[JCEccles]

Seventeen percent isn't bad. I would wager that an equal if not higher percentage would refuse to vote for a true evangelical such as Pat Robertson. An open and avowed atheist would probably be rejected out of hand by an even higher number.

I don't see anything wrong with that, and I'm LDS. America is great, in part, because its citizens can still hold and express strong and powerful opinions on matters such as religion and use these beliefs to inform important decisions without fear.

I would not want to live in a nation of milquetoasts unable or unwilling to believe anything strongly.

I won't support Romney, but my chief reason is that he is too much of a social liberal for my tastes.

[mowkeka]

I have absolutely nothing against Mormons. I'm not one of the 17 percent.
But the way that JFK won in 1960 was by distancing himself from the Pope.
A Mormon cannot distance himself from his/her prophet. And Americans don't like the idea of someone running the scenes from backstage.

[jocon307]

"An open and avowed atheist would probably be rejected out of hand by an even higher number."

Yes, I've often thought that. I went to school with a kid we used to joke would be the first Jewish president of the US (obviously he chose another path, but I wouldn't rule it out altogether even today, he's only 47 now), and I've thought we'll have a Jewish president, a Mormon president, a Hindu president, heck, we may even have a Muslim president before we have an atheist president.