[tantiboh]

“In general, Mormons would be doing Romney a big favor by not making his candidacy about Mormonism.”

I agree. The challenge we face here is that almost every time Romney’s name comes up, the following conversation ensues:

Skeptic: “Well I could never vote for Romney because I could never support a president who supports weird thing 1, 2, and 3.”

Mormon: “Well, we do believe 2, here’s why. But you are incorrect about 1 and 3. We don’t believe that.

Skeptic: “Oh, but what about this Mormon who said, “yada, yada.” Do you deny that this doesn’t support 1?

Mormon: “Yes, because you’re taking it out of context.”

Skeptic: “Now you’re just ignoring the evidence that’s right in front of your face....”

And so the argument commences. Pretty soon, names like non-Christian, bigot, cultist, polygamist, etc. start flying around.

It’s silly, foolish, and childish. It’s doing no one any good.

[George W. Bush]

And so the argument commences. Pretty soon, names like non-Christian, bigot, cultist, polygamist, etc. start flying around. It’s silly, foolish, and childish. It’s doing no one any good.

It'll end up doing the Dims a lot of good if it torpedoes our most able and attractive candidate. This first debate showed that Romney at least has that potential. The man seems likable, perhaps with the kind of charisma to make him a crossover, Reagan-landslide kind of candidate. And his wife is great in public, a real sweetheart.

If Romney is for real as a conservative, this is incredibly destructive.

I guess it's a good thing to have such a long pre-primary season. More time to find out about candidates, throw liberals under the bus (Giuliani), pin down Romney so we know who he really is.

Maybe getting this debate out of the way early, letting people really take it out on each other, will be a good thing. Then when things get more serious toward the end of '07, FR management can clamp down on it. But I would hate to see us sidelined or turned into an anti-Mormon site because of this stuff.