| Mormons and Western Evangelicals Propel Mitt Romney to Nevada Win |
| By Charlie Montrose |
Published
01/19/2008
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Political
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Unrated
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Romney Wins Nevada with Help from Mormons and Moderate Evangelicals
 | MITT WINS NEVADA!
Over a year ago, the Beehive Standard Weekly predicted that Mitt Romney's Mormon faith would not be a liability for him in the long run. Saturday's convincing win in Nevada, and the reality that none of the other Republican candidates even dared to come out west during early primaries makes our early prediction even more credible. The lesson learned is that Mitt's losses in the Southeast will be offset with nearly sweeping the west.
Having first won Wyoming, and now with a solid Nevada win, Romney is showing the national audience that despite losing in states where far right-wing evangelicals flex their religious muscle, Romney makes up for any lost ground by winning western states that have large Mormon blocks and moderate evangelicals who have little fear of politicians with Mormon beliefs. This was likely his thinking in focusing on Nevada while trying to steal a delegate or two in South Carolina.
Despite having some understanding of Romney's underlying power base in the southwest, the margin and ease of the victory by Romney in Nevada and Wyoming spell trouble for his competitors. Already, several polls are showing Romney quickly approaching the lead in California, and he can easily count on wins in Utah, Idaho and Colorado. Romney is systematically lining up the western states for his most important final push to put him in the lead in delegate counts once and for all going into the convention.
EVANGELICALS
Some of predicted that the Romney's Mormon base would not be enough to carry the day, and there is truth to this assertion. Romney must rely upon friendly and moderate Evangelicals in the West, but he is showing consistently that he can move this large block of voters into his win column.
One commentator has noted that Mormons and Evangelicals have been voting for each other in a symbiotic way for the last fifty years in the Western states. Despite having differing religious views on the make up of the Trinity and additional books of Christian scripture, the two groups do share the same strong belief systems of strong families, bible-based theology of salvation, pro-life stances on abortion and also share a desire to protect traditional marriage against aggressive campaigns of homosexual advocacy groups.
"The way that Evangelicals and Mormons interact in the west is entirely different than anywhere else," said Rob Graham, Publisher of the Beehive Standard Weekly, a thirty-year old news organization that follows Mormon culture in Nevada. "There are a few hate groups here and there, but by and large, these two groups have learned that when they join their forces together, they are a huge voting block. It is kind of like a video game. You have a pea-shooter to fight off the villains until you catch a certain icon and all of the sudden you are Super Mario with an AK-47 and hand grenades. With that kind of fire power, you usually don't lose. Separated, the Evangelicals and Mormons might win a fight or two, but together, they wreck havoc on special interest candidates and issues."
Moderate Evangelicals from the west have also found that Mormon political leaders in the west can be trusted to avoid scandal and vote their morals. In Las Vegas, many of the county, civic and judicial leaders are Mormon and continue to be re-elected by a population that has many more Evangelicals than Mormons.
LOOKING FORWARD
In Romney's eastern and southeastern campaign, it is important that he have a few gold medals, like he had recently in Michigan, and as many delegates as possible so when he turns his attention to the west he can convince moderate Evangelicals to team up with the Mormon voting block in order to carry the day. Romney may be hoping for a slight edge by McCain in some of the earlier contests in order to soften-up Huckabee. This will be critical to Romney as McCain has difficulty attracting Evangelicals given his personal life, which includes a divorce from his first wife in favor of a wealthy beauty queen from Arizona and his more liberal positions in frequently aligning with liberal senators on immigration and campaign reform.
Combined, the distrust for McCain and the perception that Huckabee cannot win the nomination, should align the majority of evangelicals with Romney to help him be competitive in California, Oregon and Washington and make Romney competitive in Arizona and New Mexico.
Most immediately, however, Romney must head into Florida, which is statistically even between McCain, Huckabee, Romney and Giuliani. Should Fred Thompson drop out, it is believed that those economic conservatives will support Romney's candidacy or at least split between Huckabee and Romney. The Nevada win and his better polling in California will likely be used by Romney's election team in Florida to prove that he is the only viable candidate in the west and try to convince some that Huckabee has limited means to carry the day.
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