1. - Anonymous - Friday, Nov 9, 12 @ 9:48 am:

   Might want to fix the typo in the header…




2. - Rich Miller - Friday, Nov 9, 12 @ 9:50 am:

   I did, thanks. Although considering the results, “fin” has a certain panache to it. lol




3. - The Captain - Friday, Nov 9, 12 @ 10:12 am:

   I’m struck by the results of how the gay rights issues played out. The respondents in the Illinois exit poll may not be large enough to be statistically significant but perhaps the stronger data point is the performance of the issue nationwide where Maine, Maryland and Washington state voted to legalize gay marriage while Minnesota defeated an amendment to outlaw it. It’s remarkable to me that in 2004 a key feature of the Rove playbook to re-elect the President was to have marriage amendments on the ballot to drive turnout among evangelicals. This year with the marriage amendment on the ballot an apparently very out of touch George Will referenced this particular ballot initiative while predicting Minnesota would go for Romney (Obama won by 8) because of evangelical turnout. In just 8 years gay marriage has become a mobilizing force in exactly the opposite direction, this is unbelievably interesting to me and maybe more surprising than seeing the Senate Dems take 40 seats.

   The must watch video spawned from all this comes courtesy of the campaign manager/executive director of Minnesota United for All Families. If you’ve ever worked on a campaign, Democrat or Republican, winning or losing you know this speech. It’s the one that happens at the end of election night and in this case it’s just shy of 2 in the morning and he’s telling his troops that they don’t expect to know the results until the next day. It has the very relatable “we’re having a conference call early tomorrow” moment followed by the completely exhausted staff groan that you know well. Then at about the 3 minute mark the communications director tells him that the AP just called the race and the whole place goes bananas. Fun to watch.




4. - Demoralized - Friday, Nov 9, 12 @ 10:22 am:

   Considering the Bishops told their parisoners that they would go to hell if they voted for “certain” candidates it doesn’t surprise me that Obama lost some of the Catholic vote.




5. - Demoralized - Friday, Nov 9, 12 @ 10:24 am:

   That should be “parishiners.”




6. - Brendan - Friday, Nov 9, 12 @ 10:51 am:

   @Demoralized: no it should be “parishoners.”




7. - yinn - Friday, Nov 9, 12 @ 11:14 am:

   *parishioner* Shoot, now that doesn’t look right, either, lol.




8. - Anon - Friday, Nov 9, 12 @ 11:24 am:

   For Catholics who regularly attend church, Romney won by 20 points.




9. - cermak_rd - Friday, Nov 9, 12 @ 11:46 am:

   Anon,

   Which might indicate to the good Bishops what they might want to work on (getting the BiTP quotient up).




10. - Tony - Friday, Nov 9, 12 @ 12:16 pm:

    I’ve been saying this for years and I’ll say again now: THERE IS NO CATHOLIC VOTE. Look at national exit polling for the last several presidential elections. The Catholic vote almost exactly mirrors the overall national vote (Obama won among Catholics 50-48 this year.)

    It’s not 1950 anymore. Catholics are not a group of blue-collar, nothern industrial city-dwellers. They are an ethnically, economically, and regionally diverse population.

    And yes, Catholics who attend church regularly vote more conservatively — just like protestants who are regular church goers.

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