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Presidential elections are not won by regular party voters. They're won by crossover voters. Most people vote for the candidate that is nominated by their own party. About 48-49% of the voters vote rather consistently for the conservative candidate, and about the same percentage vote for the liberal candidate. The remaining 3-4% can be persuaded to cross over and vote for the other party's candidate. If a candidate has a special appeal to crossover voters, he has a huge advantage, because each crossover vote that he can persuade to vote for him, in effect, counts as two votes, because the candidate not only gains one vote for himself, but he also takes away one vote from his opponent, that his opponent would otherwise have received.
That's why the liberals are so afraid of Mitt Romney. Of all the prospective candidates on both sides, Governor Romney has, by far, more hands-on experience successfully managing businesses than any of the other prospective candidates of either party. He successfully started and managed private businesses, and was hired to save failing businesses, which he also did successfully. He was made CEO of the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, when it was already facing a major budget shortfall, and was scandalized by allegations of bribery. This was shortly after 9/11, when there was a significant concern about terrorism during the games. He found private donors to pay for the enormous additional security costs, he cleaned up the scandal, and the games went forward and showed a $100 million profit. There's much more, of course, but suffice it to say that Governor Romney is the genuine article - a quality candidate, and he's exactly the kind of candidate who will appeal to a potential crossover voter who is dissatisfied with the nominee of his own party. Unfortunately for the Democrats, all their candidates are burdened with negatives of one sort or another.
That's why liberals will raise every issue they can to diminish Governor Romney's support among conservatives. They want to either persuade us to cross over and vote for their nominee, or to at least stay home and not vote. Their tactics, by the way, will reveal what they really think about conservatives. They think we're all Bible thumping bigots and narrow-minded ideologues, and stupid, of course. The liberal media has already talked itself blue in the face about his Mormon religion, not because there's anything wrong with him following his faith, but because they think we're all so bigoted that they can appeal to our baser instincts, to vote against him simply because he's a Mormon. They'll make a major issue of his change in his thinking about abortion, because they think we're so narrow minded that we'll refuse to accept a candidate who has a change of mind. (I don't know about the rest of you, but I was pro-choice many years ago, but have changed my thinking through the years, and I don't fault him for doing so, as long as he's on the right side of the issue now, and I don't have any reason to believe that his position is not a matter of conscience.)
I don't want anyone to think that I've made up my mind yet, because the whole purpose of the primary elections is to allow the candidates a chance to win us over, but I'd sure hate to see us be "played" by the opposition, or to see them succeed in their effort to appeal to our baser instincts. They're certainly going to test us.
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