Posted on 06/22/2007 4:46:24 PM PDT by Utah Girl
WASHINGTON - Prominent Mormon supporters of Sen. John McCain's presidential bid were outraged at a campaign worker's attempt to link the LDS Church to terrorists.
Chad Workman, the Warren County, Iowa, chairman of McCain's campaign, addressed a gathering of Republican activists in April and questioned whether Mormons were Christians. But he went much further, discussing an article alleging the LDS Church helps fund Hamas, and associating the treatment of Mormon women with the Taliban, according to a report in Thursday's Boston Globe.
Workman's comments were a direct attack against rival presidential candidate Mitt Romney, whose membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is viewed by some evangelicals as outside the mainstream, or in some cases, as a cult.
"I think that's reprehensible," said state Sen. Curt Bramble, a Mormon who recently switched from backing Romney to supporting McCain. "You can't control all of your volunteers [but] this would cause me very serious concern. I don't think there's room for that rhetoric in the campaign. Period."
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who is heading up McCain's efforts in Utah, said he would personally talk to McCain and ask him to take action against Workman if the anti-Mormon report is true.
"I'm going to ask him to send out a message from campaign headquarters that no one from his organization should say things like that," Shurtleff said.
A top Romney supporter in Utah called for Workman to be axed from McCain's campaign.
"I know that McCain does not believe that and would never sanction it," said Kirk Jowers, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics and head of Romney's former political action committee, the Commonwealth PAC.
McCain "needs to remove [Workman] from having any position within the campaign, any status from within the campaign."
McCain himself has denounced attacks against Romney's religion or anyone else's in the campaign. During a visit to Salt Lake City earlier this year, McCain was asked what he would tell supporters of his that were bashing Romney's Mormonism.
"I would make the most forceful statement possible that there is no place in American life for that, much less politics," McCain said.
McCain spokesman Danny Diaz said Thursday that the campaign has apologized to Romney and "reiterated that comments concerning his religion are inappropriate and unacceptable."
"A presidential contest is a leadership test, not a religious one," McCain said.
McCain and Romney have ramped up their attacks on each other in recent months as both seek support in early primary contest states. Romney has bumped into the lead in two of the three early states as McCain has lost ground, according to polls.
Romney spokesman Kevin Madden says targeting a candidate because of his or her faith is "absolutely uncalled for."
"It's important that Sen. McCain apologize for these types of attacks coming from his campaign," Madden said. "I'd expect that Sen. McCain's supporters in Utah are just as disappointed as we are that their campaign has resorted to this kind of repugnant behavior."
The revelation of the McCain supporter's comments is part of a spate of attacks against Mormonism of late, including implications or forwarding of anti-Mormon rhetoric by The Rev. Al Sharpton, and staffers for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback. All three apologized to Romney and LDS Church leaders.
Isn’t there a large LDS population in Arizona as well? You would have thought the good Senator would have known better!
Yep. And probably a good number of them voted for McCain.
Say goodnight Johnny.
They don’t call him, McInsane, for nothing in Arizona.
That, however, is both a blessing and a curse for them. More people will hear their message, but as history seems to indicate, even more will reject it. For the church, there is no real downside here. For Romney, I believe it will generate more sympathy and votes than it will cost him. But, things are still up in the air and time will tell if this will be the case. We will see.
Why, I do not know.
Utah Girl,
Did you even READ the article before you posted? McCain did NOT make any of these comments. Some guy in Iowa who is helping run his campaign was stupid enough to open his big mouth. Perhaps that guy should’ve known better, but I think this had little to do with McCain’s idea of political banter.
While the comments of a campaign rep (volunteer? staff?) were not acceptable, this kind of crap does happen.
Back in 2000, I was working as a volunteer for the Keyes Campaign. Some jerk, who was not associated with our campaign in any way, started posting horrible, venom and profanity filled posts on a Pro-Bush website using the Keyes 2000 name. We jumped into it right away, reported this freak, contacted the state arm of the Bush campaign to confirm he/she/it was not one of ours, etc.
Now, if McCain's National Campaign Chairperson had said this crap about Mormoms, I'd worry. But some flunky at the local level? Betcha no one in the national campaign knew anything about it beforehand and certainly never approved of it.
That being said, there are plenty of reasons NOT to vote for McCain. This isn't one of them.
How else would you plant these seeds using your top aids or some affordable replacement?
but in some that makes it .....
As much as I dislike McCain, I feel very comfortable stating that I believe his campaign did not plot, plan, endorse, or know anything about this fool's comments prior to his mindless utterances infront of the audience.
We'll know soon enough, though. If he gets the boot, they didn't know. If he doesn't, he was simply useful tool.
A decade ago, I'd say this was a ruse. Now, with the American public so disgusted with politicians and politics in general, this kind of publicity blows up the campaign that starts it, not the intended target. McCain gets tarnished by it, not Mitt; hence, I doubt it was a ruse.
Rival camps take aim at Romney’s religion
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/06/21/rival_camps_take_aim_at_romneys_religion?mode=PF
And some higher up folks, too, none of which got the boot. Remember what I said above: if someone gets the boot, the campaign didn't know about it. If they stay, the campaign did.
I stand corrected.
Utah McCain supporters fuming over anti-LDS comments
mckennedy had better be careful or he will turn the other 5 supports he has against him as well.
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