TPM: Ron Paul Doesn’t Appeal To Evangelicals? Polls Say Otherwise

[City Lights]

By: Kyle Leighton December 30, 2011, 5:01 AM

The Iowa GOP caucuses, the home field of the social conservative — where former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee turned out the evangelical vote on his way to a victory, and where noted religious activists can be just the endorsement a campaign needs to win the first state in the primary process. In 2008.

The evangelical vote in Iowa this year has been hard to pin down. Or rather, it’s been moving from candidate to candidate during the various surges in the state, mirroring the more general faction of GOP voters that would like to nominate anyone but Mitt Romney. But as the January third caucuses approach, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) has moved to the top of the heap…presenting pundits with a problem. The conventional wisdom is that Paul can’t or won’t make a play for those voters — that they are strictly the territory of Christian firebrand candidates Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (R).

Except, the numbers show evangelical voters haven’t coalesced around any of those candidates. And Paul, who has never actually suffered with this voting bloc, is picking up more and more as he rises to the top in Iowa.

<snip>

So the Iowa caucuses may again pick a very conservative candidate with little to no chance of actually getting the nod. But this time, it might be a candidate who wants to take out the Federal Reserve, not go to war on gay marriage.

Read the article at TPM.com

[Frances]

1. Ron Paul named his son

Rand after Ayn Rand.

I thought Ayn Rand didn't believe in religion.

Certainly her philosophy was the exact opposite of Jesus' teachings.

[City Lights]

2. It doesn't make any sense at all.

I would expect most of the evangelical support to be split between Perry and Santorum. I do not understand why so many are throwing their weight behind Paul.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Paul is in fact fanatically anti-abortion

It doesn't surprise me that the more fanatical right-wing evangelicals would support him.

However, even speaking as an atheist, it's sad that current religious extremists seem to think that Jesus' main concerns were abortion and homosexuality, and seem to totally ignore what the Gospels said about wealth and poverty.

[City Lights]

6. His views may be just as bad as the others',

but he doesn't come across as "preachy" as some of the other candidates. For example, Santorum can't open his mouth without uttering some anti-gay bullshit. One gets the feeling that weaving his religious views into the government is Santorum's only issue. It's not like that with Paul.

I wholeheartedly agree with your second paragraph.

[morningglory]

3. I grew up around evangelicals.

What attracts them to the GOP is their fearful, hateful, greedy, racist nature (with feelings of superiority). They are not all like this, by any means. They will vote for whatever the GOP puts out there. Right now they are just expressing their choice preferences but they will vote for any adulterer, thief, liar, mormon, nutjob, whatever the GOP offers.

[Bucky]

4. There's a natural affinity there among people who glorify a golden past that never was

As long as a candidate communicates that we should fear the future, they'll have some appeal among conservatives.