Do you know anyone voting Romney?

[grantcart]

37. Probably 30% of my clients are voting for Romney, maybe more.

I meet clients in their homes and after meeting over a thousand folks to talk about their federal employee benefits I have a pretty clear idea which way they go politically after talking with them for 30 minutes. Some of the issues border politics and sometimes we talk about it and generally I use neutral terms like "under the previous administration this happened" and "under this administration this happened".

About 30% are from conservative religious families, including quite a few Mormons.

Most of them are excellent parents, good citizens and nothing at all like the images you get from looking at Republican politicians.

For many of them you can see that their religious life is centered on a simple understanding of the Christian message (simple but not necessarily naive) and despite having all of the demands on their time quite a few adopt, are foster parents (sometimes to some incredibly difficult children).

None of the Mormons I have met meet the sterotype of the Mormons you get from either the RW or LW media. I still chuckle about one Mormon guy who wore an official college sweatshirt with the a seal and everything and I asked him if the F was for Florida because I had never heard of FU. He just laughed and said that he had a sarcastic side to him. The last Mormon couple I met with were adult boy friend and girl friend who met at a Mormon Church and moved in together and have no plans to marry in the next year or two.

The reason tha these folks continue to be Mormon, IMHO, is that it gives them a secure way where they can participate in religion as a family. They are able to have greater influence on how their children think and believe, but I could be wrong. The only characteristic that I see that is different among the Mormons I have met is that the wives tend to fit a 1950's image of a housewife and when we come to benefits they just kind of turn off and leave it to their husbands, so I suspect that they like to have clearer gender role identification based on "Leave it to Beaver".

Virtually none of them are sophisticated politically, or particularly passionate.

None have ever expressed any real admiration for Romney. A few have expressed antagonism to the President.

I find the run of the mill Republican to be quite normal and nothing at all like the politicians that represent them. That was my experience growing up in a Republican family in a Republican community as well.