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What a surprise.

You can keep repeating your mantra over and over but all of your arguments can easily be applied to other religions in other religious states, and when they are they simply don’t hold up.

I’m not going to repeat the numbers again since you just ignore them anyway, but Romney’s landslide win cannot be explained by religion or “religious popularity” (whatever that is) alone.

I say Wyoming’s desire to play a greater role in Republican nomination was the dominant factor here, far outpacing religious “popularity” as the key to Romney’s victory. Why don’t you step outside of your neat little sandbox and address this claim? I know even contemplating that could be difficult, but it would certainly be more productive than hurling epithets (which is rather juvenile IMHO), repeating your same old tired and totally unsupported arguments based on nothing more than biased stereotypes, and simply declaring at the end of it all “I was right”.

Yeah, you sure convinced me…

Your math seems to be more reliant on your subjective opinions about Mormons than actual fact. Your claim that a 10% Mormon population is the primary reason for Romney’s 67% victory is not supported.

If I take your arguments and apply them to Iowa, i.e. being Evangelical means being politically active, Evangelicals vote, particularly when there’s an Evangelical candidate at risk, Evangelicals are POPULAR in this state because Evangelicals provide money and welfare support, and surrounding states also are supportive of Evangelicals, then following your unsupported logic, Huckabee should have had at least 67% of the vote if not 90%+ due to the simple fact that there are 6 times as many Evangelicals in Iowa as there are Mormons in Wyoming.

And, unlike your own questionable implications about Mormons voting as a block (here’s a hint, they’re encouraged to vote, but never who to vote for) Mike Huckabee benefited from the direct endorsement of many churches and pastors in Iowa. If your theory had any merit Huckabee should have won in an undisputable landslide. But, he didn’t. He eked out a 9 point win.

If you had bothered to read my posts a bit more carefully, you would have noticed that I never said religion was not a factor in these primaries/caucuses. I simply made the assertion that it was not the primary reason for Romney’s landslide victory in Wyoming. I agree that it was the pivotal factor in Iowa, but it did not produce the kind of results you are claiming came about only because of religion. It simply gave Huckabee a 9 point edge, not a 42 point margin of victory making up nearly half the electorate.

If you ever cared to look beyond your neat little supposition, and I quote “Gee, Wyoming has a large and active Mormon population” you might find yourself a little better informed. Wait, oh Gee, doesn’t Iowa have an incredibly large and incredibly active Evangelical population. But unfortunately for your inept claims, the results in these two states simply don’t match up.

Maybe if you could break out of your “Super-Mormon” mindset where each Mormon vote is 6-10 times more effective than the national average, you might realize that Mitt Romney was the only candidate to conduct a significant campaign in Wyoming. Maybe, just maybe this is what Wyoming Republicans were looking for. They did, after all, sacrifice half their delegates by moving up their primary date. Was this some Mormon ploy, or was it simply the Wyoming Republicans’ desire to attract major candidates to their state so they might have a more decisive role in the Republican nomination??

Mitt Romney was the only candidate to take them up on their offer and they rewarded him for it in droves. Maybe Republican candidates will get the hint during the next election.

Or, conversely, as you so aptly put it, there’s too many darn Mormons in Iowa.

I agree completely, no one did say that.

Also, I am not lying. You are claiming that the 10% Mormon population was Romney’s “edge”, or the pivotal point in the race there.

I’m saying it wasn’t, and the numbers back me up on this. Just who did the 10% give Romney the edge over? The nearest Republican contender was Fred Thompson at 25%, subtracted from 67% leaves a difference of 42 huge percentage points.

This is quite an “edge” and in my view it is a bit preposterous to claim religion was the primary factor. While it was certainly “a” factor, there was more going here than you seem to realize. Wrapping things up in a neat little package is definitely more appealing, I know, but unfortunately the numbers do not support your claims.

And until you can provide something more substantive than name-calling, I’ll be inclined to keep thinking that way.

Also, how exactly is this a “dead” thread when the latest post was just a few hours prior to my original one?

I think you may want to take a closer look at the demographics here. While 10% is significant, religion alone can hardly account for a 67% landslide in Wyoming. The other 90% of the population are of of some other faith, probably not necessarily supportive of Mormonism.

If you look at Iowa, you have 62% of the population defining themselves as Protestants, while 23% are Catholic. Both of these, esp. the Evangelical Protestants, are known for their political activism. So here you have a total of 85% politically active Christians, which absolutely dwarfs 10%, and is more along the lines of what I would label “significant”.

But, If I follow your popular religion theory correctly and apply it to Iowa, the frontrunners should have been Huckabrew and Giuliani, but that was not the case. Romney, a Mormon, representing less than 1% of the religous population, was on a 70-80% parity with the Huckster among evangelicals and totally eclipsed the other candidates.

This seems to indicate that many other factors than just religion were at play, though religion was “a” significant factor due to the disproportionately high number of Protestants that form the basis of the Huckster’s niche support base.

Romney’s win in Wyoming due mostly to the 10%. I can’t agree with you there, esp. considering the 67% win. I think the fact that he actually campaigned there would be a better explanation, among other things.

I do agree with you that specific doctrinal questions should be left out of public forums, even presidential ones as a matter of relevance and tact, but as long as freedom of speech is in effect, people are going to ask all sorts of questions. Mormonism just happens to be a very popular subject these days.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Carry on.

See? I can play the kind of “word games” you like just as well as you can.

Obviously, if I’d understood what you’d meant by “eliminated” I wouldn’t have asked you to define it. And I’m guessing that if your definition as you used it in that “one comment” wasn’t so inconvenient for you, you’d have explained it rather than accusing me of playing “word games”. After all, you’re not shy about expressing any other points you feel will help your argument. (”Over and over”, I think was your phrase.)

I actually got a laugh when I woke up this morning, checked this thread, and saw that you had posted eleven of the twelve entires since my last. And the one entry that wasn’t yours, you also attacked.

Pretty funny.

Carry on.

Okay, continue battering each other.

Comment by BARTLEBEE — January 6, 2008 @ 1:00 am

No, Bart, what you said was that Romney had been eliminated.

To me, “at a disadvantage” and “eliminated” are two different things. Apparently not to you, but you won’t say what you mean by “eliminated”.

And I didn’t “attack” you. I asked for claification which you wouldn’t provide. What you call a “straw argument” is actually just a restatement of a bedrock principle of American representative democracy. It seems to be at odds with your description of a “religious test”. All I’ve been doing is trying to figure out why your concept of a “religious test” is so different from mine. You haven’t been much help in my struggle to figure out what you’re saying and why you’re saying it.

Comment by BARTLEBEE — January 5, 2008 @ 11:27 pm

That’s what I thought. I guess you’re not really interested in helping me understand your point.

I pointed out that Romney lost because his mormonism was a detriment, because Iowa is a strong mainstream evangelical christian state, where his mormonism is more of a detriment, as evangelicals are none to fond of mormons (has to do with a debate over faith vs works, but thats a completely different story) , rather than an asset.

But you said he was ELIMINATED, not that he was at a disadvantage.

No one will argue that his religion puts him at a disadvantage, especially among Republicans. Whether that’s right or wrong is up for debate. What’s not up for debate is that it is perfectly acceptable, from both a constitutional and legal standpoint, to base one’s decision on whom to vote for on whatever factors one chooses, even the religion of the candidate.

When you claim that this constitutes a “religious test for office” as you have tried repeatedly, it means that you either don’t understand these terms in the same way that I do, or that you’re speaking hyperbolically for effect.

Your insistence on your interpretation of the term “religious test” leads me to think that you’re not speaking hyperbolically. And you refuse to define the terms that are in dispute, because this, to you, is simple “word games”.

So I guess that’s where we are. Have a good evening.

Does this mean Dick Cheney was a Mormon?

Comment by BARTLEBEE — January 5, 2008 @ 9:17 pm

Okay, Bartles, I’ll try to keep up.

Let’s start with you explaining what you mean by the word “eliminated”?

To me, that means that a candidate is no longer a candidate. He’s been eliminated.

Obviously, it means something different to you. Can you explain?

Thanks.

Comment by ralph the wonder llama — January 5, 2008 @ 9:06 pm

Ah, but WINNING the presidency, Ralph..! Always more where that came from.

Comment by Keltoi at Night — January 5, 2008 @ 9:00 pm

Keltoi, when I read that rumor, I assumed it would have to be the Bush Crime Family offering cash to Mittens.

Not that Mittens is hurtin’ either, but running for president probably burns a lot of cash.

Not that Romney has a chance, but if he really wanted to destroy his chances he’d put someone with the last name of Bush on the ticket.

How could he have won a caucus if he’s been eliminated on the basis of a religious test?