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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.

poor babies!!

(WHERE was the BARF alert?)

In 1844, the prophet was dragged from jail by an angry mob and murdered.

"Dragged" from the jail?

That's wonderfully dramatic, but even the LDS Church's Ensign magazine doesn't assert that Joseph Smith was "dragged" from the jail.

"The Prophet—in an attempt to draw the mobbers’ attention away from the room—dropped his pistol and went quickly to the window and jumped to the ledge. He was hit simultaneously in the back by two balls fired from the door, and in the chest by a third ball fired from the outside. Joseph poised momentarily on the sill. “Oh Lord, my God!” he cried, then fell dead to the yard below."

Reed Blake, “Martyrdom at Carthage,” Ensign, June 1994

I've read it several times, and I can't find the dragging from the jail and murdering.

Adhering to "faith-promoting history" causes little mix-ups like this.