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?

[Ditter]

Thanks. I did not get that definition when I Googled it.

[Psalm 144]

“No religious affiliation does NOT mean someone is necessarily godless. It means they don’t seek Him inside an organization and/or a building.”

True. I would also take the pre-Christian, ‘godless’ C. S. Lewis over Baptist Bill Clinton, or Methodist Hillary Clinton, or Catholic Nancy Pelosi, or Jewish Debbie Wasserman Shultz. There is a lot of superficial sheep thought about the depth and values of the ‘religious’.

[rhombus]

There is a lot of superficial sheep thought about the depth and values of the ‘religious’.

And you only addressed one party. ;-)

[Psalm 144]

“And you only addressed one party. ;-) “

LOL! You are correct. That was accidental, as I just grabbed the easiest low hanging fruit!

[rhombus]

Besides...why wave red flags during primary season with so many bulls looking for an excuse to charge? ;-)

[Hemingway's Ghost]

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

No, no, and no.

New Hampshire is awesome. True salt of the Earth people. All of America should be more like New Hamsphire, not the opposite.

[Psalm 144]

That may have been lurking at the subconscious level . . .

XD

[A'elian' nation]

Does not the republican party decide who can vote in their primary in NH ?

I cannot fathom a real good reason why any party would open up their primary process to independents or voters from another party.

Does the NH legislature determine the primary rules for all parties or does each party make its own rules ?

Another thing. I posted a vanity a few days ago in General Chat and for a while it showed up and then it disappeared. It wasn’t offensive. I just wondered if the husband affects a wife’s vote more or if a wife affects a husband’s vote more. This was in response to Rush talking about how men and women think and act differently.

I took the daring position that a man affects a woman’s vote more. Anyone know why an innocuous post would be taken down?

[LikeARock]

“I am being somewhat facetious, but look at what is happening and the types “the herd” votes into office.”
Every elected official ever? I think most of the time the majority votes on who (of two people!) they like more, and we get a president who most reflects the contemporary people’s ideal grandpa.

[stonehouse01]

Oh sorry not clear - I meant specifically the office of president.

Your insight about the people voting for their ideal grandpa is very accurate. Unfortunately the leftist media, especially TV, “helps” the populace decide what an ideal grandpa ought to look and/or be like.