Sunday, September 27, 2015

The endorsement of Ted Cruz by so-called values voters means little, except for Ben Carson and Donald Trump

From the story at The Hill, here:

Sen. Ted Cruz won the Values Voter Summit straw poll for the third year in a row on Saturday, a strong showing of support from evangelical voters for his 2016 presidential bid. The firebrand Texas senator won a whopping 35 percent in the poll of summit-goers, ahead of runner-up Ben Carson’s 18 percent. That margin is significantly wider than last year, where he edged out Carson by just 5 percentage points. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (Ark.) took third with 14 percent, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) with 13 percent. Real estate magnate Donald Trump finished a distant fifth with 5 percent.

So "values voters" have finally figured out one thing: Ben Carson's values may be traditional, but they are rooted in a crackpot religion which was born of a failed prediction of the end of the world in 1844.

Now if they could only figure that out about their own religion.

What's happening here is that the evangelical base is clearly choosing a Southern Baptist over a Seventh-day Adventist, and distancing itself dramatically from the mainline Protestant in the race, Donald Trump.

Meanwhile Ted Cruz isn't going to be the nominee, not as long as he garners just 27% of the support enjoyed by the frontrunner.