Is New Hampshire Fit to Pick a President?

Townhall.com ^ | January 10, 2012 | Byron York

[Kaslin]

NASHUA, N.H. -- Is New Hampshire too white, too old and too godless to play a key role in selecting the next president?

"The rap on Iowa: It doesn't represent the rest of the country -- too white, too evangelical, too rural," NBC's Andrea Mitchell famously said shortly before the Jan. 3 caucuses. Other critics called Iowa too old.

If such concerns about Iowa are legitimate, then so are concerns about New Hampshire. For example, the first-in-the-nation primary state is actually whiter than Iowa. According to the 2010 census, New Hampshire is 93.9 percent white, 2.8 percent Hispanic and 1.1 percent black, while Iowa is a virtual rainbow at 91.3 percent white, 5 percent Hispanic and 2.9 percent black.

As far as age is concerned, both states have higher-than-national-average numbers of residents above retirement age. In New Hampshire, 13.5 percent of the population is 65 or older; in Iowa, it's 14.9 percent. Not a lot of difference.

As far as rural is concerned, yes, Iowa is full of farms. But New Hampshire isn't exactly a great urban center. In fact, the primary and caucus path does not lead to any really big cities until the Florida primary on Jan. 31.

Then there is religion. During the run-up to Iowa, pundits talked endlessly about Iowa's evangelical Christians. Are they too conservative to pick a president? Are their views on social issues too extreme? Are they really representative of the country as a whole?

Many of the questions were ill-informed. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life's "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey," Iowa is, in fact, slightly less evangelical than the rest of the country: 24 percent of Iowans are evangelicals, while 26 percent of Americans are.

Iowa does have a higher percentage of mainline Protestants than the rest of the country. So when one combines the evangelical and mainline strands, Iowa is more Protestant (54 percent) than the rest of the country, which is 44 percent combined evangelical and mainline.

And New Hampshire? Its combined number is 34 percent, meaning the state is less Protestant than the rest of the country by about the same margin that Iowa is more Protestant. Will pundits see that as a problem?

There is one big difference between the two states, and that is the number of people who have no religious affiliation. According to Pew, about 15 percent of Iowans say they have no affiliation -- nearly right on the national average of 16 percent. But in New Hampshire, 26 percent have no religious affiliation -- well above the national average.

So is New Hampshire just too godless to pick a president? Of course not. States differ in their balance of faith and non-faith, and when you add up the early voting states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Nevada -- you get a pretty good mix. New Hampshire is as qualified as any to make a political statement. But it will be interesting to see if commentators who fretted about Iowa's religiosity will be equally concerned about New Hampshire's non-religiosity.

In the heat of a campaign, it's difficult to speak with much subtlety about the role religion plays in voting. The entrance polls measure religion very crudely, says John C. Green, professor of politics at the University of Akron and a top authority on evangelicals in politics. A lot of the evangelicals in Iowa may belong to mainline Protestant churches or even be Catholic.

Many such distinctions were lost in the punditry. Also, the statistics above describe each state's entire population, not just its most politically active residents. Which means that, yes, lots of political activists are evangelicals. But lots of evangelicals aren't active in politics.

Finally, there was a lot of bias in the pundits' descriptions of Iowa and conservatives in general. A number of commentators are alarmed to see conservative evangelicals in great numbers playing a key role in politics, and out of that concern, they ask whether Iowa is too evangelical. New Hampshire is a little more moderate, so the religion question doesn't occur to them.

Also, most pundits live in the Northeast or in Washington, so New Hampshire seems almost in the neighborhood. Really, what's the problem?

[Diogenesis]

If they support Romney, then no.

Romney makes Obama's ineligibility MOOT.
THAT is why the DNC wants him.

Romney makes Obama's ObamaCARE/RomneyCARE MOOT.
THAT is why the DNC wants him.

Romney makes Obama's IAG issues MOOT.
THAT is why the DNC wants him.

Romney makes Obama's Sharia issues MOOT.
THAT is why the DNC wants him.

Romney makes Obama's 911 Victory Mosque MOOT.
THAT is why the DNC wants him.

Romney makes Obama's RomneyMarriage/Gay Marriage issue MOOT.
THAT is why the DNC wants him.

Romney makes Obama's bad governmental history MOOT.
THAT is why the DNC wants him.

Romney makes Obama's AGW issue MOOT.
THAT is why the DNC wants him.

Romney makes Obama's liberal judge issue MOOT.
THAT is why the DNC wants him.

[Kaslin]

Who says you have to vote for the candidate that is already picked. This is a free country and you can vote for whoever you want.

[Past Your Eyes]

My wife is from Massachusetts but before she was done with her teen years, she found out that New Hampshire was a much better place to call home.

[McGavin999]

That’s a great idea, and all primaries MUST be closed.

[Past Your Eyes]

The NH House of Representatives has 3 out of 4 who were not born here. Believe me, the place was a lot better off when the natives were in charge.

[Kozak]

We need a new system. How about dividing the country into regions and having one state from each region vote on a given date. Rotate or chose at random the states to ensure each state has a chance to be involved. I’m sick and tired of the idiots in Iowa and New Hampshire always having such a heavy influence on the nomination.

[chris37]

I think a better question is is America fit to choose a president?

[RoosterRedux]

this is madness is it not?

[who knows what evil?]

New Hampshire’s problems are that it is an open primary state, permitting Independents and crossover Democrats to vote and that there are minimal residency requirements, allowing college students and residents from neighboring states to register and vote the same day.

You're right...watch who the 'independents' support on the GOP side in today's primary...that will tell you who the Democrats want to run against Obama. In 2008, 'independents' went for McCain. We know how THAT turned out...

[cripplecreek]

I think it would also help to tone down the vitriol between candidates. Iowa has become a 9 month dog fighting pit that benefits only the media.

Get them out of Iowa and campaigning nationwide. As it is now, only one candidate did any campaigning in Michigan and that was Herman Cain. His exit has pretty much handed the state to Romney by default.

[Past Your Eyes]

Everybody knows that there is no place more important than New York.

[Kaslin]

THAT is why the DNC wants him.

Exactly and that must mean

MITT ROMNEY, NO WAY

[corlorde]

Liberals would love to have it all start (and end) in California.

[Venturer]

You get my vote.

It is not right that by the time half of Aericans get to vote the Candidates have been picked over by states with open voting and filled with Yankee’s.

[rhombus]

My wife is from Massachusetts but before she was done with her teen years, she found out that New Hampshire was a much better place to call home.

Been there, done that. Although I'm not originally from Massachusetts, I do have a house there as well as one in New Hampshire.

[freedomfiter2]

Fortunately, she doesn’t read your freep posts.

[Ditter]

Could someone give me the definition of evangelical Christian?

[livius]

These two states are not typical in that neither one of them has a major city. Some states are primarily rural but are regional centers with an important city, while many others - all over the country, and not just on the coasts - have large urban areas.

So making these two states the litmus tests for candidates for the entire US population is a big mistake.

In addition, I think one of the reasons that the GOP often does poorly in cities in the general elections is precisely because GOP candidates start off by focusing so heavily on two states that are among the most non-urban, non-industrial of all. Therefore the candidates never develop the policies or answers that would make them important to the larger urban populations.

Yet at the same time, the thing that really makes a candidate win in either NH or Iowa is something purely personal, mostly “how much is he like me?” In these rather liberal states, the winner is bound to be a dull RINO of some kind; possibly a social conservative who seems safe, possibly not even socially conservative, but in general, a non-threatening white-bread (not referring to his color!) kind of candidate.

[Doc Savage]

Inbred and too stupid to go south.

[joesbucks]

Totally agree. All 50, winner take all.