He's Mormon. That's not Protestant. There's only two things worse than Mormon -- Catholic and Muslim.This assertion seems strange, given that Santorum is Catholic.
FiveThirtyEight takes serious issue with their methodology, concluding folks should ignore the poll and "view their work with extreme skepticism going forward," following up with a tweet saying "Rasmussen should probably just drop the pretense that they are non-partisan."posted by Rhaomi at 11:02 PM on February 7, 2012 [19 favorites]
Rasmussen, the same pollster whose current approval numbers for Obama undercut the next-most-negative outfit by 16 points, who whiffed on their forecasts for the 2010 midterms with a significant GOP bias (including one poll that erred Republican by 42 points, the least accurate polling result in 12 years), and who are headed by a former Bush consultant and WorldNetDaily columnist.
The Republican establishment made clear in Iowa that, if necessary, primaries will be rigged to ensure the Romney nomination.
They had it comin', they had it comin'posted by the cydonian at 7:46 AM on February 8, 2012
They had it comin' all along
'Cause if they used us and they abused us
How could they tell us that we were wrong?
Obama vs Romney: 1/12-2/7, 48.1, 44.3, Obama +3.8 Obama vs Paul: 1/12-2/5, 48.2, 42.0, Obama +6.2 Obama vs Santorum: 1/12-2/3, 49.8, 41.2, Obama +8.6Santorum is going to get a boost from these wins. He'll probably temporarily poll about three points better against Obama than he has, but he won't get as close to Obama as Romney does. All along Romney's polled better against Obama for the general election than have any of the other candidates.
"If you leave it to Nature, then Nature will do what Nature does, which is boom and bust," Santorum said at an energy summit in Colorado. "We were put on this Earth as creatures of God to have dominion over the Earth, to use it wisely and steward it wisely, but for our benefit not for the Earth's benefit." [. . .]Now, that is literally juvenile. By which I mean my six-year-old has a better understanding of the basic foundations of science and reason than Santorum does.
"We are the intelligent beings that know how to manage things and through that course of science and discovery if we can be better stewards of this environment, then we should not let the vagaries of nature destroy what we have helped create," Santorum said.
SANTORUM: I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts. As I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships. And that includes a variety of different acts, not just homosexual. I have nothing, absolutely nothing against anyone who's homosexual. If that's their orientation, then I accept that. And I have no problem with someone who has other orientations. The question is, do you act upon those orientations? So it's not the person, it's the person's actions. And you have to separate the person from their actions.Summary: gays are A-OK, as long as they have monogamous, hetero sex and have babies. Think of
AP: OK, without being too gory or graphic, so if somebody is homosexual, you would argue that they should not have sex?
SANTORUM: We have laws in states, like the one at the Supreme Court right now, that has sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose. Because, again, I would argue, they undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family. And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution, this right that was created, it was created in Griswold — Griswold was the contraceptive case — and abortion. And now we're just extending it out. And the further you extend it out, the more you — this freedom actually intervenes and affects the family. You say, well, it's my individual freedom. Yes, but it destroys the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that's antithetical to strong healthy families. Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.
He's presumably going to win or finish second to Ron Paul in Maine; either way, he'll pad his overall delegate lead (although those delegates won't be chosen yet). Then, winner-take-all Arizona and winner-take-many Michigan on February 28, both states that should play very well for the Mittster.About 58% of American Catholics "believe that employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception," the survey showed. That was higher than the percentage of white mainline Protestants (50%) and white evangelicals (38%) who believe that. The Catholic Church officially forbids contraception use, but 98% of Catholic women who have been sexually active have used birth control. The survey comes as Catholic bishops and their supporters are protesting a decision last month by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.American Catholics have been voting for pro-choice/pro-birth control Catholic politicians for a long time.
Good thing Huntsman dropped out, because he probably could have mounted an actual challenge in the general. Romney has too much baggage, although I did see a piece the other day trying to rehabilitate him.Huntsman would never have won the nomination
His health care reforms were the model for "Obamacare," and he said he thinks abortion should be safe and legal. That's enough to get you hated in a lot of circles.Uh, he [Romney] changed his position on abortion before 2008.
This truly is such a depressing field of candidates. Quite similar to '04 for the Dems or '96 for the Republicans. They're going to go with Romney in the end, and just like John Kerry, he'll flap around and people will vote for him because he's not the other guy, and he'll lose. The end. Let's eat.Whatever, Dean was awesome. He probably would have done a lot better vs. Bush then Kerry, who appeared to be a complete weakling in the face of the swift boat veterans and so on. And Remember, Kerry didn't even lose by all that much.
This assertion seems strange, given that Santorum is Catholic.And Gingrich converted to Catholicism a couple years ago, which seems like, if you're going to be anti-catholic would be a bigger problem then someone who was just born catholic and doesn't want to change. This guy was a protestant and decided to submit before Rome
don't think Mormonism has all that much to do with Romney's failure to connect, really. It's a distant last place of the complaints I hear conservatives making about him. They dislike him because he's too elitist and deliberately moderate instead of being ideological. You don't hear him talking about shutting down parts of the government or making massive changes the way the other candidates do.It might not be something they'll say out loud but it's definitely out there. I've met conservative Christians who absolutely will not support a Mormon.
I don't think enough people are paying attention to all that President Obama and the Democrats have done for the average American. There's been far too much uninformed cynicism, which is predictable enough from the right, but completely destructive from the left .*yawn* I watched part of the video. The problem isn't that Obama hasn't "fixed" things, it’s the pro-active steps he's taken to make things worse, like clamping down on whistleblowers, while protecting the torturers from the bush administration. And the other hand Obama doesn't seem to even be fighting on the issues. Instead of pushing for global warming legislation, he's pushing deepwater oil drilling (in a cosmic irony, he started pushing it a few weeks before deepwater horizon). Rather then economic stimulus, he's spending all his time worrying about the deficit. Now that he's moving back into campaign mode, he's talking more about economic justice and so on, which is certainly a good thing. But it wasn't really on the radar before. (and yet, while being worried about the deficit, not having a problem working with the republicans to extend the bush tax cuts and adding another 900 billion to the debt)
Really, can't say we weren't warned that it would be hard. Change only comes for those who continue to show up and fight. -- markkraft
Even if it is true, this election cycle has shown that the last place you want to be is in first place. Now Santorum is going to get all the Romney money pointed at him AND whatever Gingrich has left in the bank for three weeks. And this at a time when Santorum is going to need to hit 14 states really hard to stay in the race. -- dwSantorum supposedly has a somewhat corrupt past, but he's not someone like Gingrich who has clear character defects that Romney can hit. All the negative things I know about Santorum are things Liberals don't like, not things that will turn off republican primary voters.
straight: Step 2 is where you lost grip on reality. I suppose you guys think the existence of porn parodies making fun of Sarah Palin has made a big dent in her support base as well? -- straight:
The Santorum jokes are stupid and juvenile, but more importantly, they're just not funny. It's like the entire Left went back to fifth grade and keeps telling the same Johnny Deeper joke over and over. --dirigiblemanI think some of you are way over estimating the maturity level of the average voter. Of course this mocking has an impact on voters. Did the mocking of Palin impact her chances? Obviously it had a huge impact. she was the vice presidential nominee, now she's not even a political figure at all.
Well, try posting your repetitive santorum jokes on Free Republic or someplace if you want to sway conservatives. They seem to go in for that sort of elementary-school humor. I can diss the guy's archaic bigotry without needing to mention anal leakage in Every. Damn. Comment.Well which is it, do they sway conservative voters or do they not?
My idea for an awesome Obama ad, and I've been shopping it around for a while, is a silent video montage, starting with a long slow shot of George W. Bush's face, up close and smiling like Alfred E. Neuman or Herman Cain, and then very, very gradually morphing into Mitt Romney's face, like over a full 30 sec or a minute (ad budget depending). End with the employment chart showing the last year of Bush and the first 3 of Obama on the screen and the words "your choice."That's a completely stupid idea for a political ad. For one thing, employment overall has actually been worse so far under Obama then under bush. There was a chart going around showing the second derivative of employment that makes Obama look good but it was fairly misleading – essentially it meant that the probability of you losing your job was increasing, but the rate at which it was increasing was slowing. here's a chart of the current unemployment rate since 2000, as you can see the unemployment rate is falling faster now then it was from 2003-2007.
Again, Catholics are not a bloc. They are not strongly pro-life. They are not AT ALL anti-birth control. They are not very socially conservative. Your Italian Catholic in-laws may be, but I can find socially conservative Jewish voters too but that doesn't mean Jewish voters are very socially conservative.Steven Colbert is a catholic. There are lots of liberal Catholics. There are also lots of Hispanic Catholics who will probably be voting for Obama, having been alienated by the republicans anti-Mexican rhetoric.
That's some Santorum-level logic, JHarris. Good luck hanging out with the people who believe in astrology and think homeopathy works. -- straightI went back and looked at your comments and you were clearly the one who was making unsupportable statements, while Jharris simply pointed out that you weren't actually presenting any evidence for your claim, which is almost certainly false, because you were claiming that not one single person out of millions of were impacted by the santorum joke.
This is a brilliant observation. Oh if only I lived in a world where John King or Wolf Blitzer would actually ask Newt Gingrich, "as a devout Catholic, do you and Callista rely on withdrawal and natural family planning, or do you abort your embryos with hormonal birth control?"Oh come on, you know it's all Anal with those two.
"Romney has subjected Gingrich to a blistering run of attack advertisements in Florida. He has assailed Gingrich for leaving Congress under an ethics cloud in the 1990s and for being a Washington insider and lobbyist in the two decades since. Gingrich denies he ever worked as a lobbyist, but has yet to find an effective way to parry Romney's attacks.""For the first time, Gallup asked the public to rate the honesty and ethical standards of lobbyists, and only 5% describe their ethics as "very high" or "high." Lobbyists, car salesmen (5%), and advertising practitioners (6%) are the lowest-rated professions. Nurses, typically the top-rated profession each year, again get the highest ratings. Ratings of congressmen are the worst Gallup has ever recorded."Romney avoids mentioning it, but Smith ran for president in 1844 as an independent commander in chief of an “army of God” advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government in favor of a Mormon-ruled theocracy. Challenging Democrat James Polk and Whig Henry Clay, Smith prophesied that if the U.S. Congress did not accede to his demands that “they shall be broken up as a government and God shall damn them.” Smith viewed capturing the presidency as part of the mission of the church. He had predicted the emergence of “the one Mighty and Strong” — a leader who would “set in order the house of God” — and became the first of many prominent Mormon men to claim the mantle.posted by empath at 8:12 AM on February 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
Frankly, I think Savage missed a trick by going for scatalogical humor instead of choosing a definition of santorum like 'an instance of irrational bigotry' or suchlikeNo one would ever have given a shit if he'd done that. He also would have seemed whiny and shrill. But the neologism thing was catchy and interesting. Dare I say it viral in today's parlance. Lots of people (those who don't have anal sex) had probably never even thought of the concept. I mean I literally don't know any other term for that particular... substance.
Ron Paul seizes the opportunity and does the same. Most of the social conservative candidates (Santorum, Palin, Cain, etc.), whether or not they're still officially in the race at this point, join Newt's team, while Trump gives his backing to Romney. Come the election, the vote is split in several directions, and Obama is reelected in a landslide. And that, dear friends, will be the end of the Republican party as we know it.I actually think it's possible the republican party could end. It's happened once before that the one of the main opposition parties has been replaced, although that event also coincided with a civil war...
Also, delmoi, you seem to be under the impression that political ads need to be "true" rather than "truthy," and the Dems are going to face an onslaught of truthiness that makes the recession itself, rather than the fumbled but still slowly working recovery strategy, Obama's fault.It depends on how dishonest you are. Remember Alan Graysons' edit to his opponent to make him say something like "you should obay your husband, that's in the bible" when actually he said something like "don't say … that's in the bible" These things do happen in a context, and people are turned off by over the top ads.
I can see that. Well, now we have the 12 year old vote locked up.Plus everyone with a 12 year old mentality, which is a lot of them.
And, btw, don't think the Democrats won't go there if Romney is the nominee. It won't come from the white house, but Southern Democrats aren't going to be shy about hammering Romney over it. Unlike Republicans, they don't particularly need to worry about alienating Mormon voters over it.Romney will probably do really well with Mormon voters this time around if he's the nominee, but you wouldn't want to alienate them completely, the way republicans have with the Hispanics. Remember, Harry Reid is a Mormon, there are probably lots of Mormon democrats. The Mexican bashing that the republicans engaged in probably helped them in the short term but it's probably done a ton of damage to them for the long term. It would be stupid to do the same thing with Mormons.
"Governor Romney, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?"They actually asked him that at a 2008 debate. He said yes, but he looked pained about answering it that way, I can't believe his answer was that helpful, although obviously evangelicals could never have voted for him if he'd said no, I suppose.
"um, ha ha, er, well, wolf.... Let me explain how my church sees Jesus..."
My point being that I actually do believe this is Mitt Romney's problem with evangelical and southern conservative voters, which no one will admit out loud, or poll in a serious way.Like I said upthread, I've met crazy religious evangelicals who were totally opposed to Romney and thought there was no way he would win, and it was entirely due to religion. If you don't think it's dragging him down with evangelical voters you're way wrong. It is absolutely an issue.
I asked St. Alia to weigh in on why she'd never pull the lever for Romney above, but as far as I can tell she hasn't given us her opinion as a southern evangelical conservative republican, as I believe she fully identifies here. If she wants to argue Romney's "Mormon problem" is just media bullshit, I'd be really intrigues to hear why.
The imaginary social conservative in your head cares deeply about theological purity, as do the imaginary social conservatives in a lot of pundits. I don't think real live social conservatives actually care that much.Again, I'm talking about people I've met. I'm sure there are lots of people who don't really care about theological purity, but there are clearly lots who do.
delmoi, you misunderstood my point, at least. I *do* believe Romney's religion is actually costing him a significant amount of support in the primaries.Well, I apologize if I quoted you or something -- but there are a lot of people in this thread and the idea that his Mormonism isn't an issue cropped up a couple of times. People are just being polite when they claim it's not an issue.
Not wanting to alienate Mormon voters is an interesting counterweight, but we're talking about a party that is willing to commit long-term suicide by alienating Latinos and womenI was talking about the democrats. They shouldn't hit Romney on his Mormonism, is what I'm saying.
And, btw, don't think theDemocrats won't go there if Romney is the nominee. It won't come from the white house, but Southern Democrats aren't going to be shy about hammering Romney over it. Unlike Republicans, they don't particularly need to worry about alienating Mormon voters over it.And I'm saying that would be a bad idea. Even if it could work it's still a bad thing to do.
Indeed, as I watch Santorum and Co. ratchet up the contraception and abortion culture wars (and I half think Obama is stoking this on purpose)It's actually an example of Obama listening to his base, as feminists have been bringing up the issue of lack of access to contraception. If anything, the right wing has actually been successful on those fronts for years. Which is why the republican party isn't really alienating "women" in general, lots of women are pro-life. Not for the patriarchal body-control issues that feminists claim motivates pro-life people but rather because they hate the idea of "babies" being killed.
I saw a USA TODAY headline on my way to work this morning: "6 Wild Weeks! And 6 lessons"I totally agree, although I'd say campaigns are for suckers, especially the way we do thing in the U.S (elections, even preceded by ridiculous campaigns, are obviously a good thing). They're run like an entertainment spectacle, with the goal of maximizing eyeballs in the media. It's ridiculous. In 2008, everyone knew Obama was going to win, but the media played it like they didn't know that, in order to be 'fair'. If you think the purpose of the media is to give accurate information, then they're failing in their job if they value fairness and inflated arguments over reality and the fact that the candidates agree on most issues.
What a fucking joke. What have we really learned? That, once again, same as it ever was, the whole charade is a massive waste of time, energy, resources, and brainpower.
(I like how a lot of these articles are all "no modern president has ever, etc." Yeah, how many "modern presidents are there" ... 6? Throw in the whole 20th century and you have ... 19? Not like a significant sample or anything ...)
"Elections Are for Suckers" - Robert Scheer
Are you saying that morally or tactically? Because tactically, it's a slam dunk, as long as Obama keeps his hands clean.Yes, morally. As well as long term tactically. Mormons aren't idiots. If they see democrats badmouthing them they'll notice it, even if it doesn't come from the president himself. Besides, the point is that it's tactically bad, long term for the democrats, not personally for Obama, who won't have much problem winning anyway. Just like all the Mexican bashing worked short term for the republicans.
While there was a Mormon demographic trend was on something of a roll for a while in the 20th century, I don't think it's on track to match Latinos or any other immigrant population. It's a not a particularly significant population, and at the moment, it doesn't seem likely to become a significantly larger one.The thing is, though, that they're concentrated in western states that have actually been trending democratic. Those states all appoint senators and have EC votes, whether or not population wise they're a big deal.
Our new national poll finds Romney trailing Obama by 7 pts, but Santorum down by only 5posted by Rhaomi at 4:11 PM on February 14, 2012
Santorum is the first flavor of the month to challenge Romney's electability argument
When Perry/Cain/Gingrich led our national GOP polls, they still did 6 pts worse than Mitt v. Obama
Santorum's net favorability is 21 pts better than Romney's with the general electorate
Romney's favorability nationally is now 29/57, including 32/55 with independents
Paul almost matches Romney on electability, trailing Obama by 8. Strongest GOPer with independents
National poll we did over the weekend for @dkelections found Republicans prefer Santorum over Romney 54-28 in h2h
Voters in the Midwest preferred Santorum over Romney 45-17- jives with MO, MN results, MI polling
This is not a political war at all. This is not a cultural war. This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country - the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age. There is no one else to go after other than the United States and that has been the case now for almost two hundred years, once America's preeminence was sown by our great Founding Fathers.posted by empath at 10:43 AM on February 17, 2012
we're going to repeal all sorts of regulations that ... inject the federal government into the area of education.[some stammers elided. he may have been joking, but it's not clear, at least from the transcript.]
...
just like we have certifying organizations that accredidate [sic] college, we're going to have certain organizations that will ... accredit conservative professors
[so] that if you are to be eligible for federal funds you have to
provide an equal number of conservative professors as liberal professors
so we have some balance when our children come to school
and not- and not in the process of being indocrinated by the academy
which is exactly what they are right now
just like we have certifying organizations that accredidate [sic] college, we're going to have certain organizations that will ... accredit conservative professors
[so] that if you are to be eligible for federal funds you have to
provide an equal number of conservative professors as liberal professors
so we have some balance when our children come to school
and not- and not in the process of being indocrinated by the academy
which is exactly what they are right now
Momentum back toward Santorum in MI?This poll plus others released today inched FiveThirtyEight's Michigan forecast into an exact tie (37.6-37.6) before another late-breaking one showing negative momentum for Romney nevertheless pushed him into a "commanding" lead of 0.7%. Yikes.
PPP's final poll in Michigan finds Rick Santorum holding on to the smallest of leads with 38% to 37% for Mitt Romney, 14% for Ron Paul, and 9% for Newt Gingrich.
It's always good to be cautious with one night poll numbers, but momentum seems to be swinging in Santorum's direction. Romney led with those interviewed on Sunday, but Santorum has a 39-34 advantage with folks polled on Monday. The best sign that things have gone back toward Santorum might be that with those polled today who hadn't already voted, Santorum's advantage was 41-31.
Much has been made of Democratic efforts to turn out the vote for Santorum and we see evidence that's actually happening. Romney leads with actual Republican voters, 43-38. But Santorum's up 47-10 with Democratic voters, and even though they're only 8% of the likely electorate that's enough to put him over the top. The big question now is whether those folks will actually bother to show up and vote tomorrow.
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