More weak analysis of the Florida/Missouri/Iowa split.
The primary elections in this country do not reflect the general elections. Can we all agree on that?
Now let me (over-briefly) explain why: general elections are about minor disagreements among the country as a whole. Primary elections are about major disagreements among factions within an umbrella party, which often are both profound and generational. The most effective way to analyze and predict primary elections, therefore, is to look at demography.
Florida's Republican Party is composed mainly of wealthy, over-50 white Northeasterners and working- or middle-class Cuban immigrants and their immediate descendants, all of whom are devoutly Catholic of a peculiarly Roman sort (not the Boston Irish Catholics that Americans are used to seeing in movies) or in the case of the Northeasterners, flinty Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Who-gives-a-damnians. They are, uncharitably, snobs.
Missouri's Republican Party is composed mainly of rural, working- and lower-class white people, who are uniformly Evangelical Protestants, self-educated (badly) and deeply uninformed about quite a lot of the world, but believe themselves to be highly informed, especially about economics, open-eyed, and the only repository of emotional wisdom in the Republican Party. They are, to put it bluntly, rubes.
Colorado looks more like Missouri than Florida, even whiter and much younger than Florida, and very worried about the Brown People Invasion (see: former Rep Tom Tancredo.) Minnesota looks more like Florida than Missouri, with a bit more wealth, a few more years, but more like Colorado than either with its fears of the Furriners and the Femislamofasocialistas.
Iowa elected Steve King. More than once. (And went heavily Bachmann in the caucuses.) Moving on.
The appeal, then, of Mittenbot 4.7 running as The Inevitable Money-and-Power Candidate From the Northeast is going mainly to be to the California, Florida, and Pennsylvania Republicans, who are wealthy, old, and want to remain powerful. The appeal of such a candidate to socially-radical, young, religious zealots is slim to none, especially the Republican brand of religious zealots, who fear that every other religion on Earth is trying every bit as hard to oppress them as they are to get their radical agenda enacted into law. (they're wrong, but they're still driven by that fear)
The appeal of young, socially-radical, voted-out-of-office (and therefore powerless) not particularly wealthy Rick Santorum, who while he is a Catholic, nonetheless wants to oppress women and anyone who doesn't fear sex, is much more apparent where young, poor and working-class, highly-religious "values voters" are in the majority.
It should be obvious to anyone who bothers to look at the demographics. (Should being the operative condition.) Mittenbot had an uphill fight in any of the younger, more religious states, and will continue to struggle in the rest of them (the Carolinas, across the South, Texas, and so on) with the notable exceptions of Nevada and Utah, where the Party consists mainly of Mormons who will vote for him as the Church-Approved Candidate. All seventy-eight of them.
For a candidate whose campaign has been about coasting downhill to a landslide victory in the primary, and a nigh-effortless drubbing of an incompetent, hapless incumbent who knows next to nothing about politics, Mittenbot must be terribly surprised to learn that there are factions within his own party to which he does not appeal even most of the time. I dearly hope that at least someone on his staff has considered the possibility that demographics might play a role in the primaries, and that in the general election, he will have to play to a much wider audience, one which for the most part perceives the incumbent President as competent, wise, and capable, not at all the Americans For Prosperity image projected on Fox News and nowhere else.
If not, there needs to be a major, major shakeup, or we'll be looking at Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum (one of the Not-Romney Candidates) crawling to a legendary--in the Cautionary Tale sense--ass-whupping in the fall.
Now let me (over-briefly) explain why: general elections are about minor disagreements among the country as a whole. Primary elections are about major disagreements among factions within an umbrella party, which often are both profound and generational. The most effective way to analyze and predict primary elections, therefore, is to look at demography.
Florida's Republican Party is composed mainly of wealthy, over-50 white Northeasterners and working- or middle-class Cuban immigrants and their immediate descendants, all of whom are devoutly Catholic of a peculiarly Roman sort (not the Boston Irish Catholics that Americans are used to seeing in movies) or in the case of the Northeasterners, flinty Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Who-gives-a-damnians. They are, uncharitably, snobs.
Missouri's Republican Party is composed mainly of rural, working- and lower-class white people, who are uniformly Evangelical Protestants, self-educated (badly) and deeply uninformed about quite a lot of the world, but believe themselves to be highly informed, especially about economics, open-eyed, and the only repository of emotional wisdom in the Republican Party. They are, to put it bluntly, rubes.
Colorado looks more like Missouri than Florida, even whiter and much younger than Florida, and very worried about the Brown People Invasion (see: former Rep Tom Tancredo.) Minnesota looks more like Florida than Missouri, with a bit more wealth, a few more years, but more like Colorado than either with its fears of the Furriners and the Femislamofasocialistas.
Iowa elected Steve King. More than once. (And went heavily Bachmann in the caucuses.) Moving on.
The appeal, then, of Mittenbot 4.7 running as The Inevitable Money-and-Power Candidate From the Northeast is going mainly to be to the California, Florida, and Pennsylvania Republicans, who are wealthy, old, and want to remain powerful. The appeal of such a candidate to socially-radical, young, religious zealots is slim to none, especially the Republican brand of religious zealots, who fear that every other religion on Earth is trying every bit as hard to oppress them as they are to get their radical agenda enacted into law. (they're wrong, but they're still driven by that fear)
The appeal of young, socially-radical, voted-out-of-office (and therefore powerless) not particularly wealthy Rick Santorum, who while he is a Catholic, nonetheless wants to oppress women and anyone who doesn't fear sex, is much more apparent where young, poor and working-class, highly-religious "values voters" are in the majority.
It should be obvious to anyone who bothers to look at the demographics. (Should being the operative condition.) Mittenbot had an uphill fight in any of the younger, more religious states, and will continue to struggle in the rest of them (the Carolinas, across the South, Texas, and so on) with the notable exceptions of Nevada and Utah, where the Party consists mainly of Mormons who will vote for him as the Church-Approved Candidate. All seventy-eight of them.
For a candidate whose campaign has been about coasting downhill to a landslide victory in the primary, and a nigh-effortless drubbing of an incompetent, hapless incumbent who knows next to nothing about politics, Mittenbot must be terribly surprised to learn that there are factions within his own party to which he does not appeal even most of the time. I dearly hope that at least someone on his staff has considered the possibility that demographics might play a role in the primaries, and that in the general election, he will have to play to a much wider audience, one which for the most part perceives the incumbent President as competent, wise, and capable, not at all the Americans For Prosperity image projected on Fox News and nowhere else.
If not, there needs to be a major, major shakeup, or we'll be looking at Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum (one of the Not-Romney Candidates) crawling to a legendary--in the Cautionary Tale sense--ass-whupping in the fall.