Mitt lost like a Mormon

[_Sethbag]

Aristotle,

Your OP is well written and carries additional weight coming from one who voted for Mitt Romney. It would make a great post election opinion piece for the press, electronic or otherwise. From the perspective of one with limited access to American TV but good internet access, you have done a much better job of using the data to write your post-mortem analysis than any the of Republican or news media talking heads who have spoken up so far.

This.

[_Aristotle Smith]

Sethbag and DrW,

Thank you for the kind words. However, I think my analysis would only be understandable to those who are familiar with Mormons and Mormonism, i.e. the general audience would not get much out of it.

[_Aristotle Smith]

I certainly agree that LDS stats are largely inflated...but growing up and living 15 minutes from the Seventh Day Adventist "Provo" (Loma Linda Ca.), I can guarantee you SDA are hardly "virtually all active." That is far from being true. And the SDA church is loaded, they just build hospitals and invest in health care, instead of malls, which is a good thing, they just opened a new Hospital here in Murrieta Ca.

http://www.llumcmurrieta.org/

I hope the stats on the other faiths are closer.

The phrase "virtually all active" has to get cashed out into something measurable for statisticians to track it. One way of measuring this is procedural: Does a faith actively purge its membership rolls of those who are no longer attending and is this data available? A quick google search lead me to this page. This page gleefully reports how many SDA's are leaving. But how does the author know this? Because the SDA authorities reported it. So the SDA church does actively try and maintain its rolls.

Or, you can measure self reporting against official reporting. My understanding is that SDA self reports in censuses track closely with numbers reported by official SDA sources.

As long as one or both of these holds true, I would say that claims of high activity are justified for an organization. In either case SDAs might go inactive, but as long as they are not kept on the rolls, a church can claim high activity levels. From what I have seen the SDAs do this, but the LDS church does not.

As for money, I'm sure SDAs have money too. I'm just guessing that it's not as heavily centralized as LDS monies are and that per capita it's probably less than the LDS church. But like I said, I'm just guessing that the LDS church has lots of money, they don't open the books. I suppose the LDS church might not have a pot to piss in (so to speak), but is just really good at faking it.

[_DrW]

Sethbag and DrW,

Thank you for the kind words. However, I think my analysis would only be understandable to those who are familiar with Mormons and Mormonism, i.e. the general audience would not get much out of it.

Aristotle,

Three words (sort of):

SLT Guest Columnist.

[_Markk]

I certainly agree that LDS stats are largely inflated...but growing up and living 15 minutes from the Seventh Day Adventist "Provo" (Loma Linda Ca.), I can guarantee you SDA are hardly "virtually all active." That is far from being true. And the SDA church is loaded, they just build hospitals and invest in health care, instead of malls, which is a good thing, they just opened a new Hospital here in Murrieta Ca.

http://www.llumcmurrieta.org/

I hope the stats on the other faiths are closer.

The phrase "virtually all active" has to get cashed out into something measurable for statisticians to track it. One way of measuring this is procedural: Does a faith actively purge its membership rolls of those who are no longer attending and is this data available? A quick google search lead me to this page. This page gleefully reports how many SDA's are leaving. But how does the author know this? Because the SDA authorities reported it. So the SDA church does actively try and maintain its rolls.

Or, you can measure self reporting against official reporting. My understanding is that SDA self reports in censuses track closely with numbers reported by official SDA sources.

As long as one or both of these holds true, I would say that claims of high activity are justified for an organization. In either case SDAs might go inactive, but as long as they are not kept on the rolls, a church can claim high activity levels. From what I have seen the SDAs do this, but the LDS church does not.

As for money, I'm sure SDAs have money too. I'm just guessing that it's not as heavily centralized as LDS monies are and that per capita it's probably less than the LDS church. But like I said, I'm just guessing that the LDS church has lots of money, they don't open the books. I suppose the LDS church might not have a pot to piss in (so to speak), but is just really good at faking it.

I'm just saying the source you quoted is wrong on the SDA, so it may be wrong on the other "facts"...it is not a good source. and your second source is a anti source I believe?

The SDA official site claims 17,214,683 members (2011), Cumorah claims 13 million virtually active...how do they know this? At any rate, this shows they are off out of the gate. Their (SDA) official site also says that they bring in 3 billion- a year on tithe and offerings...hardly chopped liver as Cumorah falsely stated, even if less than what the LDS church is estimated of bringing in, but like you said... who knows in that the brethern are so secret with their dealings.

I'm not busting your chops, I enjoyed your post...I am just saying your source is questionable in that I know that their SDA data does not add up. See the facts below...If I were King I would love to ask the brethren how long it it would take them to have a secratary type up the information below for the folks...and why they don't? It really makes you wonder when you see such open honesty from the SDA leadership?

» facts and figures » Seventh-day Adventist World Church Statistics

Seventh-day Adventist World Church Statistics
Summary of Statistics as of December 31, 2010

(Except Where Indicated as June 30, 2011)

Churches, Companies, Membership

Churches ................................................................................................................................... 70,188

June 30, 2011..................................................................................................................... 71,048

Companies ................................................................................................................................. 65,157

June 30, 2011..................................................................................................................... 65,553

Church Membership.......................................................................................................... 16,923,239

June 30, 2011............................................................................................................. 17,214,683

Total Accessions.................................................................................................................. 1,050,785

Baptisms......................................................................................................................... 1,023,882

Professions of Faith........................................................................................................... 26,903

Ordained Ministers, Active........................................................................................................ 17,272

Total Active Employees........................................................................................................... 220,760

Mission to the World

Countries and Areas of the World as Recognized by the United Nations............................ 232

Countries and Areas of the World in Which Seventh-day Adventist Work is Established.. 209

Languages Used in Seventh-day Adventist Publications and Oral Work............................. 921

Divisions.............................................................................................................................................. 13

Union Conferences............................................................................................................................ 51

Union Missions................................................................................................................................... 55

Union of Churches Conferences....................................................................................................... 9

Union of Churches Missions.............................................................................................................. 4

Local Conferences.......................................................................................................................... 321

Local Missions................................................................................................................................. 264

Educational Program

Total Schools................................................................................................................................. 7,806

Tertiary Institutions................................................................................................................... 111

Worker Training Institutions..................................................................................................... 59 Secondary Schools.............................................................................................................. 1,823

Primary Schools.................................................................................................................... 5,813

Total Enrollment.................................................................................................................... 1,668,754

Tertiary Institutions........................................................................................................... 131,516

Worker Training Institutions................................................................................................ 8,862

Secondary Schools.......................................................................................................... 494,324

Primary Schools............................................................................................................ 1,034,052


Food Industries.................................................................................................................................. 20


Healthcare Ministry

Hospitals and Sanitariums............................................................................................................ 173

Nursing Homes and Retirement Centers................................................................................... 132

Clinics and Dispensaries (incomplete report)........................................................................... 216

Orphanages and Children's Homes.............................................................................................. 36

Airplanes and Medical Launches.................................................................................................... 10

Outpatient Visits.................................................................................................................. 15,705,827



Media Centers.................................................................................................................................... 14



Publishing Work

Publishing Houses and Branches................................................................................................. 63

Literature Evangelists, Credentialed and Licensed.............................................................. 6,994

Languages Used in Publications................................................................................................. 377



Sabbath Schools

Sabbath Schools...................................................................................................................... 140,694

Sabbath School Membership.......................................................................................... 19,368,905



Contributions................................................................................................................... In US Dollars

Tithe.............................................................................................................................. $2,037,618,294

Tithe Per Capita........................................................................................................................ $127.20

Sabbath School Mission Offerings............................................................................... $61,362,489

Ingathering........................................................................................................................ $11,067,178

Total Tithe and Offerings........................................................................................... $2,900,945,610

Total Tithe and Offerings Per Capita.................................................................................... $181.09



Adventist Development and Relief Agency International (ADRA)

Countries and Areas of the World Where ADRA is Involved*.................................................. 131

Total Projects Funded*................................................................................................................ 1,897 Development*........................................................................................................................ 1,043

Relief*......................................................................................................................................... 854

Beneficiaries of Projects*................................................................................................. 40,740,106

Total Value of Aid*.......................................................................................................... $281,435,008

(*Supporting and Implementing)



Prepared by the

Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research

General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Updated January 4, 2012

[_Cylon]

I wouldn't read too much into the fact that right now both Romney and Obama are showing lower vote totals than in 2008, for the simple reason that they're not done counting the votes yet. As of right now there are over 600,000 ballots left to be counted in Arizona alone. Ohio law prohibits provisional ballots from being counted until 10 days after the election. Oregon and Washington vote entirely by mail and they only have to have ballots postmarked by election day. It's entirely possible that when they announce the official vote totals at the end of the month, both candidates will have surpassed the 2008 numbers. Of course it's also possible that one or both of them may not, but at this point it's too early to tell.

[_Brackite]

Warning, long post ahead.

Full disclosure, I voted for Mitt Romney. Now having said that, I think there is something about his loss that has a real parallel with the problems the LDS church is facing with growth and evangelism. Here's the statistic I find the most interesting:

McCain Votes 2008: 59,934,814
Romney Votes 2012: 58,168,806

John McCain, one of the most lackluster Republican candidates in recent memory who was running with a VP candidate who had been crucified on the public stage (rightly or wrongly, I don't care about this for the sake of argument), convinced around 1.8 million MORE people to vote for him than Mitt could muster for his election. This is beyond pathetic for a candidate.

...

Pretty Good OP, But The National Popular count for President hasn't been completed yet. There are still over two million ballots left to be counted Nationwide for this Presidential election, with most of them left in California.

Latest Presidential Popular Vote Count:

Obama (Democratic) - 61,785,502 - 50.53%
Romney (Republican) - 58,562,476 - 47.89%

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... tion,_2012


Of course Romney is Not going to Surpass Obama in the Popular vote count, But Romney might end up Surpassing McCain's Popular vote count from 2008.

[_Philidel]

Thanks for this interesting post, Aristotle Smith. I agree that Romney’s problem wasn’t that others didn’t accept or understand Mormonism: it is that Mormonism has shaped his identity, behaviour, and responses. And for better or worse, the qualities that make up Mormon identity include thought-stoppers that shield believers from processing certain of the world’s realities.

Romney, with his team, seems to have fallen victim to the epistemic closure http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/a-textbook-example-of-the-rights-epistemic-closure/257192/ that’s been noted in conservative intellectual circles. Peggy Noonan, who, like George Will, Karl Rove and Michael Barone and others, predicted a win for Romney, wrote http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2012/11/05/monday-morning/ the day before the election:

There is no denying the Republicans have the passion now, the enthusiasm. The Democrats do not. Independents are breaking for Romney. And there’s the thing about the yard signs. In Florida a few weeks ago I saw Romney signs, not Obama ones. From Ohio I hear the same. From tony Northwest Washington, D.C., I hear the same.

Is it possible this whole thing is playing out before our eyes and we’re not really noticing because we’re too busy looking at data on paper instead of what’s in front of us? Maybe that’s the real distortion of the polls this year: They left us discounting the world around us.

Like Mormons who label as Anti-Mormon and dismiss out of hand any inconvenient facts that aren’t ‘faith promoting’, the Romney team and his supporters at the highest levels seemed to have genuinely believed that the polls showing Obama leading were deliberately distorted.

I have a family member who remains both TBM and an outspoken conservative/libertarian. I would think that a doctorate and an academic career would give one a grasp of the facts. But this relative rejects out of hand stories printed by the NY Times and sends me instead links to Fox. How do I continue the conversation within those terms? No more can we discuss this than we can discuss our views on Mormonism.

[_beastie]

Here's an example of why Romney and his supporters were so blindsided:

http://stallioncornell.com/?p=2206

No fewer than five people approached me at church yesterday, looking for good news and reassurance. Can Romney still win? Yes, of course. Will Romney win? Yes, of course. Nobody asked me the question I’ve been asking myself for quite some time: can Obama win?

Very, very doubtful.

But yes, he can still win. He’s losing independents by as much as 22 points, as indicated by today’s CNN poll; he’s battling for states that should’ve been sewn up for him months ago, and he’s an incumbent well under 50% the day before the election. He’s panicked and peevish while his opponent is calm and confident. Paul Ryan can draw a crowd of over 6,000 in deep blue Minnesota, but the sitting vice president can only get 1,100 folks to come hear him in Wisconsin. And Mitt Romney’s crowd of 30,000+ in PA yesterday has to be sending a few shivers up Obama’s spine.

Candidates in his position lose far more often than not, but could lightning strike and we wake up Wednesday morning with the harsh reality of four more years of this failed presidency darkening the horizon?

Yes. Unlikely, but possible.

These people really were living in an alternate reality. It is very reminiscent of LDS apologetics.

[_Chap]

Thanks for this interesting post, Aristotle Smith. I agree that Romney’s problem wasn’t that others didn’t accept or understand Mormonism: it is that Mormonism has shaped his identity, behaviour, and responses. And for better or worse, the qualities that make up Mormon identity include thought-stoppers that shield believers from processing certain of the world’s realities ...

Here's an example of why Romney and his supporters were so blindsided:

http://stallioncornell.com/?p=2206

No fewer than five people approached me at church yesterday, looking for good news and reassurance. Can Romney still win? Yes, of course. Will Romney win? Yes, of course. Nobody asked me the question I’ve been asking myself for quite some time: can Obama win?

Very, very doubtful....

These people really were living in an alternate reality. It is very reminiscent of LDS apologetics.

This is a fascinating and revealing thread. Two questions:

1. How far can the denial of reality go? In Obama's first term we had people who denied that he was really President on the supposed grounds of his not being a natural-born US citizen. How will TBMs deal with the fact that, having heard all that repeated endlessly for four years, he was still re-elected? Will we hear testimonies that Romney is the True President, or what?

2. This denial of reality makes me think back to the impact that Jesus' execution must have had on early Christians. Could it be that the resurrection narratives grew from a collective denial that such a terrible thing could really have happened at all, or at least that if it did happen, he was not really dead?