It seems to me that Mitt Romney's Mormonism has probably been a significant impediment to his presidential campaign. And yet, as this article about a Mormon leader's funeral makes clear, there are actually tons of successful LDS politicians. Indeed, we have five LDS Senators right now -- Gordon Smith, Harry Reid, Bob Bennett, Orrin Hatch, and Mike Crapo -- and it's pretty likely that they'll be joined by two more, Mark Udall and and Tom Udall after the election. Meanwhile, Wikipedia says there are thirteen Jewish senators. Considering that Jews and Mormons combined have to be less than five percent of the population, that's pretty astounding.
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US Senate: Where Religious Minorities Are Loved
02 Feb 2008 05:22 pm
Comments (88)
The Mormon thing seems to be mostly a function of disproportionate representation in the Senate for less populous Mountain states.
The Mormon-Jew analogy has not been fully developed, but I've been told that Mormons and ex-Mormons have a disproportionately large footprint in several sciences and areas of scholarship.
According to www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html, the 2004 estimated populations of U.S. Jews and Mormons were 3,995,371 and 3,806,258, respectively. Out of about 300,000,000 U.S. citizens, so that's slightly more than one percent for both.
That's true. Wyoming, with only 0.17% of the population of the U.S., has 2% of all U.S. Senators. That's 11 times higher than one might predict based on population size.
Let's not forget two Japanese-American senators, also disproportionate to population. And, at one time, there were two former astronaut senators -- talk about completely disproportionate!
Ted: The Jewish population of the US is definitely larger than 3.9 million. Are you sure that source isn't supplying numbers for adherents of Judaism (thereby leaving out non-practicing or non-religious Jews)?
And don't even get me on the number of Illuminati Senators.
Re "Considering that Jews and Mormons combined have to be less than five percent of the population, that's pretty astounding "
-----------
It must be the result of all those human sacrifices to the god Baal ...
And there are how many black U.S. senators again? Oh, that's right, one, and he isn't even actually African-American.
The fact that we have _no_ African American senators, thirteen Jewish ones, and five Mormons shows how little we have progressed.
It's all part of a plot. You can read about it in The Protocols of the Elders of Salt Lake City.
I don't have much to add, except that on an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher shortly after his success as DSCC chairman in 2006, Schumer denied being a Jew. I always wondered about this because clearly he was raised Jewish, so this seems like an appropriate time to ask whether or not anyone knows what's up with that?
Re: Oh, that's right, one, and he isn't even actually African-American.
???
Are you referring to the fact that Obama is bi-racial?
Otherwise I don't see you can disqualify him from "African-American" as he has African ancestry and is a (native-born) American citizen.
Re: Oh, that's right, one, and he isn't even actually African-American.
???
Are you referring to the fact that Obama is bi-racial?
Otherwise I don't see you can disqualify him from "African-American" as he has African ancestry and is a (native-born) American citizen.
Jasper, you may be right about the Jewish "adherents" versus "ethnic" Jews. I'm not sure of the site's methodology. I recall hearing once that "Jews" were 6% of the population, but a quick Google search could only come up with the above figures.
Re Hector's comment "The fact that we have _no_ African American senators "
-------------
Oprah says you can take that chickenshit $150,000 job and shove it.
And a couple of hundred rap stars, sports stars, actors, etc agree.
I think the number of lawyer-Senators is likely to be disproportionate to the percentage of lawyers in the general population.
Re JonF's comment "Are you referring to the fact that Obama is bi-racial?"
--------
Let's leave his sex life out of it.
According to www.attorneyadherents.com, Lawyer-Americans are 0.45% of the U.S. population. :-)
According to www.attorneyadherents.com, Lawyer-Americans are 0.45% of the U.S. population. :-)
JonF,
When I say 'African American' I'm not defining the term in terms of color of one's skin, but in terms of shared historical experience. An African American is a person who belongs to the community that were brought as slaves to the United States, and were molded into a distinct cultural identity by historical circumstances. I wouldn't call a Dominican or a Jamaican immigrant 'African American', and I definitely wouldn't call a recent Kenyan immigrant by that term.
For example, the mother tongue of African American culture is English, not Spanish, Portuguese or (in Obama's case) Luo.
Re Eric's question "I don't have much to add, except that on an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher shortly after his success as DSCC chairman in 2006, Schumer denied being a Jew. I always wondered about this because clearly he was raised Jewish, so this seems like an appropriate time to ask whether or not anyone knows what's up with that? "
----------
When Chuckie joined a Neocon progaganda front called Foundation for Defense of Democracies --with Richard Perle, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, and all the other usual suspects--
MJ Rosenberg had a talk with his rabbi.
See http://www.defenddemocracy.org/biographies/biographies.htm
Hopefully Matt can explain how Wisconsin has two Jewish Senators. Yes Milwaukee has a strong Jewish community but it isn't huge.
I see most of the posters here are trying to make light of it so they don't have to address the fact that a disproportionate amount of our Senators are Mormons and Jews.
Beside the "Mountain Region" reason given above, I think Jews and Mormons have decided after suffering a great deal of discrimination and persecution; Never Again.
The Jews decided never again after the Holocaust and they've made damm sure since that time they were going to be adequately represented in the halls of power. The Mormons got a taste of discrimination and persecution in the previous two centuries and they also made sure that they would be represented in the halls of power.
I guess African Americans just haven't been discriminated or persecuted enough to warrant getting off their ASSES and electing people who look like them.
F
Only Tom Udall is Mormon; Mark Udall is Presbyterian, though both come from the same legendary Mormon family (as does Gordon Smith). Does anyone know if Mo Udall had problems with his religion during his presidential bid?
"Does anyone know if Mo Udall had problems with his religion during his presidential bid?"
Not with me; I'm not terribly fond of Mormons and I voted for him.
Mo took criticism for the LSD church, but not per say because he was a member. During the primaries, he was criticized for the Mormon's excluding African Americans, but Mo had withdrawn from the church over that issue, so it was not as big of a deal.
As said above, the number of Mormon Senators can be explained by the LSD members being concentrated in the West. The number of Jewish Senators is a little more surprising, demographically. We are not just in the usual suspects - NY, NJ, CA - but also in small states like Vermont and Oregon (which one Mormon and one Jew). The number of Jewish Senators form the Midwest is also interesting, since it is two from WI, two from MN, and one from MI. One would not expect that many from the Midwest, and not form those states.
Jews and Mormons are also overrepresented in the wealthy American population, which is in turn overrepresented in representative politics.
It seems to me that Mitt Romney's Mormonism has probably been a significant impediment to his presidential campaign.
That's not the way it seems to me. I think being a plastic Ken doll Christian would hurt as much as being a plastic Ken doll Mormon. The conservative Christians that would be turned off by his Mormon religion are just such a small minority, hence the Senators you note. Someone on this site the other day made a crack about his tan and asked if it might be from wind surfing. That got at the gist of the problem. He doesn't seem real. In a way, it's also the same thing as the Edwards Breck Girl image. Lots of people make a point of the broad-shouldered thing, but they don't realize, it has to look and act real for it to work, not plastic perfetion white rich guy.
We Transhumans have actually replaced all the Senators with Terminator replicas, so it doesn't matter.
Now we're trying to figure out how to get them all to look like Summer Glau, so we can make one of them President. Hillary just isn't cutting it...
Does anyone know if Mo Udall had problems with his religion during his presidential bid?
Posted by Adam
Much to Mitt Romney's surprise, he found that though his Dad George Romney and Mo Udall 40 years ago had no real issues with being Mormon with Voters, Mitt found the evangelical South transformed into a bastion of bigotry against a Mormon candidate when he ran. And national polls showed up to 30% of voters admitting they would not vote for a Mormon. Higher numbers than for the hypothetical Jew, black, gay candidate.
Some of "Pastor Huckleberry's" messages in primaries going back to pre-Christmas were
deeply bigoted. And they worked.
The difference between Jews and Mormons is a matter for debate, there are similarities, but profound differences. But both groups take great pride in the success of their membership in private business, both groups have a reputation as hard workers.
The interesting thing is one stronghold of the Republicans (the Baptists and Sect Fundies) just greatly dissed another stronghold of Republicans (the Reddest States where Mormons are) on religious bigotry. I think there will be consequences.
Mainly payback, if Pastor Huckleberry is rewarded by McCain with a VP slot or some other favor by opening McCains path.
Then the Mormons after showing clout, as the Jews have done when crossed - will then try outreach so no other Mormon candidate is slimed and deemed unacceptable by evangelicals as Romney was. If the evangelicals don't "get it" soon - then they can anticipate any Fundie up for national office or a judgeship to catch similar hell from Mormons with long memories.
Lots of interesting data re the demographics of Jews in the United States at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews
Although estimates vary, the general conclusion seems to be that about 2-3% of Americans have some kind of affiliation with Judaism.
Sheesh, anyone who's worked with Mormons or Jews knows the Jews are really smart and the Mormons compensate with good habits if they're not intellectual giants.
We had some bad flooding here recently, and the Mormons put up posters- "We are going to have 300 people here in a work party, if you need help give us a call".
It's not a total coincidence if you find Jews and Mormons in leadership roles.
Well at least us papists still have the Supreme Court.
Isn't the relative success of religious minorities in US politics partly a result of having a "built-in" constituency to turn to for volunteers and fundraising early in their political careers?
I think I like the Pontiff's answer the best. You can see how, though Mormons are only a fraction of the population, that there is a lot of activism from that particular fraction of the population that can benefit political candidates who need donations and organizational assistance.
When I say 'African American' I'm not defining the term in terms of color of one's skin, but in terms of shared historical experience.
Not to go too far off topic, but that 'shared historical experience' resulted from legal segregation, as well as institutial discrimination and personal biases. The legal segregation may have ended, but discrimination and bias continue to operate.
Race is an external construct, imposed by the majority or dominant class. Kenyan- or Californian-born, many Americans call a black man an African-American.
Aren't many of the Jewish and Mormon senators Democrats? Unlike our GOP counterparts, Dem voters don't make a candidate's religion (or non-religion) a requirement for office.
Race is an external construct, imposed by the majority or dominant class.
It's also a biological classification, albeit a fuzzy one, like sex and species.
I don't know if there is an analogy for the Jews, but I think most of the LDS politicians mentioned above actually come from the fringe areas of the Mormon West (S Utah, E Nevada, E Oregon, Idaho, San Bernardino, N Arizona, N(orthern, not New) Mexico, unless I'm missing one) rather than the Mormon heartland around Salt Lake and Provo. Further expansion of the point at one's own discretion.
Reid is the only Mormon democrat in the Senate; Specter, I believe, is the only Jewish Republican (although there are more of each in the House - Tom Udall, certainly, is the former)
Beyond that, it seems pretty damned clear that Mitt was hurt by being Mormon. If Mitt was an Episcopalian or some other kind of mainline protestant, would Huckabee have won Iowa? I think Mitt would have coasted to an easy victory, and then gone on to pretty easily win the whole thing from there.
F, I hope you were shooting for satire.
Fun with statistics!
In my precinct in California 100% of my Federal Representatives are women. 100% are Jewish. 100% are Democrats. Two of the three authorized George W. Bush to invade Iraq. This precinct is poised to vote for Obama.
That's because our precinct has learned, the hard way, that using religion or gender as a proxy for common sense is just plain wrong.
Those who gave Bush permission to invade Iraq were wrong, period, and their religion and gender did not protect them from participating in the biggest blunder in American history.
But that's just one precinct reporting....
Dan,
Why do you think I'm shooting for satire?
One of the reasons for wanting power is to help and protect your sub-group, whether its religious based (Mormon), ethnic based (Jew) or race based (African American). This may be a subconscious reason for wanting power, however it is definitely a legitimate reason.
Joe Lieberman is an perfect example of this reasoning; a huge part of his wanting to retain his Senatorial seat in the last election was to continue to help and protect the Jewish/Israeli interests in the US Senate. Whether his means of helping are the best for the Jews/Israel is open to question, however you can not say that helping them was not a major part of his reasoning.
As an example this article of a recent Lieberman speech in praise of McCain shows how far he has gone in his desire to protect the Jews/Israel. Think about it; a moderate Jewish Democrat from Connecticut is campaigning for a conservative Protestant Republican from Arizona in heavily Jewish communities in Florida. Hmmmm, I wonder why, could it be that the conservative voices the most strident "whats best for Israel is best for the US" stance.
Its human nature to want power so you can help and protect your sub-group; the fact that the Jews and the Mormon are doing disproportionately well in the Senate in relation to the size of their population is not a problem, but it is something to be noted.
F
Higher numbers than for the hypothetical Jew, black, gay candidate.
Nell Carter for President!
I think most of the LDS politicians mentioned above actually come from the fringe areas of the Mormon West... rather than the Mormon heartland around Salt Lake and Provo.
The Utah Senators are both based in the Wasatch Front heartland: Bob Bennett was born in Salt Lake City, and Orrin Hatch is from Pittsburgh but first came to Utah to attend BYU and was based in Salt Lake City when he returned to Utah to practice law (see).
RE F's comment "One of the reasons for wanting power is to help and protect your sub-group, whether its religious based (Mormon), ethnic based (Jew) or race based (African American). This may be a subconscious reason for wanting power, however it is definitely a legitimate reason "
--------------
I thought in this country our "sub-group" was "fellow American citizens".
F,
I get your logic, but I thought you were shooting for satire because your comment showed such ignorance of history. You said:
The Jews decided never again after the Holocaust and they've made damm sure since that time they were going to be adequately represented in the halls of power. The Mormons got a taste of discrimination and persecution in the previous two centuries and they also made sure that they would be represented in the halls of power.I guess African Americans just haven't been discriminated or persecuted enough to warrant getting off their ASSES and electing people who look like them.
This ignores so many factors in African Americans' underrepresentation and Mormons' and Jews' overrepresentation that I thought you must've been kidding. Apparently I was wrong.
Don Williams,
I thought in this country our "sub-group" was "fellow American citizens".
I guess it was someone from another country then who was lynching, beating and denying rights to African Americans. It must have been that same someone from another country who was denying the Jews the ability to attend certain colleges, live in certain neighborhoods, join certain country clubs. And that same someone was also persecuting the Mormons and driving them to Utah. Because we all know it couldn't have been my "fellow American citizens".
F
P.S.
I guess that same someone from another country has now decided to persecute Americans of Latin descent (illegal aliens), because we know it couldn't be a "fellow American citizens".
So as long as you're not an atheist, Muslim, or black, you're ok.
Dan,
Please explain to me my ignorance of history.
I am well aware that African Americans have had many reasons in the past to be underrepresented in Congress, however with the advent of gerrymandering and a growing black middle class, the opportunities for an African American to be elected to Congress has risen dramatically. They just need to get off their ASSES, organize themselves and vote, just like the other sub-groups (Jews, Mormons, etc.) did.
Also, I understand the Mormon's unique situation in the Mountain West region, my post initially referenced the first poster on this thread who succinctly explained why they maybe over represented in the Senate. However, while I agreed with the first poster's point I also believe that the persecution and discrimination suffered by the Mormons in the previous centuries made them more adamant about protecting their rights and they found the best way to do that is by being in power.
Maybe you're the one should read a little history on Utah and the Mormon Church; Brigham Young and his followers initially boycotted elections that were non Mormon related (i.e. state and federal), however after various laws were passed that infringed upon what they felt was their rights they got off their ASSES, organized themselves and voted and they haven't given up control of Utah since.
I could spend all night giving examples of why the Jews feel the need to protect themselves by attaining power but I'll give just one; Israel.
Israel was founded upon the thought of never again; never again would the Jewish people allow themselves to persecuted and driven to the point of extinction, they would even establish a homeland to protect themselves if they were ever threatened in this manner again. If the Jews felt it necessary to establish a country to attain the power of protection why would the Jewish diaspora not want to establish power in their residing country to assist and protect themselves and their Jewish/Israeli brethren.
F
F,
We were talking about the Senate, weren't we? Because there are plenty of African Americans in Congress, if you hadn't noticed. The Mormons have this thing called a state (Utah, if you were wondering), which makes it a little easier to get in the Senate. I guess African Americans weren't able to get off their ASSES and found a state for themselves.
When the Mormons suffered persecution - which was abhorrent - they had the FREEDOM and the MEANS to MOVE. Meanwhile, African Americans were SLAVES, after which they were EXPLICITLY SUBJUGATED. See what I'm getting at here? Let's not forget that once manufacturing jobs opened up across the country, black folks followed them, and were the last hired and first fired.
It's funny that the only history you seem to care about is Mormon history. What I've pointed out is your ignorance of American history with respect to African Americans. And your ANGER is as telling as your conspicuous disregard of African American history.
Okay, number 1: fraction of the group with high income and educational level: Jews and Mormons overrepresented as noted above.
Number 1a: Acceptability to win local/regional elections. This is one reason for a difference between Jews/Mormons/blacks: I'm not going to rehash hundreds of years of history and oppression, but there's plenty of data suggesting black politicians have had a harder time winning statewide races, see the Bradley Effect. Maybe in the future, eased racial tension in the US will make this less of a problem. Also, I want a pony.
Number 2: Glass ceiling. Jews and Mormons have not been able to make a credible run for President - Mitt may be proving this again, due more to the nature of the Republican base than of the general electorate. So they pile up at the highest political office they can reach. Obama may yet be able to break the ceiling, but I think it's gonna be a long time before the country is ready for a serious Jewish presidential candidate. Of all of the Jewish senators, have any been floated as being able to make a serious run? (Lieberman doesn't count; neither do Barry Goldwater and George Allen, both raised practicing Christianity.)
Dan,
Wow, I'm the one with the anger and you're the one doing the shouting, hmmm.
As you seem a little slow on the uptake, I'll first provide you with a little information from the 2000 US Census / Congressional Black Caucus before discussing my points.
- US population approx. 13% African American
- States with at least 33% African Americans population (Louisiana*, Mississippi)
- States with at least 25% African Americans population (Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina)
- States with at least 20% African Americans population (Delaware, North Carolina, Virgina)
- Percentage of African Americans in the House of Representatives (9%)
- Percentage of African Americans in the Senate (1%)
*Katrina
Unlike you, I know African Americans are woefully underrepresented in Congress (Congress meaning both the House of Representative and the Senate). However, my point is that while African Americans have had legitimate reasons in the past to not have adequate representation in the halls of power many of those reasons are no longer viable (slavery, Jim Crow Laws, overt discrimination, etc.). In todays America even with latent racism and discrimination still being prevalent, African Americans if organized should have much higher number of representatives in the halls of power.
A properly organized sub-group should be able to elect members of their sub-group when they are at least 20% of their local population (9 states have a population of at least 20% African Americans). So I think your anger with me is a little misdirected, I'm only pointing out that if African Americans want their proper share of the power, they must get off their ASSES, organize and vote, just like every other sub-group out there has done.
F
F - You do realize that the word "asses" can be written in lower-case letters, right? I can't help but read your posts in Jim Rome's voice the way you've got it written.
I guess that same someone from another country has now decided to persecute Americans of Latin descent (illegal aliens), because we know it couldn't be a "fellow American citizens".
F,
If you're a troll, I see you're taking the approach of staying in Wonderland and seeing how far the rabbit hole goes*. Otherwise, you're an idiot. Here's the thing about "illegal aliens". The "alien" part means they're not Americans.
*I'm listening to Coast to Coast AM as I type this, and they just played the red pill/blue pill scene from The Matrix.
We need many more Lutherans in Congress, and certainly one in the White House.
Achieving that would make this country a much better place to live.
Michael Blaine
www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com
See
The Real Meaning of “Anchor Baby”
at
Rudely Stamped
Michael Blaine
www.rudelstamped.blogspot.com
First, let's note that you're the all caps captain here. A simple scroll up will reflect as much. Also, I am impressed by your mastery of the google. Your problem lies not in an ignorance of demographics, but in an ignorance of, well, everything else.
Going back to your original argument, African Americans are underrepresented in the Senate because
I guess African Americans just haven't been discriminated or persecuted enough to warrant getting off their ASSES and electing people who look like them."
Here's the thing - African Americans actually died fighting for the right to vote in the very states in which you chide them for not winning. Are you really arguing with a straight face that the reason a black person has never won a senate seat in Mississippi is because blacks there failed to mobilize? Seriously, you're not saying that, are you?
Have you lived in Mississippi? I have. African Americans' failure to win a Senate seat there has nothing to do with their failure to mobilize. It has everything to do with the fact that the bulk of white population fears and loathes them, and sees their own interests as inherently opposed to African Americans.
Seems to me that your understanding of electoral politics is bereft of any knowledge of American culture or history. Tell me, at what point did white people in heavily African-American states stop being prejudiced against African Americans? At what point did the GOP stop stoking racial resentment as a political strategy to galvanize whites against blacks?
See
The Real Meaning of “Anchor Baby”
at
Rudely Stamped
Michael Blaine
www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com
beowulf
If you're a troll, I see you're taking the approach of staying in Wonderland and seeing how far the rabbit hole goes*. Otherwise, you're an idiot. Here's the thing about "illegal aliens". The "alien" part means they're not Americans.
So insisting that English be the official language and calling for denial of basic services are just responses to the Aliens (sounds so SCFI) in our presence, not examples of navitism or racism.
If you don't think the groups leading the charge against the immigrants from Latin America are racist then you're the idiot here.
Dan,
Going back to your original argument, African Americans are underrepresented in the Senate because
I guess African Americans just haven't been discriminated or persecuted enough to warrant getting off their ASSES and electing people who look like them.
Wow, your lack of understanding of what sarcasm is and how it is used is frankly breathtaking.
I'm going to bed and leave you with your righteous anger. You fight the fight and I'm going to organize.
F
P.S.
I'm African American and I've lived in several places throughout the South (Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina) so I know what the challenges are and I know my people and like I've said many times above if we got off our ASSES (for you Adam) organized and voted we would be a lot further along in this country.
F
F,
Sleep well. It's interesting that I initially assumed you were being satirical, and you shot down my assumption, and now you take refuge in my misunderstanding of your sarcasm. That is an interesting defense mechanism, as is your complete dodge of my arguments, as is your attempt to paint me as the angry one when you were the original screamer.
I sympathize with your frustration with African Americans' underrepresentation in Congress, but it'd be wrong to pretend that it's right to blame that on the AfAm community rather than a white population that in large part has stood against black advancement . As a white American, I can speak to that just as an African American you can voice your frustration at your own community. Sleep well.
If only Mormons could drink caffeinated beverages they'd take over the world!
Reid is the only Mormon democrat in the Senate; Specter, I believe, is the only Jewish RepublicanNorm Coleman.
F
You need to take into account minority-majority congressional districts. They ensure one minority Congressperson has a safe seat while making the surrounding districts less competitive.
There's another key issue here: 100 Senators is a SMALL sample size. A survey of several thousand Americans has an error of +-3%, as we read all the time in the political polls. So if the sample size is 100, that's going to be probably closer to +-10% or more.
It would be _shocking_ if some groups weren't drastically over-represented in the Senate, and other groups weren't under-represented. It's not hard for a small minority to move from no representation to being over-represented, when all you need are about 5 individuals with remarkable political acumen (barring systematic barriers to fair political competition).
Now, if you increase the sample size by, say, including all past Senates, and see that we've only ever had 3 popularly elected African American Senators (according to Wikipedia), then you can pretty quickly rule out African American under-representation as purely a statistical anomaly.
Re: When I say 'African American' I'm not defining the term in terms of color of one's skin, but in terms of shared historical experience.
Hector, there is not a single person now living who was brought to this country as a slave. Our "shared historical experience" begins when we are born. Your categorization is as arbitrary as saying that Indian who are Christians cannot be *real* Indians because they are not Hindu.
Re: For example, the mother tongue of African American culture is English, not Spanish, Portuguese or (in Obama's case) Luo.
Obama is not a native speaker of English? And yes, I would call a Kenyan who haed become an American citizen an "African-American". The actually term fits better than it does with someone whose ancestors were dragooned here in the 17th century.
JonF,
Well, I don't think so. I would not define an Indian in terms of religion, but I would include an element of 'shared historical experience'. I would not consider someone whose ancestors migrated to Nepal three hundred years ago, and therefore missed out on the experience of British colonialism, an Indian. In large part because the modern definition of an Indian is largely tied up with the 'shared historical experience' of British colonialism.
And yes, of course Obama's first language is English. Nevertheless, if Obama wanted to 'reconnect' with his father's culture, he would need to learn Luo. Whereas the language of African American culture- literature, stories, hymns, etc.- is of course English.
F should realize that a high proportion of African Americans live in racially polarized states dominated by white bigots. Only two states have as much as a third black population, and except for Delaware and Maryland, all of the states with more than 20% black population are hard-core bigot states.
If Mitt was an Episcopalian or some other kind of mainline Protestant, would Huckabee have won Iowa?
Wouldn't have helped much, evangelicals don't like mainline Protestants, especially not "liturgical" churches like the Episcopalians, Catholics, and Lutherans.
Emerson - I am aware that Evangelicals don't much like mainline protestants. That being said, they don't view them as evil non-Christian cultists who are trying to destroy Christianity, like they do Mormons.
Certainly Evangelicals have shown a willingness to vote for mainline Protestants pretty broadly - Reagan was a Presbyterian, Bush I an Episcopalian, and Dole and Bush II Methodists. Not necessarily enthusiasm, but willingness.
The dislike of Evangelicals for Mormons seems to be different in both kind and intensity from their dislike of mainline Protestants, and I think it hurt Mitt.
>Hopefully Matt can explain how Wisconsin has two Jewish Senators. Yes Milwaukee has a strong Jewish community but it isn't huge.
Feingold won because he's a great person and ran a great campaign. Kohl practically bought the seat. His campaign was "Nobody's Senator but Yours," i.e. "I'm so rich no special interest can bribe me." He also was a household name from owning large Dept and Supermarket chains, and owning the Bucks.
So far as I know, Judaism was never an issue in their elections.
As to the glass ceiling:
The 2004 Democratic primaries include at least three candidates of Jewish or mixed-Jewish descent - Lieberman, Kerry and Clark.
Was Kerry the first Democratic Party candidate of at least mixed-Jewish descent? 50% Jewish descent in his case.
Poor Kerry was both a Catholic and a Jew. Plus, certain Catholic bishops attacked him for the adequacy of his faith.
While Jews get a lot of heat for "disproportionate representation", they're not alone. Mormons are clear example.
Greeks are another. They represent roughly 1% of the U.S. population, but we've had a Greek VP (Spiro Agnew), a Greek presidential nom (Mike Dukakis), and various Greek Senators (Paul Tsongas, Paul Sarbanes, Olympia Snowe), etc.
I wonder how well Asians would fare if they were white.
Goldwater.
Minnesota has had at least one Jewish Senator since 1978, and at one time had two. There's no significant Jewish vote in the state, and in 1950 Minnesota was regarded as a center of nti-Semitism.
Correction: there have never been two Jewish Senators from Minnesota, but since 1978 there's always been a Jewish Senator, and he's always run against a Jewish opponent. Boschwitz, Wellstone, Coleman, and now Franken.
Mondale subbed for Wellstone as a candidate after Wellstone was killed, but that was a big fiasco and we're pretending it didn't happen.
This is going way back to the top of the thread, but to the best of my knowledge, Daniel Akaka identifies more with his Hawaiian ancestry than with any East Asian ancestry he may have. There is a distinction between his background and the Japanese background of Daniel Inouye.
This is so obvious I cannot believe we're even having the debate. Jewish and Mormon candidates aren't necessarily known to be Jewish or Mormon among bigoted ignoramuses. The overwhelming majority of Jewish candidates are non-observant. Many lack obviously Jewish names: Coleman, Cardin, Wellstone (changed from Wexelstein), Wyden, Sanders. So most of the time they don't have to deal with a lot of BS over their religion at the polls. I'm willing to bet that when they were first elected, only other Jews could automatically recognize Boxer and Specter as Jewish.
Ditto Mormons. I had Mormon reps when I lived in New Mexico and had no idea they were Mormon. They weren't hiding it; it's just that nobody bothered to find out or make an issue of it, because they weren't seeking national office.
Ditto gays, to SOME extent. Janet Napolitano and Herb Kohl are widely rumored to be gay, and will never be on a national ticket because of it. But because they're not out, and running only for statewide office, it hasn't been a major obstacle.
But has there ever been a statewide election without hullabaloo over a candidate's blackness? Visible diversity doesn't necessarily indicate that we're more racially than religiously bigoted.
Putnam,
Kerry was only a quarter Jewish (Fritz Cohen converted to Catholicism) and on the wrong side, so he wouldn't have been considered Jewish under Jewish religious law. (He would have been considered one by the Nazis, however.)
I had no idea that Ms. Snowe was Greek, by the way.
Not necessarily even fellow Jews. I'm Jewish, I'm a California voter and was born in Pennsylvania, and until I read this post it hadn't occurred to me that either Boxer or Specter was Jewish. As far as I know, the question has been politically irrelevant for both of them.
Evangelicals hate Mormons for the same reasons Jews dislike "Jews for Jesus".
It's the false pretense.
The senators from California are both Jewish women from the Bay Area. All of this is, on the surface, unlikely.
Much to Mitt Romney's surprise, he found that though his Dad George Romney and Mo Udall 40 years ago had no real issues with being Mormon with Voters, Mitt found the evangelical South transformed into a bastion of bigotry against a Mormon candidate when he ran.
Are you saying that empowering ignorance and prejudice has had unfortunate consequences? What a shame no one could have foreseen that.
Hopefully Matt can explain how Wisconsin has two Jewish Senators. Yes Milwaukee has a strong Jewish community but it isn't huge. Posted by Rob | February 2, 2008 6:17 PM
I was born in Milwaukee and lived there until age 29, and traveled a lot of Wisconsin in my work in my 20's.
In both Milwaukee and the entire state of Wisconsin the majority of the the population doesn't even know from the signs and signifiers of Jewish stereotypes, basically don't even know from or understand Jewish culture, they are clueless about such things.
It never occurs to most people there that someone might be Jewish, most people there just presume someone with a German name is German, like tons of other people in the state.
That small community of Jews in Milwaukee has always been centered on the small East Side which is known as "where the rich cosmopolitan people" live. (There is more prejudice there about anyone with "latte" or elite pretensions than having anything to do with Jewishness, there is little linkage made between that and Jewishness.)
There is pretty strong racial prejudice and segregation but virtually no religious-based prejudice at all, none in the history either. The majority of Protestants are Lutheran and there is a recognition that there is little difference between that and the Catholic Church. You just go to the church your parents went to, just because. Faith is not deep.
Milwaukee is very anti-urban, very suburban in lifestyle, working, lower and middle middle class, and very segregated culturally according to family heritage. Some people go for decades without going to the scary "downtown" next to the Afro-American ghetto. The East Side where the Jewish community is on the other side of the Afro-American neighborhood. A valley and the highways separate East and West. People really grown up staying with their own kind through family networks, Polish, German, etc.
The rest of Wisconsin is blithely naive white country like Iowa. If they have prejudice against Jews, they learned it from immigrant ancestors, not from knowing any Jews or anything about them.
I betcha anything the majority of people in Wisconsin never even thought of their Senators as being Jewish. With Kohl, for instance, there would be no connection made being from a successful business family and being Jewish, just none. He's just a rich East Side kinda guy. People there just don't have any recognition of or knowledge of the traditional stereotypes of Jewishness. Feingold is just one of those educated refined guys who is not a snob like most people like that.
Because the entire culture there is heavily dominated by what was once the Austro-Hungarian empire, the culture actually has a lot of things in it that is similar to Ashkenazy culture going way back. Italians, now, they are like a foreign subculture there, as well as Hispanics, they stand out (and live in a segregated neighborhood), Jews don't, they fit in as less exotic or less foreign.
Oddly and contrary to what one might expect because of the racial & cultural prejudice between black and white there (integration stymied by actual geographic divisions, the valley and a river), all kinds of the more recent Asian immigrants seem to assimilate into the white majority communities quite well and are not segregated into sub-communities.
They just need to get off their ASSES, organize themselves and vote, just like the other sub-groups (Jews, Mormons, etc.) did. - F
Remember, e.g., 2000? Here in FL, many African-Americans were turned away at the polls because they happened to be the same race and share a name as a "felon". And they were told that if they voted, it would be a crime. And many of them remember a time when you could get lynched for "illegally" voting. Is it any wonder, given this sort of thing, why African-Americans might not vote in the same numbers as Jews?
I know, I know, you're saying that all those Jews down in South FL had no problem complaining when their votes were misregistered. But ya know something? We Jews are not only good at complaining ;) but we also tend to know lawyers. Suppose they even tried that "you can't vote, you're on our list as a felon, and if you vote, we'll arrest you" crap on us Jews? We'd be saying "the person I sit next to on Rosh Hashana in shul is a lawyer and if you so much as start to do anything like arresting me, she'll have all your asses in court before you can even say '15th ammendment'". But how many poor, African-Americans have such easy access to legal help(*)?
OTOH, how many Jews really have had anybody in their family killed for trying to vote "illegally"? We all have people in our family killed "just for being Jewish", but "they" would have killed us whether or not we tried to vote. Did the Holocaust teach Jews to try and maintain political power? Maybe ... but it isn't as if African-Americans have been victims of less discrimination than we Jews -- it's a matter of the nature of the discrimination: discrimination against us Jews, while having roots in religious and economic competition, was not designed to "keep us down" per se but rather to give everyone else a scape-goat and later on to kill us whether or not we were down. OTOH, discrimination against African-Americans is part and parcel of a specific neo-feudal economic and political program in which it was particularly "uppity" Blacks who were punished ... so the incentives and discincentives for voting are different.
So it isn't just a matter of African-Americans needing to organize as well as Jews (nu? we Jews are so organized?), but there are so many differences that it's hard to compare ...
Re: I would not consider someone whose ancestors migrated to Nepal three hundred years ago, and therefore missed out on the experience of British colonialism, an Indian.
Of course not-- they live in Nepal. But what about a long-time resident of Goa, which was never a British colony?
Re: Nevertheless, if Obama wanted to 'reconnect' with his father's culture, he would need to learn Luo.
I fail to see why this is germane. Do I not qualify as a "European-American" unless I have learned the language of my European ancestors? I have klearnedt hose languages (German, Dutch and English) by the way, but if I hadn't? Or, if my German ancestors had come here just a generation ago, would that leave me out of that category because they were too recent-- they did not flee the Revolution of 1848 or whatever it was that droves waves of Germans to these shores in the 19th century?
Re: Whereas the language of African American culture- literature, stories, hymns, etc.- is of course English.
Which Obama speaks. As do most of us Americans, so language is not a good test for African-American-ness. I am wondering if there is not some unfortunate classism in your post though: because Barack Obama is not from the Black underclass he cannot be an African American. Are the only authentic Blacks ghetto homeboy types? Can there be a Black upper class in this country which is still African American?
JonF,
I'm not sure I can exactly put into words what I'm trying to say, but in inchoate form it's this. It has nothing to do with class, really. African Americans are the descendants of people who were brought to this country as slaves. Being stripped of their language, religion, and historical memory of their homeland, they had to create a new culture for themselves. The roots of that culture today, for all practical purposes, are in the American South. The mother tongue of that culture is English, and all of its music, hymns, literature, etc. are in English. The actual connection to Africa is negligible because of the slavemasters' policy of deculturation.
An immigrant, while they may _look_ "Black", has cultural roots in, say, Haiti or the Dominican Republic or the Cape Verde Islands- or in Barack's case, in Kenya. This is the place that they look to when they think of 'homeland' or 'fatherland'. Presumably, an African American person's true 'fatherland' is the United States, whereas a Dominican's person's fatherland is in Santo Domingo, and Barack's is in Kenya.
Does this make any sense?
"Much to Mitt Romney's surprise, he found that though his Dad George Romney and Mo Udall 40 years ago had no real issues with being Mormon with Voters, Mitt found the evangelical South transformed into a bastion of bigotry against a Mormon candidate when he ran."
Yeah, and he had no problem running in Massachusetts. As a MA native, I must say I've taken some perverse joy in his fortunes, much as, on another level, I am appalled for my country. I've been really annoyed by his references to MA as if it were some pigsty he was divinely apponted to clean up, full of libruls he needed to pacify before he could do the real work that manly conservatives do. Apparently it didn't dawn on him that it was only because those crazy libs didn't give a rat's ass about his crazy religion that he was able to get elected. Lo and behold, he tried running in he GOP race and his fellow 'conservatives' won't elect him dog catcher because -- surprise! -- he ain't really right with the baby Jesus! How sad. Your bed, Mitt, sleep in it.
Comments closed February 16, 2008.
The Mormon thing seems to be mostly a function of disproportionate representation in the Senate for less populous Mountain states.
Posted by RS | February 2, 2008 5:35 PM