Jim Geraghty notes that “25 percent of the GOP caucusgoers were Mormon, and that 94 percent of those voters voted for Romney.” Other candidates will, then, spin this by saying “Well, what do you expect? He mobilized the Mormons, and they put him over the top.” Journalists and bloggers should, then, respond by saying: “you’re lying. It’s not true. He also would’ve wooped your butt if Mormon wouldn’t have voted for him en masse.” Lets do some calculations.
25% of caucus goers were Mormon, 94% of whom voted for Romney. That’s, say, 23% in total. That means that none of the Mormons should’ve voted for Romney and only for one of the other candidates instead. Now combine that with the knowledge that he also won Evangelical Protestants and Catholics and it’s clear that those who argue that Romney owes his victory strictly due to incredibly big Mormon support are spinning the results… this includes the media.
The Mormon vote helped Romney crush the opposition by an incredibly wide margin, but it didn’t cause him to win. In fact, if the Mormon vote was as divided as that of other Christian voting blocs, he still would’ve left the others way behind.
Stop spinning it people.
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Honestly? I think Romney’s butt-kicking Nevada win _does_ have to do with the higher-than-average concentration of Mormons in that state. Not because of who the Mormons voted for, so much as the fact that their neighbors wouldn’t vote against a person just because he or she is LDS.
People in Nevada work with mormons, live next door to mormons, attend PTA events with mormons, and well, generally know enough about mormons to be fairly sure that Mitt Romney doesn’t worship the devil OR eat babies for breakfast. In fact, if he’s like most mormons they know, he’s a great person who works hard and loves his community, and is really trying to be Christlike, even if they disagree with specific doctrine, which they also know is no secret. If their pastors told them they’d go to hell if they voted for a Mormon, a few might even tell their pastor where to go.
In a nutshell, they aren’t wearing the blinders of bigotry, so they see all of the candidates for who they are, and then they vote accordingly.
Wish I could say the same for the eastern states :-p