Posted on 11/20/2006 8:24:45 AM PST by areafiftyone
Mitt Romney (R) begins the 2008 campaign season in fourth place among those seeking the GOP Presidential nomination, trailing Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Condoleezza Rice. While many Republican insiders believe the Massachusetts Governor could become an attractive candidate to the party's social conservatives, a Rasmussen Reports survey finds that Romney's faith may initially be more of a hindrance than a help.
Forty-three percent (43%) of American voters say they would never even consider voting for a Mormon Presidential candidate. Only 38% say they would consider casting such a vote while 19% are not sure. Half (53%) of all Evangelical Christians say that they would not consider voting for a Mormon candidate.
Overall, 29% of Likely Voters have a favorable opinion of Romney while 30% hold an unfavorable view. Most of those opinions are less than firmly held. Ten percent (10%) hold a very favorable opinion while 11% have a very unfavorable assessment. Among the 41% with no opinion of Romney, just 27% say they would consider voting for a Mormon.
It is possible, of course, that these perceptions might change as Romney becomes better known and his faith is considered in the context of his campaign. Currently, just 19% of Likely Voters are able to identify Romney as the Mormon candidate from a list of six potential Presidential candidates.
The response to a theoretical Mormon candidate is far less negative than the response to a Muslim candidate or an atheist. Sixty-one percent (61%) of Likely Voters say they would never consider voting for a Muslim Presidential candidate. Sixty percent (60%) say the same about an atheist.
The Rasmussen Reports survey found that 35% say that a candidate's faith and religious beliefs are very important in their voting decision. Another 27% say faith and religious beliefs are somewhat important. Ninety-two percent (92%) of Evangelical Christian voters consider a candidate's faith and beliefs important.
On the partisan front, 78% of Republicans say that a candidate's faith is an important consideration, a view shared by 55% of Democrats. However, there is also a significant divide on this topic within the Democratic Party. Among minority Democrats, 71% consider faith and religious beliefs an important consideration for voting. Just 44% of white Democrats agree.
The national telephone survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports November 16-17, 2006. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
Religion is an issue - sort of. I wouldn't vote for an Atheist. My personal opinion is that, in affairs of State and War, Divine Favor is not merely desirable, but absolutely necessary...
Nor would I vote for Muslim, Buddhist, Shintoist, Hindu, Taoist, Wiccan or Animist; but I think their political goals would alienate me long before we got to religion...
"The Mormon faith began because every Christian faith was corrupt and not true according to Smith."
Actually, the fact that Smith became disillusioned with Christianity at the time, is not when it began.
It began, when he decided to write the book of Mormon.
I wonder how many of these nitwits thought they were being asked a question about morons
True.....but will enough feel the same way?
Ah, cool a mormon I can ask questions of.
I am Jewish by birth and a kohain. I am constantly pestered by mormons re: this. What is the deal?
(I don't ask the pesterers, as the fact that people show up at my door knowing my geneology creeped the Hell out of me. I turn on the sprinklers when I see them coming.)
Okay, if Mormons can call themselves "Christians," then historic Christians can call themselves "Mormons" (and the Mormons will be fine with that).
No wonder so many buy into the false stereotype that evangelicals are idiots.
How exactly does having a Mormon as President hurt this country? Let's see, no record of jihad against the US or those not in their religion, in fact they are very patriotic. Values? Very conservative, live a lifestyle very similar to the most conservative of evangelicals, pro-life, pro-family, etc. Strongly vote conservative and GOP. Utah seems to be a pretty well-run and pleasant place to live compared to most states. So, most Mormons vote and believe the same as evangelicals on virtually every political issue, yet you want to shun them to an inferior class that can never be leaders?
How exactly does a different interpretation on religious doctrinal issues like the Trinity matter in any political issue a President would deal with?
OBTW, if you want to slap down and trash Mormons with your political caste system so much that many of them stay home, you've just handed several swing states like Arizona and Nevada to the Democrats. Brilliant political strategy.
Can you not see how this reactionary religious bigotry feeds the fears that non-evangelicals have about evangelicals moving (whether by design or not) towards a theocracy? If this shameful situation of evangelicals not voting for a Mormon takes traction as a story, it will just further marginalize social conservatives and increase the likelihood that they have no say in political power in the next election.
Why spit on those who agree with us on political issues more than any other group?
Ah, good pt
Are you consistent here? Muslims are perhaps more anti-abortion than many Evangelicals. Does your "spitting" comment apply to them?
lol. . .and 'easy for me to say'; for sure. . .
We Mormons hold Jews in great esteme....we consider them 'cousins' of a sort. You will find no greater pro-semites in America.
We strive to love all men....but some make it tougher to do.
Mitt Romney: Vegetarian in Chief
by Gary Glenn, Chairman
Campaign for Michigan Families
The Washington, D.C. conservative weekly Human Events last year listed Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in its Top Ten list of RINOs (Republicans in Name Only), ranking him at number 8 in the nation with the following entry:
"Has said, 'I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country.' Supports (homosexual) civil unions and stringent gun laws. After visiting Houston, he criticized the city's aesthetics, saying, 'This is what happens when you don't have zoning.'"
http://www.humanevents.com/sarticle.php?id=11129
Romney should have ranked even higher on the list of RINOs. He famously likes to tell conservative audiences in Iowa and South Carolina that being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts is like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention.
I attended last fall's GOP conference in Michigan, where Romney continued his masquerade as a "conservative," even daring to tell the assembled activists: "I am pro-life" -- knowing full well that he does not mean by that term what those listening would think he meant.
Romney's ten-year political career has occurred from his late 40s to his late 50s, yet he asks pro-family conservatives to naively believe that he's just now figuring out his core beliefs.
During that decade, he has insistently supported legal abortion-on-demand. In a televised 1994 campaign debate, Romney said: "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I have since the time when my Mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a U.S. Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years that we should sustain and support it, and I sustain and support that law and the right of a woman to make that choice. ...Since that time, my mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter, and you will not see my wavering on that."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/03/02/romneys_revolving_world
His 2002 gubernatorial campaign web site stated: "As Governor, Mitt Romney would protect the current pro-choice status quo in Massachusetts. No law would change. The choice to have an abortion is a deeply personal one. Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not the government's."
http://web.archive.org/web/20021218005104/www.romneyhealey.com/issues
Romney's response to the National Abortion Rights Action League's 2002 candidate survery: ''I respect and will protect a woman's right to choose. This choice is a deeply personal one. Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not mine and not the government's. The truth is, no candidate in the governor's race in either party would deny women abortion rights." (Notably, Romney refused to answer Massachusetts Citizens for Life's candidate questionnaire.)
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/07/03/clarity_sought_on_romneys_abortion_stance/?page=2
Not surprisingly, Romney's clearly stated support for Roe and "a woman's right to choose" -- i.e., abortion on demand -- earned him the endorsement of the pro-abortion Republican Majority for Choice PAC.
He was also endorsed, twice, by the homosexual "Log Cabin Republicans," the same group that in 2004 spent $1 million attacking President Bush for his support of a Marriage Protection Amendment.
Romney believes the Boy Scouts should allow openly homosexual Scoutmasters: "I feel that all people should be allowed to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation."
http://www.888webtoday.com/bresnahan6.html
He endorses Ted Kennedy's federal "gay rights" legislation. He endorses taxpayer-financed same-sex benefits for the homosexual partners of state employees, and even attacked some Democratic legislators for not supporting such government benefits.
According to the Associated Press, he has appointed at least two openly homosexual lawyers to state judgeships, one a board member of the Lesbian & Gay Bar Association. Imagine how that will fly in Republican presidential primaries in the South, the prospect of a president with a record of appointing homosexual activists to the bench. (See copy of gubernatorial news release below.)
In 2002, before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court legalized so-called homosexual "marriage," Romney denounced a preemptive state Marriage Protection Amendment prohibiting homosexual "marriage," civil unions, or same-sex public employee benefits as "too extreme," even after being advised by the media that his own wife and son had just signed a petition to place it on the ballot.
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/multipage/documents/03827930.asp
Now, as he postures to run for president, Romney travels to Iowa and Michigan and South Carolina to claim he's "pro-life" and brag about fighting homosexual "marriage," saying that at age 59, his position on such issues has "evolved."
(No flip-flop so far, however, on his stated support for homosexual Scoutmasters, forcing taxpayers to fund spousal benefits for the "partners" of state employees involved in homosexual relationships, or Kennedy's federal "gay rights" legislation.)
Regardless, most pro-family voters don't believe in the theory of evolution -- including as it applies to politicians, and especially when the alleged "evolution" seems so conveniently timed to produce political benefit.
Gov. Romney can tell all the cattle-rancher-at-a-vegetarian-convention jokes he wants about Massachusetts. But they're going to fall flat when social conservatives learn -- and they will -- that his long-term record on abortion and elements of homosexual activists' political agenda has been that of Vegetarian in Chief.
This is the rub. Lots of people associate Mormons with polygamists, whether or not the connection is justified. If Romney is the candidate, expect a DBM anal exam of Mormonism which will include incessant mentions of polygamy.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Executive Department
State House Boston, MA 02133
(617) 725-4000
MITT ROMNEY
GOVERNOR
KERRY HEALEY
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 4, 2005 CONTACT:
Shawn Feddeman
(617) 725-4025
ROMNEY NAMES STEPHEN ABANY TO WRENTHAM DISTRICT COURT
Governor Mitt Romney today nominated Stephen S. Abany of Boston for the position of Associate Justice of the Wrentham District Court.
Since 1979, Abany has worked as the Assistant Clerk-Magistrate of the Quincy District Court. Previously, he served as an Assistant District Attorney for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office and a Law Clerk to The Honorable George N. Covett of the Brockton District Court.
Abany is a member of numerous legal organizations, including the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Norfolk County Bar Association, and has SERNVED ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS LESBIAN AND GAY BAR ASSOCIATION.
Abany earned his bachelor’s degree from Boston College in 1971, his master’s degree from University of Massachusetts in 1974 and his law degree from Suffolk University Law School in 1978.
###
Knowing what I know of mormons, it would be only a slight step up from voting for an islamic. Sorry all, but they're both weird cults. Only one islam is more insanely violent. So between them, I'd go mormon. But there has to be a better choice.
To be honest I don't know that much about Mormons.
Well, certainly, if the mormon god is a different God than what true Christians worship...and the LDS church mag, Ensign magazine, has already gone on record saying that LDS worship a different God than Christians...then certainly every time a Mormon president prays, he would be praying to a different god than many of our past presidents. So I think at least it's a fair question to ask if we want our national security in the hands of someone who calls upon a distinct god.
Certainly God is not a playdough or Gumby that can be twisted to any version of divinity you so please. And some point, the twisting becomes so severe that the original shape is unrecognizable.
None of us has a perfect 100% understanding of who God is; but His revelation is plain enough to comprehend the key elements: "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (JC). d
Stick that that. islamics are 'conservative' a lot, the same as other ones. It's all the methods that matter. And don't forget all the alien world stuff and 'you are god' near scientlogy aspects of mormonism.
By their works shall ye know them.
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