Thursday, December 22, 2011

Mormons, Presbyterians and Episcopalians in the Senate, Oh My


A basic search reveals that there are about 6M Mormons in the US.  This isn't terribly far from the number of Jews in the US, which would yield 2 senators with normal representation.  As it is, there are 6 Mormon Senators, so they're managing approximately a 3x overrepresentation.

Crapo B-
Hatch C+
Heller A+
Lee B
Reid F-
Udall F-

Definitely a decidedly mixed set of grades, everything from F- to A+.  Mormon republicans range from A+ to C+, Mormon democrats are uniformly F-.  But Mormons definitely have the best average thus far.  Too bad Reid wasn't knocked off in the last election in Nevada---the MSM really brought big guns to defend him against the upstart Sharon Angle.  Interestingly, Udall F- and Heller, A+ are from the same state (New Mexico).  Romney, with his C rating (sadly the 2nd best on the Republican candidates for President, only Bachmann has a better rating) is on the low end for Mormon Republicans but clearly better than Mormon Democrats.  Can't we do better than this guy?  Apparently not, he's better than Perry or Gingrich, and Paul, while not ideologically hostile to us, is opposed to the only mechanisms that would be proven to work.




Alexander B+
Barasso B-
Carper F-
Coats (No Grade but career D)
Coons F-
Corker B+
DeMint B+
Enzi B-
Hagan C-
Inhofe B+
Kyl B+
Paul (Rand)  B-
Rockefeller D+
Shelby B+
Warner F-

Another really mixed batch, 6 B+'s, which are among the best grades any presidential candidate has gotten recently, 3 B-,  a C- , 3 F- grades, a D, and a D+.
Hagan has the best grade for a Democrat here, at C-, Rockefeller the worst for a Republican at D+.  Overall this group has a considerably better immigration record than I'd expected to find for a fairly mainline denomination (9 B grades, 1 C, 2 D's and 3 Fs)

Chambliss B+
Hutchinson B+
Nelson D- (note that there is ANOTHER B. Nelson in the senate, from NE, who is also a Democrat who has a B+)
Whitehouse F-

2 B+ grades, a D-, and one F-.  This actually surprised me somewhat---I expected this group to have a much worse record considering how elite and SWPL mainline the Episcopalian denomination is on the whole.  But you've got the usual breakdown of Republicans in the B to A range and Democrats in the D to F range. 


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Subdividing Presbyterianism would make sense. The PCUSA, which is the largest and most liberal denomination (in every sense of the word) is so different from the smaller PCA and OPC that a single descriptor barely says anything relevant.

The same applies with Episcopalians, but to a lesser extent. The Anglo-Catholic church that Clarence Thomas is a member of in NoVa would probably be described as Epsicopalian in a list like this, even though it isn't EC-USA.

Jehu said...

Lutherans also have significant divisions within the overall denomination---they call them Synods if memory serves.
If you happen to know the sub-denominational breakdowns, I'd be curious as to whether they predict better than the political party affiliation.

Hail said...

Jehu,
If Michelle Bachmann is any indicator, the Lutheran church that a Lutheran-Congressperson belongs to does probably predict better than party does.

Bachmann is WELS, the most conservative of the three large Lutheran bodies in the USA. She also gets the highest immigration grade of any of the 2012 Republican nominees.

Hail said...

Bachmann's Great-Grandparents [source]
(1) b.1865 in Norway, imm.'66
(2) b.1872 in MN (parents b.Norway & imm.'71)
(3) b.1880 in IA (parents b.Norway & imm.'57)
(4) b.1870 in IA (parents b.Norway)
(5) b.1843 in Norway
(6) b.1855 in Norway
(7) b.1865 in Norway, imm.'66
(8) b.1875 in IA (parents b.Norway & imm.'65).

Every single one of her 16 great-great grandparents was born in Norway. The latest any of them came to the USA appears to be 1871.

Note that the Roman-Church's Ted Kennedy also had all his ancestors enter the USA long before the Ellis-Island wave began. Yet....

Jehu said...

Hail,
Looking at Catholics, I notice that all of the Democrats have horrid ratings and all of the Republicans pretty much have acceptable ratings. Interestingly enough, pretty much all of the Catholic R's are pro-life and all of the Catholic D's are pro-abortion. It seems that the pro-illegal immigration and pro-life set among Catholics is a very small set. Because of this entanglement, it would seem that a Catholic church that got out the excommunication hammer to enforce orthodoxy would clean itself up on the immigration issue as a side effect.

Hail said...

I wonder which religion's Democrats have the highest overall rating?

I would take issue with your assertion that Catholic-Republicans have acceptable grades. Although it is true, there is a deeper story here, IMO, than just party.

Of the 20 RC-Senators with grades, I profiled the ancestries of the four with grades of above C+, and although they are all Republicans, they are also all unusual within American-Catholicism, in that there is almost no trace of the Urban-Ellis-Island bloc that makes up the majority of American-Catholicism (or did, until the recent Hispanic wave), and no trace of Irish-Catholicism, a major component within American-Catholicism, which is often hostile to 'WASP'-based American nationalism.

By contrast, the two Republicans with lower grades (Collins:C, Murkowski:D+) have significant partial Ellis-Island and/or Irish-Catholic ancestry. One would probably find a similar split among Democrats.

One way or another, I will not hold my breath for the Pope to excommunicate 80% of the nominal subjects of his church in the US Senate.

Hail said...

Highest-scoring RC-Democrat:
'C': McCaskill (D-Missouri, b.1952).

Ancestral Profile:
Great-Grandparents of Claire McCaskill
(1) b.1864 in Missouri
(2) b.1870 in Indiana
(3) b.1854 in Missouri
(4) b.1866 in Missouri
(5) b.1863 in Kentucky
(6) b.1878 in Missouri
(7) b.??? prob in MO
(8) b.??? prob in MO

All her ancestors appear to be in the USA in the late 1700s. She appears to be of totally-Colonial-stock.

Hail said...

Note that Claire McCaskill, being of Colonial-Stock, is unlikely to have inherited Catholicism. (The USA was <5% Catholic in 1800, I have read).

Sure enough: "...McCaskill, a convert to Catholicism, ..."

Jehu said...

Hail,
I think there's excellent material for a post (or frankly, a series) on http://hailtoyou.wordpress.com on the correlations and other relationships between ethnicity as measured by great grandparents and position on the national question. It's been quite a while since you've updated your blog, which is a shame since I consider you to be an excellent writer on these matters. I believe Epigone is also working up a series on correlations regarding the national question but I think the insight he's most likely to bring (correlations and the like via Excel) would be enhanced by your more ethnic/family tree analysis. Both approaches are at their strongest when the complementary method keeps them in proper perspective.

DEANBERRY said...

BARRICK GOLD OF ELKO, NEVADA IS AIDING AND ABETTING TERRORISM. Why has Elko, Nevada completely dumped its loyalty to America? In patronizing Barrick Gold you’re enriching Adnan Khashoggi who was involved in the Iran/Contra affair and who is a major supporter of Al Qaida?*

Elko rednecks scream the loudest about avenging 9/11 yet prostrate yourselves to its main financier. Do you feel no shame? I’m calling for you all to be rounded up under the Detainee Security Act (that Dean Heller voted for) for aiding and abetting terrorism.

At the very least, why hasn't Barrick been confiscated by the U.S. government for complicity in terrorism?

http://tinyurl.com/BarrickGoldNevadaFinanced911

* Oh, G Wimp Bush, by the way, is on the board of Barrick. Do you see how inbred both the "left" and the "right" are? How much they actually have in common.