Totally Selfish Request: No Mitt Romney!!!!!

Written by: Diana Painter on Jul 22, 2008 11:27 PM EDT

In response to NathanRudy's diary on daily kos, Totally Selfish Request: No Mitt Romney!!!!!  I just have to say...

*sigh* I need a drink.  There are more and more rumors of Mitt being named Veep for McCain and this disturbs me, and not just because he tied his dog to the roof of his car.  This changes a lot of races in my area.

I am FAR more selfish then NathanRudy in proclaiming "NO MITT ROMNEY!!!!"

I just heard more about this rumor from my office mate, also a campaign manager.  The rumors have been going around.  Here in Idaho, rumors like this are given some credence.  Even that woman Ann Coulter is saying Romney for V.P.

They aren't very substantiated, like this post on race42008, but they scare me.  Even Lindsey Graham is not backing away from him.

I live in a very Mormon area. If Romney is VP, it will change the little d races here.  New and uneducated people will be voting for a Mormon just because he is Mormon, albeit not a very typical one.
 
This is especially bad for Democrats (both big and little d)in UT, NV, ID, WY, and people are claiming it would help in NM, CO, and MO.  It depends on how political the Mormons in these states are.  There are many Democratic Mormons, independent voters who will still compare the candidates before they go vote. But historically Mormon's don't vote Democrat. I'll write about the history of Mormon politics some other time (if someone requests it in the comments).

Even my local candidates, who are Mormon, will have those legacy republicans out voting for Mitt based souly on identity (pardon my pun).  They may not know that their local Democratic candidates are Mormon. Religion doesn't make it into campaign lit. If the Mormons who go vote are like other evangelicals under 35, like Howard Dean said at the kickoff of the Register for Change tour, then they care about poverty, climate chage, and Darfur-all key planks to a Democratic agenda, then this won't make any change.

But for those who don't care about the issues, it could change a race.
Mitt could especially hurt ID Senate candidate Larry LaRocco.

The biggest problem is we don't know exactly what this will mean.  We assume more Mormons will get out and vote, but we don't have the resources or time to identify these Romney voters before they go vote so we can target them with persuasion, unless we have a HUGE influx of cash (unlikely for our state races).  If you have EVER thought of donating to Larry LaRocco's campaign, please do it.  You can donate here. It will be used to ID voters in Eastern Idaho [sometimes referred to as VERY N. Utah], which will help every Democratic candidate in this area.

*sigh*  My night is ruined.  Now all my targeting I've been doing gets turned on it's head and I have to re tool our campaign lit going out.  grrrr.  I'll be here all night.

Good thing there are margaritas accessible across the street...I need a margerita.

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Location: Pocatello, ID 83201