Via Editor and Publisher: GALLUP: Romney Speech Flopped? Many Still Say Won’t Vote for Mormon
A new Gallup Poll finds that better than one in six Americans, including similar numbers of Republicans and Democrats, indicate they would not support their party’s nominee for president if that person were a Mormon.
The poll was conducted from Dec. 6 to 9, immediately following the major speech by Republican presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney, in which he addressed voter concern about his Mormon religion. The percentage of Republicans who now rule out voting for a Mormon, 18%, is just one point lower than it was in March.
How does this compare to other groups?
This stand against voting for a candidate based on one such factor is unusually high. Gallup observes: “Four percent of Americans (including 3% of Republicans) say they would not vote for a Catholic, 5% would not vote for a black, 12% would not vote for a woman, and 12% would not vote for a Hispanic.”
Meanwhile, National Review‘s editorial board is clearly not part of the 18% in question, as they have endorsed Romney, Romney for President:
Our guiding principle has always been to select the most conservative viable candidate. In our judgment, that candidate is Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. Unlike some other candidates in the race, Romney is a full-spectrum conservative: a supporter of free-market economics and limited government, moral causes such as the right to life and the preservation of marriage, and a foreign policy based on the national interest.
[...]
More than the other primary candidates, Romney has President Bush’s virtues and avoids his flaws. His moral positions, and his instincts on taxes and foreign policy, are the same. But he is less inclined to federal activism, less tolerant of overspending, better able to defend conservative positions in debate, and more likely to demand performance from his subordinates. A winning combination, by our lights. In this most fluid and unpredictable Republican field, we vote for Mitt Romney.
December 12th, 2024 at 11:28 am
The question that immediately jumps to my mind is whether those who “would not support their party’s nominee” would actually vote for the opposition, or if they would just stay home. I’m guessing it would be just stay home. Either way, it does seem like a significant thing for the party to consider when selecting their candidate.
December 12th, 2024 at 1:05 pm
The National Review, as usual, is not to be taken seriously. They say, presumably with a straight face, that the sort of candidate they embrace is a supporter of:
“free-market economics and limited government, moral causes such as the right to life and the preservation of marriage, and a foreign policy based on the national interest”
When your candidate must (1) impose his moral views on society as a whole and (2) define the “national interest” based on the preferences of those special interests that insist on global military domination, then one is manifestly not serious about “limited government.”
December 17th, 2024 at 8:31 am
[...] then does that make McCain the leftover alternative, even with his baggage within the party? Sphere: Related Content Filed under: US Politics, 2024 Campaign || [...]
December 17th, 2024 at 8:31 am
[...] then does that make McCain the leftover alternative, even with his baggage within the party? Sphere: Related Content Filed under: US Politics, 2024 Campaign || [...]