A friend sent me this summary of Rush Limbaugh’s explanation of the Super Tuesday Southern vote:

• Evangelicals have been ignored too long.

• Snerdley is still steaming about the VP-move of Huckabee. A full 74% of the national vote was Republicans.

• There are a number of relevancies going into the South-vote. Blacks in the Democrat Party keep voting for them based on their promises, nothing changes. Since 1973, Evangelicals have stuck with Republicans on the Pro-Life promises, but nothing ever changes on abortion. They are quicker to realize they are being taken advantage of.

• Plus the IRS taxes too much, and Huckabee wants to do away with the IRS.

• Plus certain Evangelicals just have no stomach for Mormons.

• It is also their opportunity to vote for one of their guys.

• Throw all those things together.

I think Rush is probably right. But just how big a role did the “no stomach for Mormons” role play?

ON THE ONE HAND . . .

If Mitt were a devout life-long Presbyterian, the anti-Mormon element would be gone, but he’d still be a Northerner (from Massachusetts, no less),who is not running on his religion, who had past liberal positions he has since abandoned, trying to win against a former Southern Baptist preacher who has a familiar (if mild) accent, a gift of gab and flexible ethics. That would be an uphill fight anyway.

ON THE OTHER HAND . . .

If Romney were indeed a devout life-long Presbyterian, Huck’s candidacy arguably would never have gotten the launch it did in Iowa. Huck might have done a little better than Duncan Hunter, but not much. Romney had Iowa fully organized, and would have won handily, but for about 30,000 new caucus voters who came out (I think), almost all of whom voted for Huck.

Moreover, I simply cannot believe that all those Southern Super Tuesday states would have put Huckabee first and Romney third unless something religion-based is going on.

So . . .

Has religion had a critical, outcome-determinative impact on Mitt’s fortunes so far? I blog, you decide; but I sure think so.

Update: Ramesh Ponnuru:

Try to picture the race if Huckabee hadn’t taken off. Romney would have won Iowa and probably Michigan. There would have been no bitter Huckabee-Romney feud, so his voters might not have preferred McCain over Romney as strongly as they did yesterday. Romney might have done better in the south and might have emerged as the conservative alternative in the primary. Maybe he could even have competed in South Carolina. We’ll never know. . . .

So if I had to diagnose the reasons Romney lost, I would say, in this order, they were: 1) Huckabee’s emergence as a candidate with strong appeal to evangelicals; 2) Romney’s ineradicable flaws as a candidate; and 3) Romney’s mishandling of the immigration issue.

John comments: Of course religion is a factor, that has been true in every election the nation has ever had. The question is how much of a factor and what kind of factor.

I am not convinced Romney takes Iowa absent his Mormon faith - Iowa went for Pat Robertson for crying out loud. The place has a reputation for going to the religious extreme.

There are other things to consider. There is huge dissatisfaction amongst Evangelicals for what they perceive as a lack of progress on their issues. They have voted Republican and not gotten what they wanted - so they would naturally go for “one of their own” in hopes of changing that trend. That means that religion plays a big factor, but anti-Mormon sentiment is not necessarily involved, any more than anti-not-one-of-us in general.

Huck definitely became the focal point for the anti-Mormon sentiment that existed and he was not shy about sawing on that string when it suited him, but there were many other factors at play. Not the least of which was Rudy’s collapse. That altered the entire landscape. A formidable Rudy, who makes even McCain look conservative on social issues, would have forced social conservatives, as spear-headed by Evangelicals, to coalesce in a much more rapid fashion and Romney’s obvious resource advantages, particularly when matched up against Rudy, would have been far more decisive.  Not to mention, Rudy would have siphoned from McCain as Huck has siphoned from Romney.  Imagine the leiberal Republicans in as much of a tussle as the conservatives have been - talk about a different landscape!

So, yes, religion has factored huge, and the fact that Mitt has not run on his has played a role, but that is NOT necessarily an anti-Mormon mandate. I think George W Bush would have suffered the same fate in this cycle, although perhaps not as dramatically. He too held his faith close and quiet. If you match his public statements on religion to Romney’s they sound remarkably similar. This is about evangelical dissatisfaction and it is aimed at ANYONE that does not toe their precise party line in all aspects, theologically, politically, temperamentally.

Of course, such thinking has gotten them their worse nightmare for a Republican candidate - and that friends is the problem with identity politics - Evangelical identity politics, Mormon identity politics, racial identity politics, all of them.
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