For the first time, Democrats aren’t trying to win Missouri’s electoral votes. Why? [View all]

[pstokely]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/10/missouri_politics_why_the_swing_state_is_now_a_red_state_.html

"Mitt Romney isn’t somebody who hypes up conservative Missouri. He’s somebody it can tolerate. The most common phrase I heard when asking Republicans about Romney here was “he wasn’t my first choice, but ...” George W. Bush and John McCain fit the Republican profile. Romney never will. Democrats, Owen and others, hear it all the time: There are conservatives who go to church, hear that Mormonism is a cult, and struggle to square that with the name on their ballot. “It hurts them quietly,” says Temple.
“It comes up in coffee shops,” says Justus. “I heard two people talking about it just the other day. ‘What are you gonna do? You gonna vote for the Muslim, or you gonna vote for the Mormon?’ And this guy, who belonged to one of these megachurches, said that the issue had come up in his prayer meeting, and they’d decided not to vote.”
This may be one of the states where that attitude costs Mitt Romney some votes. But it won’t be enough to let the Democrats win Missouri."