Amish for Trump ???

[Iamaartist]

Last edited Sun May 29, 2016, 09:35 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-amish-voters-223669


The Amish don’t read Donald Trump’s tweets, they can’t watch his television appearances and voting is practically against their religion.

But that’s not stopping a group of Trump allies with ties to Ben Carson and Newt Gingrich from mounting a campaign to turn them out anyway.

Amish PAC was started by an alum of a pro-Carson super PAC; an ex-Amish donor to that super PAC; and an employee of Gingrich Productions. The group is planning to mount an old-fashioned, billboards-and-newspaper ads effort this summer, designed to encourage Amish people in Pennsylvania and Ohio to turn out for Trump in November.

Ben Walters, fundraising counsel to the group and a former fundraiser for the pro-Carson 2016 Committee, concedes the group faces an uphill task.

“I’ve got to say, I don’t know that we’re going to change voting habits drastically,” Walters said in an interview on Friday. “But we can only help them.”

According to a study from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, there are just under 70,000 Amish people in both Ohio and also in Pennsylvania. But these states are likely to be battlegrounds, and Amish PAC expects every vote will count.

“In Florida in 2000, it came down to a couple polling places,” Walters said. “What if that happened in Ohio or Pennsylvania? It could.”

The Amish vote is especially difficult to turn out: believers adhere to a strict interpretation of Christianity that discourages much of any participation in the modern world, from technology to voting. Voting is not technically outlawed, but it is strongly discouraged by many church leaders.

Donald Kraybill, an expert on the Amish people at Elizabethtown College, said he guessed that the most generous turnout scenario would be about 2,000 Amish voters in both Pennsylvania and Ohio.

In 2004, George W. Bush received about 1,300 Amish votes in heavily Amish Lancaster County, Pa., he said—the product of the most successful political outreach to the community in recent memory.

“George W. Bush is not Donald Trump,” said Kraybill, whom the PAC is hoping to consult (he declined to say whether he would respond to them, though he hasn’t yet).

“There’s a lot of aspects about Trump that are antithetical to Amish values and Amish beliefs,” Kraybill said. “This is a very different situation now than it was in 2004.

Gabe Neville, formerly a longtime aide and chief of staff to Rep. Joe Pitts, a Republican whose district includes the heavily Amish Lancaster County, was also skeptical that Bush’s success could be replicated—at least by Trump.

“Pennsylvania and Ohio, these are states often won on the margins…a small number of votes from any group can in theory swing the election, theoretically it might not take a lot of new Amish votes to affect the election,” he said. “That said, Donald Trump is very different from the Amish in a lot of ways. Bush was able to relate to the Amish on a personal level, he was [perceived as] an authentic Christian. Trump’s star power, celebrity and tech savvy are useless with the Amish.”

Bush, taking a markedly different approach from Trump’s flashy, camera-heavy campaigning style, flew in and met quietly with community leaders in Lancaster County in 2004—without photographers, in keeping with the Amish preference to avoid appearing in photos.

“The Amish told the president that not all members of the church vote but they would pray for him,” read a report from a local Lancaster paper at the time. “Bush had tears in his eyes when he replied. He said the president needs their prayers.”

Core Amish principles require rejecting pride and embracing humility—an awkward fit for a bombastic presidential candidate who brags about being “a winner.”

“The Amish really strongly emphasize humility, the last thing Trump emphasizes,” Kraybill said. “In terms of his marital record, divorce, for example, is cause for excommunication. It’s not just frowned upon, it’s cause for excommunication.”

But, he noted, since the Amish don’t watch TV, it’s unclear how well-versed they are in Trump’s personal past, which includes three marriages and raunchy talk about women.

“I’m not certain how they take some of the rhetoric,” said Dave Dumeyer, the chairman of the Lancaster County GOP. “But those I hear about are probably fairly supportive of the policies. So whether that’s going to be sufficient to engage them, I don’t know.”

Walters, who has family in Amish-heavy northern Indiana and grew up visiting those communities, knows that Trump’s brash style and flamboyant personal history are at odds with the Amish approach. But Amish people—as well as Mennonites and other Anabaptists considered part of the “Plain people”—admire his business success, he said, and that offers common ground.

“One group of people and one person are completely different from each other,” Walters said. But, noting that Trump won Lancaster County—though it’s unclear how many Amish people voted in the primary—he continued, “They appreciate his business savvy, they appreciate the fact that he built such a successful business, they see someone who’s going to be pro-innovation, less government regulation, someone who’s going to lower taxes.”

That’s true, said Kraybill. But Trump’s business practices are very much at odds with the Amish community. Bankruptcies—something Trump has faced four times—are cause for excommunication in Amish communities, as is filing a lawsuit. Trump has not exactly shied away from litigious tendencies, suggesting that he would make it easier, under his administration, to sue journalists.

Still, the Amish are deeply uncomfortable with Hillary Clinton, and Amish PAC is hopeful they can turn out conservative-minded people both for Trump and also for Pat Toomey and Rob Portman, the Republican senators up for reelection in Pennsylvania and Ohio.



We have also a lot Amish here in Mich...that live here..... why in the world would they want rump Trump ...They don't believe in radio TV or cars or any modern things at all....I wasn't even sure they voted.. where did they get there information from they live out in country do not have internet, most of them sale stuff at flea markets here in Mich...

Why him and not Hillary,who has the caring of all people...So Bush reach out to them once but this is Trump....?????. Its time for them to start reading more on Hillary...and the good things she does,for all kinds of people ......they better wake up....

[Thinkingabout]

1. It will be interesting.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. And in recognition of the Amish support for Trump:

" . . . . and we're going to build beautiful, amazing, huge convention centers on this arid farmland that doesn't enrich the community. We'll be literally raking hundred dollar bills out of the dirt."

[Treant]

3. The Amish are...Interesting.

I actually live not too far away from Amish country and...well, I don't have a vast amount of respect for the Amish, let's just say.

Not entirely aside from that, they'll vote, or not, as their community leaders demand, and they'll vote in step with what the leaders want.

That will not generate many votes for Hillary Rodham Clinton, I can tell you that, regardless of any actual consideration of the issues.

[Iamaartist]

4. Could be I agree

One vote is a vote..but then who knows....we are about two or so hrs away from Amish Acres in Indiana which has many there.....

We once bought a homemade bread they sale at flea markets ..as we go to look for things I can paint on...they just don't talk but smile,.......

[LiberalFighter]

8. I don't have much respect for the Amish either.

And I don't consider their work superior or even better than most. At least with my contact with them.

[SharonClark]

5. Let's see...Amish, Ben Carson and FrankenTrump

What could possibly go right with that combination?

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

6. I thought the Amish didn't get involved in politics.

[Iamaartist]

7. I thought that to, until read this.....

[LiberalFighter]

9. They generally don't. When they do it is very limited.

[LiberalFighter]

10. Ohio has the most Amish at 69,255 per Wikipedia.

Their numbers in 31 states is under 300,000. In some locations their leaders frown on anyone even being registered to vote.

Their impact on elections will be very negligible.