Article VI Blog

Polling Analysis: What to Make of It?

Lowell starts us off: Mark Mellman writes in Roll Call about "Romney and the Mormon question." It is a thoughtful and provocative piece, but keep in mind that Mellman "has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982. Current clients include the majority leaders of both the House and Senate." Call me a cynic, but consultants like Mellman never put anything into print without an agenda.

Mellman's thesis:

Anti-Mormon prejudice clearly infects this country, leading many to ask whether Mitt Romney’s religion will be an insurmountable barrier to his presidential prospects.

He supports that assertion with both anecdotal and statistical evidence:

Evidence of this insidious disease comes in part from its very social acceptability. Americans no longer feel free to give voice to negative feelings about blacks, Jews or Catholics. Yet the rules of polite discourse seem to be different when Mormons are the topic — and many freely express their bigotry.

Even so-called intellectuals are free and easy with such invective, making statements about Mormons they would shudder to hear about any other group. Witness Father Richard John Neuhaus, a Protestant-turned-Catholic theologian, dubbed by Time as one of the 25 most influential evangelists in America. “Anti-Catholicism is, in my judgment,” he wrote, “an unreasonable prejudice … Anxiety about the strengthening of Mormonism by virtue of there being a Mormon president is not unreasonable.”

Could anyone substitute Judaism or Catholicism for Mormonism in that last sentence without being called a bigot?

Mellman then cites "seven polls over the last couple of years" that "have asked in somewhat different ways about public willingness to support a Mormon candidate for president."

The responses are remarkable for both their magnitude and their range. On the high side, Rasmussen found 43 percent willing to push an anonymous button on their telephone signaling they would never vote for a Mormon presidential candidate. Gallup brings up the low end, with 24 percent telling live interviewers they would not vote for “a generally qualified person for president who happened to be a Mormon.”

Well, okay, there are lots of data out there suggesting an anti-Mormon prejudice exists, and Mellman's column is persuasive and reasonable in detailing it. But why is a Democratic consultant who works for both Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid putting out information about a bias problem he perceives on the Republican side of the race?

Because that helps his side to portray religious conservatives (mainly Evangelicals) as a bunch of bigots. What better way to marginalize that demographic group? And how benign! Mellman need not attack anyone; all he has to do is aggregate the polling data and quote some of the more unfortunate statements of those who, like Fr. Neuhaus, stubbornly insist that anti-Mormon prejudice is acceptable. )Sadly, Neuhaus has lots of company.)

John has warned about this trap much more often, and more strenuously, than I have. If, as Mellman probably hopes, the "Evangelicals are religious bigots" meme is picked up by the MSM, one of two things will occur: Either religious conservatives will be weakened– perhaps greatly– as a political force, or there will be a robust national conversation about a religion and under what circumstances, if any, a candidate's faith is a legitimate subject of political debate and a basis for voting.

We hope it's the latter. As Mellman himself notes:

In July of 1958, 24 percent of respondents told Gallup they would not vote for a Catholic for president, almost identical to Gallup’s reading on Mormons today. Two years later, John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic to assume the oath of office.

Back to John . . . .

William Schnieder in the Atlantic Online stirkes a similar, if less pointed, note in this piece.

The strongest trend in American politics for the past 25 years has been a growing division between religious and secular voters.

[…]

These days, Democratic officials worry that their party has a religion problem.

[…]

Actually, both parties have a religion problem. It's not just that Democrats have less appeal to religious voters. It's also that Republicans are seen as bringing too much religion into politics.

[…]

Which candidates are viewed as the least religious? As it happens, the two front-runners, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani. Clinton said at the Sojourners forum, "I come from a tradition that is perhaps a little too suspicious of people who wear their faith on their sleeves, so a lot of the talk and advertising about faith doesn't come naturally to me. " Meanwhile, Giuliani, in explaining his support for abortion rights during a Republican debate, said, "We have to respect the fact that there are people who are equally religious, equally moral, who make a different decision about this. Should the government put them in jail?"

Many Americans see a downside to mixing religion and politics. In 2004, according to the Time poll, 49 percent of Americans said that President Bush's religious faith made him "a strong leader," as opposed to 36 percent who thought it made him "too close-minded." Those numbers have reversed. Now 50 percent say Bush's faith has made him too close-minded, while 34 percent believe it has made him a strong leader. The number of Americans who think that Bush has used religion more to divide the country than to unite it has grown from 27 percent in 2004 to 43 percent now.

If one reads carefully here, the problem is not the religious influence in politics per se, but the labelling of people into religious interest groups. What this nation struggles with is "us v them" whether it is based on race, gender, religion…. We allow "thems" in the case of groups that are perceived as oppressed, but we are increasingly rejecting that for those groups now as they have entered the mainstream of American life.

This is why Evangelicals have to tread so lightly here. We have to be very smart or we risk the influence we have worked so hard to build over the last decades. We cannot allow even the appearance of this sort of labelling and dividing - in this day and age it does far more to discredit the labeler than the labelee.

Bush's negatives are also quite instructive in this matter - being perceived as the Evangelicals' candidate, those negatives reflect on us. If we do not do whatever we can to appear open-minded, those negatives are going to stick. Objecting to Romney on anything that even remotely smells of religion will attract those negatives to us like a magnet to a refrigerator.

Note Brownback, who being clearly identified as one of the "religious" candidates, even among the minors, is getting nowhere with this kind of garbage. It is not a direct religious attack, but between breaking Reagan's 11th commandment and playing off the labels, creating a perception of religious attack, it is hurting Brownback far more than it is helping.

Still More Polling Confusion

WaPo/ABC finds:

Overall, 63 percent of all Americans and 63 percent of Republicans said they would be comfortable with a Mormon as president.

But because their cherished narrative is at risk, they cannot stop there, no:

But only about a third of each group said they would be "entirely comfortable."

Friends, I have not been entirely comfortable with any occupant of the White House, ever - let's get serious here. Who comes up with a standard like that?

But there is more, in a bit of circular, "code establishing," logic we read:

"Do Americans have a bias against Mormons? Should they? I know any American in the 1800's would have been freaked out if you told them that a member of the LDS would be running for president in 2008. Perhaps some of that lingers. On paper Romney looks like a near perfect candidate who should be doing better than he is. Perhaps the mormonism explains it, but i'd prefer to think that the perception of electability is more to blame. Romney will not flip Massachusetts or any of the NE states over to the Republicans. He will have to fight just as hard in the other states. Compared to Rudy, he's just not as electable.

But on what to people base a judgment of "electability?" I have had some quite prominent Democrats tell me Romney is not "electable," followed in a private whisper by, "You know, the Mormon thing." Besides, I know very few voters that do that kind of electoral math. Again, let's get real here.

Is It Really Surprising…

That Hugh Hewitt agrees with us?

The reality is that each of the big three have a pretty good bench of social conservatives, though Romney's is, at this point, deeper and more committed. That doesn't make great copy, but it is the true assessment of the state of the campaign among "values voters."

There goes Hugh, spoiling the MSM narrative about Romney again.

Finally….

In the UK, they compare the "Five Brothers" (Romney's sons) to the Osmonds. Tagg Romney handles the comparision quite graciously in the piece, but you know, there was a time in this nation that if you compared say Shirley Chisolm to J.J. Walker, you were considered a racist simply on the basis of stereotyping - even if the stereotypes were not negative.

Lowell: And I'll bet the Five Brothers can't even sing.

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