Posted on 03/06/2008 9:56:03 PM PST by kingattax
Evangelicals sent a strong message in Tuesday's Republican primaries in Texas and Ohio by voting overwhelmingly for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, while almost every other Republican demographic group chose Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), exit polls show.
This was despite the fact McCain had already been dubbed the "presumptive nominee" of the Republican Party by the national media and political pundits. As predicted, Huckabee was soundly defeated in all four of Tuesday's primaries and caucuses and subsequently withdrew from the race.
Some analysts say that if McCain expects to capture evangelical vote in November, he must tailor his approach toward conservatives.
Exit polls provided by MSNBC reveal that the most devout Christians voted for Huckabee in large numbers. In Texas, for example, 60 percent of Christians who attend church more than once a week voted for Huckabee, while only 33 percent voted for McCain. In Ohio, 54 percent of church-goers voted for Huckabee compared with 45 percent who voted for McCain.
"McCain can get that vote in November but he is going to have to work for it," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council told Cybercast News Service." It would be a mistake to assume the conservative vote is just going to gravitate to the Republican nominee."
Perkins of the Family Research Council told Cybercast New Service that McCain must be more proactive in reaching out to conservatives if he expects evangelicals to come out to vote for him in November. "He already has the voting record to back up his claim to be a conservative," Perkins said, "But he has never led on evangelical issues. He is going to have to lead if he wants to get the socially conservative vote."
Perkins said McCain must convince conservatives that their issues are important to him and that he will advance them as president. "Really, it just depends on him, whether he moves towards them and communicate to conservatives that he really cares about them," said Perkins.
Keith Appel, senior vice president of Creative Response Concepts Public Relations, told Cybercast News Service that the exit poll results should tell McCain he must "actively pursue social conservatives. I have a feeling in the coming months he is going to make a substantial outreach to all types of conservatives, and if he does actively run on a commitment to conservative principles, I think he will find enthusiast evangelical support," Appel said.
Scott Skeeter, the director of survey research at the Pew Research Center, told Cybercast News Service that evangelicals will prefer McCain to the Democratic candidate. "It does not appear that McCain is unacceptable to conservative voters. When you offer him to evangelicals against the Democrats, they don't have trouble voting for him rather than Obama," said Keeter. "The real question is, how much enthusiasm is there for John McCain? He needs to stress the things that connect him to that constituency"
The MSNBC exit poll also substantiated the link between evangelical, churchgoing Christians and people who consider themselves to be "very conservative." People who considered themselves to be "very conservative" were the only other group, aside from evangelicals, who voted for Huckabee in significant numbers in Tuesday's contests.
In Texas, 50 percent Republican voters chose the former Baptist minister compared with 38 who voted for McCain; in Ohio, 51 percent of Republicans chose Huckabee compared with 41 percent who voted for McCain.
I won’t be bothered by your ‘point.’ :)
It's what I've been using, whenever they send me another one of those darling "Return Postage Pre-Paid" envelopes, ever since Mrs. Vicente Fox's ascension to the status of Anointed One became assured.
There have been, literally, at least a dozen such requests, thus far; a sad necessity brought about, doubtless, by the fact that Juan's oft-ballyhooed "super-coalition" of non-conservatives hasn't been doing jack-all for him $$$-wise, thus far:
Ah, well. "Lie down with dogs," as they say... ;)
You thought that was intended to "bother" you, somehow? Seriously?
I see Team Juan's online pom-pom squadron shares their chosen messiah's (justly) fabled prickliness and thinness-of-skin. Ah, well. ;)
That policy on his website is a good one, for the most part. So where is the McCain - (Democrat’s name) Energy Reform bill?
It doesn’t exist. And the reason it doesn’t exist is that McCain does not really understand the engineering and economic issues involved. By his own admission he doesn’t understand the economics; and by his support of the global warming agenda we can confidently infer that he’s ignorant on the engineering side as well.
Moreover, given his record, there is no reason to assume that if he did put his priorities in proper order, than any solution he would advocate would make anything any better. So far, the solutions to which his name are attached are awful: McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, etc. The longer the list of his policies one inspects, the fewer differences one finds between him and Hillary Clinton. Perhaps the prime distinguishing feature is that McCain gets along better with Democrats than the Clintons do, but that’s not a real big selling point for me.
pushing tariffs is a big deal breaker for many conservatives. Hunter is a patriot but he didn’t make a clear stand against the pork barrel politics.
Many freepers thought Fred was the true conservative. But they should have been against him because the one major bill he co-sponsored in the Senate was mccain-feingold.
They're young. They're in love.
(Well... "young" as compared to -- oh, say -- the Grand Canyon, at any rate.) ;)
it’s not govt’s job to find an engineering solution. The market should find it on its own.
This whole cap and trade thing is just a way to move everyone away from oil. It just so happens to make people like Al Gore happy.
I thought you like to bother mccain supporters :)
Tariffs are a deal-breaker for some, but I would not say it is accurate to describe that group as “conservatives”. The US industrial power was built behind a wall of tariff protections.
The market does find its own, but it must do so in the context of government regulations. Our government currently says that you can't exploit new sources of domestic energy, nor can you put up any new refineries or nuclear power plants. The market is acting appropriately - prices are rising due to the severe restrictions on supply.
So the market is already doing its job. The issue that needs to be resolved is the government action that limits what the market can do. You cannot get this from a "global warming" candidate.
McCain has a 100% rating from cato on trade. I guess that will never make you happy but it is one of the reasons why I am FOR mcCain instead of just being against Obama.
I enjoy pointing out the sad and ugly truth, re: Juan "Anything-For-A-Peso" McCain: the dangerously self-adoring fool murderously intent upon rendering the good, decent citizens of this nation permanently at risk, by irrevocanly destroying the sovereignity (and usefulness) of our borders. It's solely up to the dogged members of Juan's own online hallelujah choir, hereabouts, as to whether they choose to find that "bothersome" or not.
Won't do them a damned lick of good either way, obviously... but: they do have the option open to 'em, nonetheless. ;)
the market is not going to move away from oil on its own, even if you allowed nuclear plants.
The reason why everyone is talking about alternative energy today and not the gas guzzling SUV’s of the 90’s is because the price of oil is much much higher.
Tell everybody how good McCain will be on terrorism.
John McCain armed Kosovo Islamic terrorists
Tell them how much he will do for the troops.
I don’t have any better options.
I choose to judge the matter for myself rather than rely on what others say. My opinion is that our country needs to rebuild its manufacturing base for both economic and military reasons, and that this is probably best done using tariffs on industrial and strategic goods. It is not a bad thing to prefer the business of one’s own countrymen by a few percent over foreigners, and, as it is a preferable source of revenue for the government, it could fund a cut in domestic taxation.
Exactly the point of my rantings and ravings. I think loud protest at this point is the best tool we have at our disposal to hopefully sway such a selection.
Hopefully GOP leaders who "actually work for the GOP and not the DNC" are looking at their dry coffers about now thinking "Oh JEEZ..."
The Veep choice here is going to be the significant motivating factor in compelling any conservative to support, donate to or vote for McCain. At this point I'm still sending empty envelopes back with "NADA" and such written on the donation letters.
And regardless of the results, it's going to be a very difficult thing to get people to part with their principles when it comes to McCain. He's GOT to make the right choice here.
Only stupefying arrogance would make him ignore what's at stake. At some level, he's got to realize the middle and left will drop him when it comes down to the actual vote.
McCain's Senior Team - questions about John McCain's foreign policy plans
Insight on the News, March 13, 2000 by J. Michael Waller
(snip)
National-security issues, which McCain sees as one of his strongest points, may end up being his Achilles' heel. Already there is concern among his conservative friends that McCain may lack the disposition to command, showing an uncertain sense of purpose and outright bad political judgment.
"What's the first thing you would do as president?" the Detroit News recently asked McCain.
"The first thing I would do," the candidate answered, "is call in John Kerry, Bob Kerrey, Joe Biden, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, Dick Lugar, Chuck Hagel and several others and say we've got to get foreign-policy, national-security issues back on track."
That statement ricocheted through cyberspace, with Washington national-security experts wondering, "Is McCain nuts?" The formula doesn't compute:
The reason the market doesn’t want to move off oil is because there’s nothing out there that is competitive. Where there is - it is already in use (hydro). Nuclear power is uncompetitive only because of the regulatory restrictions upon it.
The reason you hear talk about alternative energy today is government money. None of these alternatives would be competitive on their own.
Oil is proven and oil works. Oil results in a whole host of other products from refinery byproducts, for which we will need to refine oil whether or not that oil is used as an energy source. In addition to being a source of energy, oil is also a storage medium, something which other forms of power have to convert at sever loss (into hydrogen as proposed). There is nothing else available that can supply energy on a scale sufficient to have a significant impact our economy’s needs except for hydro (fully exploited in the US), coal (restricted by law), and nuclear (effectively banned by law).
And it just so happens that the US has a ton of the stuff, if only the government gave permission for someone to go and get it.
it is still a tax increase and I don’t think you can pay for a tax cut by increasing taxes somewhere else. The money won’t show up.
The other problem is that it antagonizes the rest of the world when we should focus on the real bad guys. It makes Columbia and other Latin American countries weaker vs the socialist and drug threat of Venezuela.
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