Posted on 02/10/2008 9:37:21 AM PST by Utah Binger
WASHINGTON - The day after Mitt Romney formally announced he was seeking the White House, a USA Today headline blared "Will Mormon faith hurt bid for White House?" Anchors on the major networks asked the same question and a stream of pundits predicted Romney's Mormon religion would be a significant hurdle. Almost one year later, on Thursday, Romney withdrew from the race after suffering several big losses and facing an insurmountable challenge to beat Republican rival John McCain. The degree to which his faith contributed to that defeat may never be fully known. It's clear, however, that Romney's belief in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cost him in his presidential quest. Romney himself acknowledged that had he been a Baptist, for example, he may not have lost the Iowa caucuses - a devastating setback to his early surge strategy.
(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
Romney's undoing was that McKeating is the MSM's pet Republican.
Nonsense. Flip got plenty of evangelical votes, even if Fred or Huck got more.
Now how did those Mormon voters vote?
What baloney!
The truth is, if you are an arrogant technocrat, no one will like you. Romney was the ultimate conservative policy wonk who took his positions based on studies by right-wing think tanks, but nobody cared.
The reality is that many evangelicals believe Mormonism to be a cult. Romney never had a chance on the national stage.
Bull
At this point I wouldn’t vote for the man simply because opposing him in any way gets me called a bigot by pathetic children who studied at the Jesse Jagmo school of victimization.
I don’t think it was Mormonism that hurt him. He was after all the governor of the most “liberal” state in the union and had to make deicisions that wouldn’t help him when trying to run for the presidency. He also started out with musch less name recognition than the four term senior incumbent senator from Arizona.
Baloney.
No, that’s silly. The lesson of Romney is that if you’re a cultist, you’d better have something else to offer that people can really believe.
That Romney’s a cultist was a minus. But most of us weren’t drawn to support him because of his unconvincing (or should I say “convincing”?) record of flip-flops.
We weren’t convinced that we understood his real political convictions.
That we did understand (and reject) his religions convictions was a minus, but not a deal-killer.
Hope you can handle that truth.
Absolutely. They give McCain millions of dollars in unreported contributions in the form of frequent and favorable media exposure and have been for decades.
Romney’s undoing is that his record did not reconcile with his Presidential run. That Mormonism is a sham didn’t hurt him as much as his seeming inability to convince people he was conservative. He supported a Nationalized Health Care plan that was only a degree different than Hillary’s. People might be in denial but he was a very weak candidate which was proven by his spending millions of dollars and squandering what was an impressive early lead. The more people heard Romney the less they liked him. I think the Republican party should require a common start date for running for the nomination. The starting a year out thing has really screwed us this election year.
It is a cult built on a fiction not unlike Scientology.
Or at least switch to one from the "approved" list... and one that has adherents who will get bellicose and cow others.
Mr. niteowl77
"Iowa: the land between two rivers, and one consisting mainly of fools."
Pet RINO
That's secret stuff.
One thing is for sure, Mormons did not open their wallets to support Romney. If they had, Romney would not have had to put in $35 million of his own money.
There, fixed it.
I always hated those brown nosers.
Be careful, cultists may be lurking.
Romney’s undoing was the flip-flopping and campaigning as something that his record contradicted.
LOL
The Evangelicals said from the beginning that they would stop Romney.And they did starting in Iowa.
Go Jay Walking some time.
Oh, give me a break. Almost 1 in 5 Iowa Evangelical voters voted for Mitt (19%). And for every Iowa Evangelical Mitt voter, you had two Iowa Evangelical Mike voters--a 1 to 2 ratio (40%).
Now let's look at LDS voters, shall we?
In Utah, CNN said that 94% of the weekly church attenders (who weren't Catholic) voted for Mitt. Others have pointed out that 94-95% of LDS voters in both AZ & Nevada voted for Mitt.
So in those states, for every LDS Voter who did not vote for Romney, you had 16-19 LDS folks who did.
Whatever you're implying under the surface there as attribution to Evangelicals. Be consistent. Cause a 16-1 ratio and a 19-1 ratio is significantly different than a 2-1 ratio.
Are you arguing the facts presented or the fact that you just don't like (me) or McCain...I can understand and appreciate the latter, Latter Day Saint, but not your disputing the former.
But it's always fun to come to the meetings and play like you gave.
Romney did well with suburban Evaangelicals. His past RINOism and flip-flops caused some conservatives to be wary of him. As a result, they viewed Huckabee as more honest.
“Hang-ups over Mormonism proved Romney’s undoing”
I swear to God, I am not knocking the Mormon religion AND I would have voted for Mitt in the general (and did vote for him in the caucus yesterday) **BUT**
I would be just as slow jumping on the band wagon of a Jehovahs Witness. People coming to my door, over and over, to sell their brand of Jesus even after I’ve told them over and over to not come back tend to piss me off.
I am not alone. In my AO the Mormons do this far more than the JW’s and frankly it’s a pain in the ass. I KNOW people that this activity annoys, and even angers. Church-going people. People that have told the missionaries OVER AND OVER, DO NOT COME BACK.
Still they come.
It puts the LDS in a bad light. People such as myself that might otherwise be “live and let live” develop a strong aversion to you. Less literate folks then hear “odd” things about the practices of the Mormon church and that is when you start hearing words such as “cult.”
Is it fair? Probably not. Is it understandable? Only if you are willing to admit that folks are annoyed equally by salesmen at the door even if it is their brand of Jesus that they are selling.
give it a frickin’ rest! Romney’s problem was Hang-ups over his inconsistency on the issues.
I think if he would have won the nomination, people against him would use subtle jabs, etc. (via the media, democrats, etc.). That attack would exist. However, he would have been attacked more as a flip flopper or a rich guy (by the media, rats, etc.).
I’m a consistent conservative across (like many Mormons are ... so, Mormons and people like me agree on political issues ... I’m not a Mormon) the board.
My top issues for me ... personally ... are
1) Entitlement Reform
2) Energy Production/Independence
other issues are less important to me
So, on #2 ... McCain irritates the heck out of me for voting against drilling in ANWR and other domestic energy production items.
On #1, Romney infuriated me on talking out of one side of his mouth that we have to reform entitlements ... and then out of the other criticizing Fred Thompson on Entitlement Reform (as Fred actually had a plan and was willing to talk about it). Secondly, his campaign’s Robo calls against McCain for voting against Medicare Rx. One thing McCain actually did right.
Romney problem was he was all over the place with his campaign message.
I’m an evangelical and your post was offensive.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Of those who do believe in God ( even calling themselves “Christians”), their actually beliefs are anything but Christian. Is is more like a mish mash of government school kindergarten, “Let’s all be nice!”, amorphous Deism.
Jay Walking? The idiots on the Jay Leno Show? LOL
Romney's bigger problem was that he was a fictional conservative. Where McCain might be called the anti-conservative candidate, Romney was the unconservative candidate.
The Salt Lake Trib this week said $5.2 million to Romney came from Utah (I can't recall what time period they were refencing). The Deseret News last weekend said that 79% of all GOP POTUS candidate $ went to Romney. Their totals in that article didn't add up to 100%...but if you take out the Democrat $, it looks like approximately 91% of GOP POTUS candidate $ from Utah went to Romney.
So there you go: The ratio of Utah Romney $ for a GOP candidate $ was 9-to-1--the 1 being the rest of the field combined. (And I don't see the bias & bigot patrol clambering all over LDS supporters & voters for picking a candidate due to as the Salt Lake Trib described it this week, "personal qualities"--personal qualities meaning the Mormon connection between candidate & voter. So if LDS voters could choose a candidate taking into primary consideration the candidate's religion, which is their full right to do so [& I defend that], why are Christian voters slapped around if significantly fewer of them also take a candidate's % into consideration...Gallup poll from Feb '07 indicated only 11% of ALL voters did that...and that it was less likely to be true of conservative voters...)
You say baloney, I say balogna. Hey, we're both right!
bologna
If Free Republic is any indication of conservatives and Republicans as a whole, his being Mormon was the deciding factor in his demise.
Every day there were threads, usually several at one time condemning the LDS Church.
Rarely was his record discussed. It was LDS all the time.
Told you so!!!!
Its “bulloney”. ;^)
Pretty sad, isn’t it?
People that have told the missionaries OVER AND OVER, DO NOT COME BACK.
“It’s clear, however, that Romney’s belief in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cost him in his presidential quest. Romney himself acknowledged that had he been a Baptist, for example, he may not have lost the Iowa caucuses - a devastating setback to his early surge strategy.”
The article is right on. Of course his religion cost Romney. It’s probably one of those things that would be difficult to poll accurately. But I know a few people personally and heard a good number on call-in shows say they’d never vote for a Mormon for president. If even 10% or less hold such views, it could be very costly in close elections as the Republican primaries have been, with a presumptive nominee with around 38% of the vote.
And there are voters who would never vote for an evangelical, or a Jew, or a black, or a Hispanic. It’s just part of society, but again, it’s difficult to quantify since some would never admit it aloud, or even to a pollster on the phone.
But I notice we have some of the same old Romney haters here pretending it was no factor at all. Pretending seems to be what they’re best at.
Yes. What the vast right-wing conspiracy mongers don't realize is that according to Feb 07 Gallup polling info, conservatives were 9% more likely to vote for an LDS POTUS candidate than liberals; and 11% more likely than moderates.
If he couldn't comandeer the GOP primary, he was going to do even worse on the national stage...especially if the D nominee winds up being Obama.
Rep. King telling it like it is.
Yes, the religious bigotry was appalling, but it was all a part of the politics of personal destruction by frustrated supporters of some of the other candidates who felt that they couldn’t get any traction with the media. Most of these supporters couldn’t see that their candidates had some serious flaws that were preventing them from getting their message out. Huckabee was too far left to be considered conservative, though a likable fellow, Hunter was espousing union rhetoric, and Thompson just entered the race late and gave the appearance of lack of energy.
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