Rove: Why couldn't U.S. president be LDS?

LAYTON -- A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can become president of the United States of America, says Karl Rove, former senior adviser to President George W. Bush.

"Absolutely," said Rove, who was in Layton on Thursday night for a stop-over to address a room full of fellow Republicans at the Davis Conference Center.

While he was at it, Rove, who served as the keynote speaker for the Davis County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner, autographed copies of his book.

More than 400 people attended the event at a cost of $50 per person, which included dinner and a copy of Rove's book, New York Times best-seller "Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight."

Following the reception and prior to his speech, Rove took time to talk with the media, addressing the strong gains the Republican Party made in the November 2010 election in the House, Senate and with governorships across the country, and the challenges that lie ahead for any GOP presidential candidate in 2012.

Rove also shared that he would be addressing the economy, the nation's debt, health care and hope for America in his dinner speech, which was closed to the media.

"I think we are going to have a race that is up in the air, that is capable of being won by either side," Rove said of the 2012 presidential run.

He said despite the slight advantage there is to a standing incumbent, "The economy is not going to be good, and the budget is not going to be in the place the American people want it, the deficits are still going to be too high, and the taste that is still in people's mouths about what they saw in the first two years, particularly when it comes to health care, is not going to be helpful to (President Barack Obama)."

But any Republican candidate entering the field -- including former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr., both members of the LDS faith -- will have their work cut out for them, said Rove.

Too much was made of Romney's LDS faith in his 2008 run for president, said Rove, who has Utah ties but is Anglican, not LDS.

The country enshrined freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights, Rove said, and what he found in looking back at articles centering around Mitt Romney's father, former Michigan governor George Romney, is that there was no mention of his LDS faith.

"This makes me queasy,"Rove said of the Times magazine coverage of Romney's religion.

Rove, who attended Olympus High School and the University of Utah, said that the whole issue of Romney's religion was "overdone."

Based on Rove's busy schedule, the Davis GOP was fortunate to have him speak at this annual event, Davis County Republican Party Chairwoman Shirley Bouwhuis said.

Rove, an adviser to President Bush from 2000 to 2007 and deputy chief of staff from 2004 to 2007, has written a candid, behind-the-scenes view of some of the country's most turbulent years in the White House, Bouwhuis said.

Bouwhuis said she was confident Rove would generate a lot of interest from local party members, especially as 2010 was a historical mid-term election for the GOP, and 2012 is shaping up to be an exciting election year, too.

Rove is a Fox News contributor and writes a weekly op-ed for The Wall Street Journal as a Newsweek columnist.

Most Americans know very little about the LDS. If Willard is the nominee, the MSM will fix that.

Bingo.

#1...

Turn back your clock.
It's late March, 1978.
Mitt Romney has just turned 30 a few weeks before. Not exactly a youngster...
Jon Huntsman is an adult as well, having just turned 18.

Both as of that time belong to an organization that was still symbolically posting "No Blacks Allowed" signs over the doors of what they deem to be the most important buildings they ever are to enter on earth...

In fact, to show how important those buildings are...
...were Mitt & Jon & their fellow Mormons not to enter them & perform the dark hoop-jumping rituals absolutely required of them...
...then this dark threatening foreboding warning that was imposed upon them Jan. 19, 1841 would descend upon them to "reject" them by one of their gods...

"...build a house unto me; and I grant unto you a sufficient time to build a house unto me; ... But behold, at the end of this appointment your baptisms for your dead shall not be acceptable to me; and if you do not these things at the end of the appointment ye shall be rejected as a church, with your dead... (Official Lds Church Doctrines & Covenants 124:31-32)

So these special Mormon "houses"...Race-wise, were they worse -- or better -- than the soda fountain separate drinking fountains and separate bathrooms and separate entrances for blacks & whites in the South from the early 1960s & before that?

Do these special Mormon-built "houses" -- their temples -- as of March, 1978...do they at least have a "Black entrance" into the temple to contrast the "White entrance" into the temple? Are blacks at least allowed a separate-but-equal inside treatment?

I mean even those "white drinking fountain" only stores still allowed blacks inside, right? What about Mormon temples as of late March 1978 with 30 yo Mitt Romney inside? With perhaps Jon Huntsman inside pretending to be a dead spirit being dunked in the water? (Lds use teens to immerse -- what they call "proxy" baptisms -- to baptize dead spirits)

Are Mitt's supporters out there in Romneyland so naive that they somehow think that the MSM won't turn a potential Romney (or Huntsman) - Obama match-up into a referendum on Mormon (& by extension the Republicans who voted him in) racism????

#2 Do we think the MSM will overlook the claim made of temple Mormons that they are "gods-in-embryo?"

Anybody know of any other (R) candidates running who claim the other-worldly commitment of becoming a "grown-up" god???

That's who some want in the White House? (Somebody who thinks of it as a "career move" onto to their Great White Throne?)

And I'm still not quite so sure why most FREEPERS who indeed are bothered by Mormonism are actually afraid to publicly concede that in the case of weighing a POTUS candidate?

Imagine it's 2016...and say that -- for discussion's sake -- scientologist John Travolta is running for POTUS.

The MSM interviews John...and he concedes he holds to the "traditional" view of Scientology re: their 'thetanism' doctrine...(for those of you who don't know what that is, here it is):

According to Scientology, when a person dies — or, in Scientology terms, when a thetan abandons its physical body — they go to a "landing station" on the planet Venus, where the thetan is re-implanted and told lies about its past life and its next life. The Venusians take the thetan, "capsule" it, and send it back to Earth to be dumped into the ocean off the coast of California.

Source: Thetan entry @ Wikipedia

Now I don't know about you. But if Scientologists are so gullible to fall for this stuff...would John be the kind of guy you want heading the international & domestic security interests of the United States?

And why would such Scientologist stuff be "off the table" in discussing him as who you want in the White House? In fact, not only why that, but why would so many conservatives actually perform dozens of cartwheels to actually ensure it wouldn't not even be addressed as one among many?

(Can you say "cultural cowardice?" Can you say they've been brow-beaten by liberals already for alleged "bigotry" and they've forgotten that the line between discernment and judgment is oft wherever the name-caller wants to draw it?)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.