I asked Bokovoy, "why cannot Romney have lost simply because he isn't America's choice?"
Dan Peterson responds:
Why cannot Romney have lost because he wasn't the choice of enough primary-voting and caucus-attending Americans with some greater or lesser degree of anti-Mormonism being one of the factors that contributed to that? The two ideas aren't mutually exclusive or contradictory
Of course I never said the two were contradictory, but it is seems clear the most obvious reason, which is that Romeny
isn't America's choice, isn't one that will be readily acknowledged by Mormon complainers like Bokovoy. This is a classic case of denial. Nobody over there has even acknowledged the fact that Romney lost because of Romney. That would be going too far in denying him his status as a Mormon victim.
Now Bokovoy said that Romney's failure was, "is in part due to Anti-Mormon bigotry that runs throughout the South."
Neither Bokovoy nor Peterson have substantiated this claim. All they have done is draw our attention to outdated poll figures that prove some Evangelicals refused to vote for a Mormon, or at least a certain number refused to back in 2006 when the poll was taken. This is something entirely different from claiming Romney's current failure was, "in part due to Anti-Mormon bigotry that runs throughout the South."
This is like saying the reason why the Bears creamed the Packers by a score of 55-0, was "due in part" to a late, fourth quarter holding penalty against the Packer offense.
The fact that anyone even mentions this penalty during the post game, makes someone look like an idiot who is just looking for excuses. This is exactly how Mormons look when they start talking about the "bigotry" in the South when it is perfectly obvious that the South had no part in Romney's failure. In fact, the Bible Belts states that voted on Super Tuesday were Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. Little do the Mormon whiners realize, Romney actually ended up beating Huckabee in votes by a margin of 115,000 votes. Yes, you heard that right. I did the math so you can double-check it. Huckabee won 1,005,875votes while Romney received 1,120,942.
In order to substantiate Bokovoy's claim, you first need to show how winning the "South" carried any significance. Losing California is what forced Romney out of the race. Everyone knew this.
I told Bokovoy to , "Speculate all you want, but the fact is you have no hard facts that this is the case."
Dan Peterson offers this bit of defense:
Do you have any hard evidence that it's not the case?
So when Bokovoy makes claims, its our job to take it for granted or else prove him wrong. Having said that, I think I have already demonstrated that the mathematics of the election prove the "anti-Mormon" sentiment never had an impact on the election, at least nothing comparable to the clear Mormon bigotry towards the Evangelical minister. Perhaps Dan or Bokovoy can explain how these anti-Mormon ministries cannot seem to manage any political sway in their own areas, yet somehow managed it with their respective states. Consider the following..
Huckabee gave a speech at First Baptist Church of Woodstock last sunday. I attended. This is the largest Baptist Church on the planet. The pastor there (Johnny Hunt) is anti-Mormon. My parents occassionally attend because it is only two miles down the road, but most everyone within a 10 mile radius attends that church. The place is like Disneyland it is so huge, and it sits on the border of Cobb and Cherokee counties.
Anyway, my parents live in Cobb county so I found it interesting that Huckabee didn't beat Romney in this county. In fact, Romney beat Huckabee by a 10% margin, winning 33,000 votes to Huckabee's 22,000. In the smaller Cherokee county that borders Cobb, Huckabee won, but only by 1,500 votes. (
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primar ... val=GAREP4)
Now they're telling me that the greater Atlanta area and the entire state of Georgia area was influenced by this, when it couldn't even influence its immediate residential areas? Let's take a couple more examples of prominent anti-Mormon areas.
In Orange county California, which is home to notorious anti-Mormons like Hank Hannegraff (who runs the Bible answer Man radio show),and ministries run by Ed Decker (Ex-Mormons for Jesus) and the late Walter Martin, just how did the anti-Mormons influence the voters? Well, it was a slaughter, but in favor of Romney, who won 115,000 votes to Huckabee's measlel 33,000.(
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primar ... val=CAREP3) In Maricopa county Arizona, home to Concerned Christians, Romney managed to beat Huckabee by winning four times the votes (100,000 to 25,000).
Several polls showed percentages of Republican voters ranging as high as 37% and 42% who said that they would not vote for a Mormon for the presidency.
Peterson is referring to the Los Angeles Times survey, but he is wrong to say it involved only Republican voters. The survey found that 37% of those surveyed - including republican
and democrat - would not vote for a Mormon President. The same survey found that 21% wouldn't vote for an Evangelical. This is pretty significant considering 26-30% of the country
is Evangelical. This means the actual percentage of
non-Evangelical Americans who wouldn't vote for an Evangelical, is about 30%, which is only slightly different from the biased positions against Mormons.
Since Dan likes commentaries from political pundits on the web, then how about this one which argues the 37% figure is comprised mainly of democrats:
http://iowansforromney.blogspot.com/200 ... igots.html[/quote] First off, the explanation of how the poll was conducted states " The Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll contacted 1,321 adults nationwide by telephone June 24 through 27. . . . Results were weighted slightly to conform with census figures for sex, race, age, education and region." Conforming with census figures is a bad way to gauge what "likely voters" would do in at the ballot box. The number opposed to a hypothetical Mormon candidate dropped to 35% among registered voters and, I would guess, would drop even more among those that actually would make the effort to get to the polls (a.k.a. "likely voters")...So the number drops to 34 % for college graduates and 30% for high income earners. So, who are these 30% of high income earners that are opposed to a hypothetical LDS presidential candidate? I propose that nearly all of these are Democrats, mostly coming from self-described "liberal Democrats" who, as a political group, are the most intolerant to the idea of a Mormon president at 50%. They know that Mormons are, almost invariably, the antithesis of their pro-choice, pro-gay-rights, socially and fiscally liberal platform and policies. Obviously, this large block of voters won't matter in the GOP primary, and I don't think Romney would be expecting to get their vote in a general election anyways. So I count them as a non-factor.[/quote]
Dan asks:
Are you seriously asking us to believe that those percentages dropped to zero when people stepped into the privacy of their polling booths?
No, I am suggesting Peterson indulge himself in a little critical thinking, and accept the fact that he doesn't know the circumstances in which this survey was given, nor is he able to vouch for its reliability. After all, the polls have been wrong during this entire election. The polls said Romney and McCain were neck and neck in California, but those were cleared tinkered with for political purposes. Romney got killed in California.
Let's grant, for purposes of argument, your claim that Mormon bigotry is responsible for Governor Huckabee's poor showing in the Utah primary? How would that prove that anti-Mormonism wasn't a factor affecting Governor Romney's performance among evangelical voters? The two ideas are quite independent. One or the other could be true while the other was false. Both could be true, and both could be false.
Yes, I'm perfectly aware of that, but my point here was the hypocrisy. Mormons are whining about bigotry around every corner but little do they know, they are exemplifying true religious bigotry for us all. I am telling you that following eth logic of the Mormon bigot-baiters, the biggest bigots must reside in Utah and its border states. It has been shown that Mormons will drop their loyalty to the Democrat party for teh sake of electing a fellow Mormon. They are willing to vote along religious lines when they envision a Preisdent with the priesthood, but once that fantasy has been washed out, they run back to their liberal democrat values.
For the record, though, Utah gave the evangelical George Bush 71.5% of its votes in 2004, while giving only 26% to John Kerry.
This is just a straw man and I think Dan knows it. We are talking about an Evangelical
minister here, not just any Evangelical Joe. Mormons tend to view ministers as evil doers engaging in priestcrafts, deceptions, promoting anti-Mormon books, teaching anti-Mormon classes, etc.
On the other hand, Mitt Romney has lived in Utah, is widely known and respected for his saving of the 2002 Winter Olympics, and is considered something of a native son, while Mike Huckabee never visited the state, and appeared to many (including myself) to have appealed very cunningly to religious sectarianism in order to damage Romney's candidacy and bolster his own electoral prospects.
Whatever.
It is expected that candidates win their home states. What isn't expected is a 89% margin of victory after the voters from the opposing party temporarily betray their loyalties to their political party, for the sole purpose of seeing a Mormon in the White House.
He is, for those reasons and others (including perceived liberalism on several crucial issues), not very popular in Utah. It has little if anything to do with his particular denominational affiliation. (If you have evidence to the contrary, please feel free to share it.)
I had a post prepared with plenty of evidence that showed how Huckabee's lack of favor in Utah and its border states, cannot be attributed to his "liberal" tendencies, it must be attributed to something else. Nowhere else throughout the country did Romney beat Huckabee by such wide margins. Remember, this is the same exact logic used by the Mormon complainers to prove Romney lost "in part" because of anti-Mormon bias in the South.
But - and I think you know this - the moderators removed my post and my posting priviledges.
The results from Utah and its border states show a tremendous distate for Huckabee. Romney creamed Huckabee in Utah by an 89% margin. Huckabee only got 1% of the vote, his worst performance anywhere. In other border states that margin of victory for Romney was anywhere between 30 and 50%. Yet, Huckabee beats Romney slightly by a slight margin of 3% in a few Bible Belt states (even losing one -Florida- to Romney), and all hell breaks loose as the Mormons are crying foul play.
Mormons can only be grateful that no polls were given in those regions, asking the Mormon groups if they were willing to vote for an Evangelical minister. From what I can surmise online, Mormons aren't happy with Evangelical ministers. If they even make an appearance at a location where some book critical of the LDS faith happened to have been "passed out," then there is the guilt by association game. Nevermind the fact that it is automatically taken for granted that any book that criticizes the LDS faith is considered proof of bigotry.
I haven't met a single Mormon who would vote for an Evangelical minister, and nobody here seems to know of any other Mormon who voted for Huckabee. The "Mormons are conservatives and Huckabee isn't conservative" isn't a valid excuse, because you see Mormons voting for Hillary, Obama and even the whacko Ron Paul, but never Huckabee. That's bigotry.
I said to Dan, "what you're suggesting is that Huckabees votes would never have gone to Romney in the first place. Their Evangelical bigots, after all."
Dan responds:
I've said absolutely nothing of the sort.
It this is a logical must in order for the original claim to be true. Romney's failure was not "due in part" to Evangelical bigotry in the south. Romney won the collective vote in the Bible Belt states that voted on super tuesday. How is this evidence of bigotry?
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein