Who killed Romney?

[nitrah55]

http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/mitts-funeral/

According to the above analysis, Republican evangelical Christians.

The whole article's above, but here's the guts of the argument:

"By significant margins, in poll after poll, in vote after vote a solid block of evangelical Christians said they would never vote for a Mormon. Since evangelicals made up nearly half of the Republican primary vote in some states, Romney was up against a deep well of distrust of a religion that many evangelicals still label a cult.

"It showed again Tuesday, in exit polls in the bellwether state of Missouri. Among the small group of Republican voters who say they never go to church, Romney got his highest vote total – 39 percent. Among people who attend services more than once a week, he received his lowest, 21 percent.

"Put another way, those dreaded secularists – whom Romney himself criticized in his off-tune and hugely miscalculated speech on religion in December – were far more likely to vote for him than were the most devout Christians."

Nationally, 17 percent of Americans say they would have qualms about voting for a Mormon for President- the same percentage as in 1967, by the way. Among evangelicals, the number goes to 36 percent.

What this reminds me is, we have a national election where issues of religion, race and gender should be right out front, and we're pretending they don't matter. Don't believe me? If Obama gets nominated, and gets swift-boated, and gets angry, wait for the backlash against an angry black man on TV. Or if there are rumors of Hillary having a "female problem" during the campaign. And by the way, I don't believe that only Republicans have these issues- there are Democrats who, in their gut, would rather not vote for a black guy and wouldn't vote for an evangelical, either.

[Jeemie]

Who's pretendng they don't matter?

[nitrah55]

Well, has anyone seen any polls asking, "Do you have qualms about voting for a black guy/woman?" "Are you concerned that a woman can't handle the stress of the Presidency?" "Do you think a black president would have policies that would benefit blacks at the expense of other groups?" Or have any of the hundreds of talking heads on TV and radio brought up that those could be issues that voters would prefer not to think about?

[Jeemie]

Well, has anyone seen any polls asking, "Do you have qualms about voting for a black guy/woman?" "Are you concerned that a woman can't handle the stress of the Presidency?" "Do you think a black president would have policies that would benefit blacks at the expense of other groups?" Or have any of the hundreds of talking heads on TV and radio brought up that those could be issues that voters would prefer not to think about?

Not PC to ask those questions.

Besides, as on Power of Ten, respondents would just lie about their opinions anyway (at least on the race/gender issue. People seem to be a tad more honest about religion).

I've heard pundits speculating on the effects, though.

[nitrah55]

I agree they're not PC, but that's part of my point.

Also, clearly, Republican evangelicals didn't lie, because their response to the poll was reflected in the results.

My feeling about pundits is that they all have an agenda, even as they claim not to, and their agenda is to get ratings.