mitt…so just not vote.”
That’s the other possibility. Either way, the uber-right will not be happy. A President Mitt will move to the middle or they have 4 more years of Obama and good ratings for Rush, Sean and FOX News
Many are missing the huge problem of a Romney victory. He has a history of bending to the will of those who have legislative power (see Romnet Care). The odds are that if he wins, both Houses of Congress will also be Republican. The federal government will become a Tea Party subsidiary of the Koch Brothers and their ilk
2008 showed that the Republican party is the party of Religious bigotry. Democrats and the liberal media will exploit the Mormon factor, not because they don’t like Mormons, but because they don’t like Mormons that don’t share their political stances.
Democrats are ok with Mormon Democrats, where as Republicans are not ok with Mormon Republicans.
SaltH20,
Actually, Democrats posed a double barrel threat. They don’t like Mormons because most are conservative, but they also have issues with a doctrine and practices. And, i might add our White, liberal Mormons are not helping there.
Jeff,
I’m going to respoectfully disagree with you on this. Democrats don’t care that Harry Reid is Mormon, because he’s a democrat, they’ll make excuses for him because he’s on their team. However, Republicans will not do the same for Romney.
If the media really had a problem with our faith- regardless of party we’d see front page stories about how Mormons are taking over America- the country’s Senate Majority Leader and President would BOTH be beholden to Salt Lake City. No one has talked about how Reid and Romney would attend church together or do some sort of ‘behind the temple’ deals. Because Reid is a Democrat, his Mormonism doesnt’ matter.
I think I’m with salt h20 on this one. It certainly seems that the party doesn’t mind Brother Harry. Of course, he’s elected from Nevada. Whether an LDS Democratic senator could be elected elsewhere is another question. (Do we have any others?)
Hypothetically Speaking: If Orin Hatch was the Senate Majority Leader- what would the ‘Mormon’ stories look like then?
Harry is on the D team so he gets a pass.
Santorum may be getting the anti-Mormon vote, but the real places that the swing votes matter are still going slightly for Romney. Who cares if Santorum won in Oklahoma or Tennessee? These will not be swing states in this fall election. The swing states likely to have significant electoral sway and possible anti-Mormon effect are Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, and Florida. Romney is winning narrowly in these states in the primary. He has shown that he can attract some swing voters in these key states.
Maybe some good will come of the Reid, Hatch and Romney team. Romney could nominate a moderate or conservative republican judge from Nevada to take a seat on the 9th circuit court of appeals. This person could then take the place of a retiring liberal California judge and sanity might break out in the 9th circuit.
Some polling reality:
Rasmussen has been running the exact same poll on Presidential approval among LIKELY voters for years. (While different pollers have different techniques and weight samples differently, the continuing nature of the Rasmussen poll allows you to calibrate it against the last election.)
During the week before the 2010 election, generally regarded as a referendum on Obama’s policies — by Obama at the time, in fact — in which the Dems suffered one of the largest electoral defeat at Federal, state, and local levels in several decades, Rasmussen had the following average results:
Strong Approval: 28%
Mild Approval: 18.5%
Mild Disapproval: 9%
Strong Disapproval: 44%
Results for the past week:
Strong Approval: 27%
Mild Approval: 20%
Mild Disapproval: 10%
Strong Disapproval: 42%
Despite all of the distractions of the Republican primary circus, the LIKELY voters, whether Dems, Inds, or Repubs, are still in hardened positions about Obama, and people who might stay home don’t work in Obama’s favor.
Obama, tactically, must keep people from noticing him, and that is going to get harder to do as November draws closer. That means that once Santorum vanishes the stoking of the anti-Mormon vote will increasingly be coming from the political left.
Paul, Tom Udall is a Mormon Democrat Congressman from New Mexico. (Of course Jim Matheson is from Utah, but that probably doesn’t count.)
Fire Tag Obama has three things going for him: improving economic numbers, very weak Republican candidates and the deplorable actions by Tea Party legislators and Governors. The last point is especially important in regards to undecided voters.
Never the less, it is still to early in the process
“the uber-right will not be happy” Halle-fricken-lujah! What does it look like when the uber-right IS happy? A book burning? A KKK rally? Protesting a new mosque?
Or as Walter Kirn put it in GQ: “the win was interpreted as another episode in a larger ongoing ‘narrative’ about Romney’s failure to ‘fire up the base’ and ‘inspire passion among evangelicals.’ That leaving such a base unfired up amounts to a great public service went unremarked.”
At the end of the day, the far right will still vote against Obama. They will hold their nose and vote for Romney. They are only voting for someone else because Romney’s not their first choice, but he’s better than Obama to them.
If it’s down to Romney and Obama, you can bet the left is going to pummel the church every chance they get. It’s already underway. The Huffington Post religion section should be renamed “Mormonism Unvailed [sic].”
Stan:
I agree that it is still early in the process; in fact, I suspect what will happen between now and November in the Middle East and Europe will be the issue that will determine what the economy looks like then.
Certainly, an improving economic trend helps Obama, but not if he can’t disguise the fact that a D to a C- isn’t exactly the kind of “improvement” that makes the Dean’s list. Let’s put it this way. Would Obama rather have a 5% unemployment rate that had risen 1% in the past year, or an 8% unemployment rate that had fallen 1% in the past year? I think he’d rather have the former to base his campaign on.
As to your other points, I’ll note that the Tea Party was present the week before the 2010 elections, too, and despite the Dem base viewing them as deplorable then and now, it doesn’t seem to be having much effect on likely voter preferences. Undecideds are undecided because they DON’T find the Republicans obviously deplorable. In fact, late deciders in presidential races tend to break decisively AGAINST any incumbent. They know more about him/her and have been unconvinced.
The Republican base, plus Independents who ultimately think that Presidents, not the House or Senate, are hired to fix things, simply starts out much larger than the Dem base in a center-right country. Republicans (fortunately for we who are fiscal conservatives) have a lot of margin for error in this election. The quarterback gets the glory or blame — not the right tackle. Goes with the job description.
In fact, Dems should be aghast that Obama can barely pull 50% of the vote against even Santorum in the Real Clear Politics Poll average.
I’d forgotten about Brother Udall, MH. Thanks.
#8 I hear what you’re saying but, actually, I think Newt is blessed with an abundance of gravity. Not seriousness mind you but the stuff that keeps us flying off into space. ;>
I suspect the Mormonism thing does not come up in the local races, because they are local and it is typically not an issue. I suppose if a Mormon guy wanted to run in South Carolina against a “born-again,” it might be an issue.
The Harry Reid thing is interesting as to why it is not a bigger deal. Nevada has a lot of Mormons in it so maybe folks are used to us there. They tend to run the non-gambling parts of Las Vegas as well as most the government there. Since he is a progressive, the progressives don’t hate him for his Mormoness.
Well-thought-out post, El Jefe!
As the primary season wears on, it does appear that Romney has a fair shot at clinching the GOP nomination before Tampa. Gringrich and Santorum have to know that they likewise don’t have a realistic chance of winning enough delegates, and their insistence on both remaining is splitting the “anti-Romney” or the “don’t for the Mormon” vote. Ron Paul? He’s doing better than expected, but barely on the radar still. He’s doing this to pass the Libertarian torch to son Rand.
No candidate is dumb enough to attack Mitt’s faith and come across as a religious bigot. Any presidential election, ideology notwithstanding, is about capturing the center, and few ‘centrists’ have strong feelings about the LDS one way or the other. Rather, allied voices are used to launch these attacks, because they can be publicly repudiated. For example, I’ll put a fortnight’s pay that once Mitt is nominated that Al Sharpton’s, the clown prince of racial politics, will come out smearing Mitt as being prejudiced against blacks due to his LDS faith. Why would any Democrat strategist allow that? To motivate the black and “progressive” vote, obviously! Right now, it’s Newt and Rick each claiming to be the “true” conservative, and, BTW, Mitt’s from that “cult” and you know they can’t be trusted…
Douglas,
“For example, I’ll put a fortnight’s pay that once Mitt is nominated that Al Sharpton’s, the clown prince of racial politics, will come out smearing Mitt as being prejudiced against blacks due to his LDS faith.”
The Dems are holding their tongue as far as Mitt’s Mormonism. I’ll be addressing a part of this issue next week and we’ll have a a go-round with it, I suspect.
I’m pretty sure a lot of these Deep South voters’ parents are the old Southern Democrats who, 50 years ago, would go to a campaign rally in bed linens carrying a rope and railed against anyone that didn’t share the same brand of beer and chew. They are reg’d Republicans now and hiding behind their brand of “Christianity” and their Sunday morning whisper campaigns. It’s a speed bump for the country, the party and eventual nominee. I see Santorum playing to them but expect that from someone who would robo-call liberal Dems in MI.
Why aren’t you all celebrating, dancing in the streets? The fact that anti-Mormons are boneheaded enough to vote for Santorum should make LDS feel incredibly vindicated! 🙂
This just in: Santorum wins the Anti-Mormon vote in Alabama and Mississippi! Dang….
Santorum blasted global warming a few days ago as a giant hoax. *sigh*
As has been the case in every state Santorum and Gingrich have won, they got a much higher percentage of the vote in poor, rural counties with huge evangelical populations than in the larger cities – and Romney still picked up delegates by coming in 3rd but only about 5% below the winner and less than 1% out of 2nd place. He’s getting 30% of the vote even in those states.
Romney won Hawaii with 50% of the vote (which got almost no press) and still has more delegates than the other candidates combined. (His lead stayed essentially the same after yesterday.) He’s MUCH better off right now than Obama was in the Democratic campaign four years ago – but he’s still being painted in most articles as “struggling”. As a social scientists at heart, it’s fascinating.
Laughingly, Gingrich said last night that he won’t leave the race “to help Romney” – when every reasonably intelligent person knows his staying in the race is helping Romney considerably. What a buffoon.
Sorry for one more, but I can’t get enough of this guy’s . . . stupidity . . . is the best word I can find.
Today, in Puerto Rico, he said publicly that if Puerto Rico wants to become a state some day they are going to have to obey the law just like all the other states and declare English their primary language. Remember, that was while campaigning in Puerto Rico.
First, it’s incredibly stupid politically. Second, it’s factually incorrect. Third, it’s incredibly stupid politically. Fourth, Puerto Rico already has declared English as its primary language – along with Spanish. Fifth, it’s incredibly stupid politically.
I understand being true to one’s convictions, even some of the laughable ones he spouts, but being so badly mistaken factually about something this fundamental to the place where you’re campaigning?!?!
At least he hasn’t published an attack on Romney that bashes him for being bilingual, like Gingrich did. (and, yeah, it was a subtle slam on his Mormon mission, I know)
Ray, I couldn’t agree more. When I hear this crap I can’t help but think, “What would this knucklehead say at the G8 summit?” I want a president who would at least sound smarter than me in a room full of world leaders. Is that really too much to ask?
I came across this today from a Ron Paul supporter (Bernard von NotHaus) and thought some here might find what he said regarding Santorum interesting:
It is true that Gingrich’s nomination is a mathematical impossibility and Santorum is likely as well. The Ron Paul speculation I’ve heard is that he is a plausible veep choice for Romney, the one man he’s never taken a swipe at in the debates. People say (even in the Romney camp) that he’s been Romney’s best silent partner. As to national polling, Romney & Obama are neck and neck. Some days Romney is ahead; other days Obama is. Ultimately the election will depend on the state of the economy and jobs closer to election time.
Ron Paul is just another Ross Perot pipe dream. He will only damage the GOP, maybe go third party for his ego. No one will stop Obama from a second term.
I think that what that Ron Paul guy said about Santorum is true, though he didn’t have to repeat it three times!
But then we goes on about Ron Paul is some drug-induced dream that makes no sense. Paul cannot beat anyone.
The comedy duo of Santorum and Gingerich are just making it wasier for Americans to re-elct the guy that they aren’t entirely satisfied with but is much better than the alternative.
I think that what that Ron Paul guy said about Santorum is true, though he didn’t have to repeat it three times!
But then we goes on about Ron Paul is some drug-induced dream that makes no sense. Paul cannot beat anyone.
The comedy duo of Santorum and Gingerich are just making it easier for Americans to re-elct the guy that they aren’t entirely satisfied with but is much better than the alternative.
Well, I’ve been saying I’ll wait to declare my preference until my State’s primary comes around and then vote for which ever Republican has the best chance against Obama according to the current polls. That’s Romney at the moment.
However, the choice was made strikingly easier for me today when I received Maryland’s official sample ballot, and discovered that Santorum DOESN’T EVEN HAVE PLEDGED DELEGATES FOR MY DISTRICT.
Well, that solves a lot of potential agonizing. Go, Mitt!
Yeah, FireTag, there is that little fact. The guy wasn’t even organized enough to make it onto the ballot in multiple places.
What I find interesting is that Romney lost Alabama and Mississippi (no surprise, since the evangelical population is 70%+ of the GOP voters) but won Hawaii and the various islands votes – and actually ended up increasing his delegate lead. That got very little play nationally.
No question that Romney is getting creamed by the media. But I do think that this whole thing speaks to a GOP that is losing in the marketplace of ideas. The evangelicals and tea-partiers are so out of touch with reality at this point that they will blow their own chance to win the election. And the media is calling them the “true conservatives” which to me is like calling the jihadists the “true Muslims.” I am not buying it.
I have always felt that populism and the GOP are strange bedfellows. The GOP should be the party for those who believe people smarter than we are should be running the country. Obama is smarter; so is Romney. Santorum, Gingrich, Palin, Bachmann, Cain, Perry . . . not so much. Actually, I don’t think Gingrich is dumb, just not managing his uncontrollable ego.
Ray:
Hawaii got no national play because the polls closed after the East Coast media had already written the morning stories and gone to bed.
Hawkgrrrl:
I’ve basically decided that, if it came down to it, I’d be better off with an idiot on my side than a genius on his own side. And I’d be even better off if both of them were checked by EFFECTIVE restrictions on power so that neither idiocy or malice could do me as much harm as seems to be brewing at the moment.
Fire Tag, well, it’s politics, so to some extent they are ALL on their own side. As an independent, I’m a little more worried about how far they are entrenched in their own side. Ultimately I prefer a moderate who can bridge the divide. I went with Obama because he was far more composed than McCain, but I find I don’t like his ideologies much. But I really can’t live with the unsophisticated tea party ideologies either. Basically, the best alternative in this situation is a moderate or to get the govt hamstrung through checks & balances to minimize the damage.
Hawkgrrrl:
Obama’s ideology does trouble me, to the point I doubt that the “moderate” label ever applied.
Let me put it this way: if this guy Saul of Tarsus shows up in Damascus, he HAS to have a story about how he stopped being a loyal Jew who felt it was his duty to support imprisoning and stoning Christians and started worshiping Jesus as the promised Messiah. It was not prejudiced or offensive to ask a “When did you STOP beating Christians” question because Saul was on record as being PROUD of his persecution of Christians. It would have previously seemed inconceivable to Saul that anyone would have ANY reason to regard his ideology as extreme. He was just doing what was right.
And my point is that there is ALWAYS a story to explain a great arc in our individual belief systems. If there is no credible story of HOW we changed — no Road to Damascus — it’s because there was no change.
Someone who starts out as a TBM and ends up as a DAMU can tell a story (even if not out loud) that is self-consistent about how he/she got from point A to point B. Just as someone who converts to Mormonism from another faith can tell their story. It doesn’t have to be spectacular; it doesn’t have to convince people making the reverse journey, but it HAS TO EXIST.
Obama has never hinted at such a story in his life. He started out born into a radical family; his childhood friends and mentors were radicals. By his own autobiography, he sought out and cultivated radicals as his inner circle into college. He joined a radical Christian church whose pastor (and Obama’s accepted personal mentor) Obama later had to renounce during the 2008 campaign, while claiming to have never noticed the bigoted and anti-Semitic attitudes and public statements of the man over 20 years. He continued to associate with radicals in grad school, and into his first jobs. Indeed, the only arc that can be documented is an arc that seems to go from affiliation with radical idealists to affiliation with radicals living the good life through alliance with a corrupt Chicago political machine.
So when and how did our President STOP being a radical and become what the bulk of the country would describe as a “moderate?” How did he hide such a transformation from the radicals and machine politicians who lifted him to prominence?
If everyone has a story of how they got to their current worldview from what they started with, why doesn’t he? I don’t think he gets any more benefit of the doubt without a story of why the radicals are wrong; Saul of Tarsus wouldn’t.