Well. It is a good start when people try to learn from mistake.
Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, unveiled a lengthy report that took the party to task for alienating large segments of the public.
The report goes on to name various groups that didn’t vote for the Republicans in 2012: women, the youth, ethnic minorities…but it totally forgets one group, which voted overwhelmingly against them: the religiously unaffiliated.
It was the religiously unaffiliated voters, says Iowa-based pollster J Ann Selzer, who gave her one of the election season’s big “aha” moments.
Selzer tells us that in her last Iowa poll before Election Day, data she had compiled for the Des Moines Register showed that Obama was losing to GOP nominee Mitt Romney among both Protestant and Catholic voters.
Those voters make up 88 percent of the state’s electorate, yet her final numbers still had Obama leading Romney by 5 percentage points.
What Selzer found was that though her polling showed Romney leading among Catholics by 14 points and among Protestants by 6 points, Obama was winning the “nones” by a 52-point margin.
— In Ohio, Obama lost the Protestant vote by 3 points and the Catholic vote by 11, but he won the “nones” — 12 percent of the state’s electorate — by 47 points.
— In Virginia, Obama lost Protestants by 9 points and Catholics by 10 points, but won 76 percent of the “nones,” who were 10 percent of the electorate.
— In Florida, Obama lost Protestants by 16 points and Catholics by 5 points, but captured 72 percent of the “nones.” They were 15 percent of the electorate.
Similar results were seen in states including Michigan, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.
Nationally, Obama lost the Protestant vote by 15 points, won the Catholic vote by 2 points [Mind you: thanks to Hispanic catholics], and captured 70 percent of the “nones.”
Secular voters not only voted overwhelmingly against Republicans, but (by Republicans’ own admission) may also have given President Obama a significant advantage in use of electronic media.
The Republicans’ failure to acknowledge our existence is not new. And with growths like this, it is mind numbing why politicians are not taking notice.
Of course the reason we are not mentioned could be sheer sloppiness. I’d never put that past politicians. But there is another possibility. Mentioning us by name and admitting that we didn’t vote for them could very well make their base upset, and they are not keen about that. The report is upsetting some Religious Right figures as is.
“The report didn’t mention religion much, if at all,” said Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association. “You cannot grow your party by distancing yourself from your base, and this report doesn’t reinforce the values that attracted me and many other people into the Republican Party in the first place. It just talks about reaching out to other groups.”
Wildmon’s American Family Organization, a particularly hard-line conservative Christian organization that owns 200 radio stations nationwide and runs an active grassroots network, has pledged to meet any attempt by the Republican Party to sideline its social agenda with revolt.
“The social conservatives will quit voting,” he said. “They’ll give up, they’ll be despaired. Those are the most loyal people to work for you because they’re energized because they believe their cause is something God stands for and that’s a pretty good motivator. And you take that away? You diss them? You tell them their issues aren’t important anymore? I don’t know who you’re going to be left with. I think you won’t have any troops out there. I don’t know how many country club people will go and walk door to door over the taxes issue.”
Sandy Rios, an Evangelical radio host and Fox News contributor, said the RNC report’s proposals amount to a “namby-pamby” abdication of religious values, and warned that the party could soon lose the grassroots engine that has powered its electoral victories for decades.
“They should be deeply concerned they’re going to be alienating their base,” Rios said, adding, “It seems to me that the leadership of the party is intent on that course. Most Christian conservatives are not going to be party loyalists over principle, and so the GOP has a lot more to lose than Christians.”
Whatever the cause, they will have to acknowledge us sooner or later. In the meantime let’s sit back and watch as they tear at each other.
