Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman and the GOP: America is ready for a Mormon president

Telegraph UK ^ | June 3, 2011 | Tim Stanley

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The GOP race now has two Mormon candidates – Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Predictably, the question of whether or not America is ready for a Mormon President has been raised on both sides of the Atlantic. To be fair to the critics, the theology and history of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints is a little eccentric.

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But Romney and Huntsman should not run away from their church. Indeed, they would do well to put it front and centre of their campaigns, to challenge the fragile tolerance of the 21^st century electorate. They should seize this opportunity to promote a much-maligned and misunderstood faith – a faith that, coincidentally, could have electoral benefits. Mormons tend to be well-educated and surprisingly cosmopolitan people.

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Romney and Huntsman could exploit the Church of Latter-Day Saints’ history of terrible persecution. Joseph Smith and his army of wives were driven from state to state, fleeing angry mobs wherever he settled. In 1844, the prophet was dragged from jail by an angry mob and murdered. His killers were acquitted by sympathetic juries. The Mormons have a narrative of suffering and survival against the odds that makes their story far more universal than their peculiar theology suggests. 

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The story of persecution would play well among a Christian minority who feel similarly neglected, or oppressed, by the modern liberal state. The Church’s reputation for social conservatism could help cover up the flip-flopping that Romney has pulled off on abortion.

[sheik yerbouty]

Not if they’re RINOs!