Posted on 05/03/2006 3:05:16 AM PDT by Panerai
Gov. Mitt Romney knows he must make the speech of his life from the presidential campaign pulpit to set American voters at ease with his Mormonism, just as John F. Kennedy did in 1960 to help them accept his Catholicism.
Romney said he knows he has to give a speech along the lines of the famous address in which Kennedy told Houston Protestant ministers: “I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.”
Romney said he would insist his loyalty as president would be to the American people, not the Mormon church.
Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said that despite Romney’s remarks, printed in U.S. News & World Report, no such speech is “currently planned.”
But political experts said addressing the nation about the role his faith will - and will not - play in his public life is not only a smart move, but an essential one.
“Romney will certainly have to give some kind of speech about his faith,” said Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. “He’d have to. I don’t see how he can avoid it.”
Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said taking a page from Kennedy’s playbook is exactly how Romney can overcome skepticism about his religion.
“You follow the Kennedy model,” Sabato said. “You simply let people get to know you.”
And though some of the GOP faithful, particularly Evangelicals, still frown on Mormonism, Romney will have an easier time overcoming those questions than Kennedy did about being Catholic.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bostonherald.com ...
Is he pro-life, pro-gun and pro-borders? If so, I could care less where he goes to church.
I couldn't care less. Sheesh!
He no pro-life, no pro-gun, no pro-borders, and he flip-flops like Kerry.
After the breakthrough that got JFK into the WH in the 60s, it is amazing that a candidate's religion is still an issue - or is it just an issue for the MSM?
Gads but that phrase drives me right up the wall. What part of the "American people"? The part that doesn't think that the 2nd amendment should exist?
Tired old political hack talk. It'd be nice if a pol would remark that his loyalty would be to the Constitution.
Oh, fergot, one did recently say that and then proceeded to sign CRF and ignore the borders.
Tired old political hack talk...
That answers that, then. Next!
JFK was a Catholic?
He should have 5 or six wives in bikinis all bring him a beer at the same time - now THAT would get some attention.
What if that "religion" was a cult?
Relax, Mitty boy.
You have a snowball's chance in hell, IMO.
He passed Hillary's health care bill in Mass...
Ditto. I heard he was pro-life and pro-gun, not sure on the borders.
Vote for a guy who's the governor of a state that people are fleeeing!?
ROTF. That's a good one.
If memory serves Kennedy had to convince people that his loyalty to the Pope, a foreign leader, wasn't an issue. As a Mormon I don't think Romney has that problem. He just has to convince people that his religion is mainstream. That HBO series on Mormon polygamists can't be making his job any easier.
I don't see a Mormon carrying the South.
That bill was a long way from Hillary care. Are you from MA?
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