Posted on 04/18/2012 6:23:36 AM PDT by Wolf13
It's often taken for granted that Christian conservatives' uneasiness with Mormonism best explains why Mitt Romney has struggled to win-over those voters.
In Inside the Circus, a new e-book about the 2012 campaign by Politico's Mike Allen and Evan Thomas, the Romney campaign is depicted as so consumed with worry that the candidate's faith would hurt him with the evangelicals that dominated the Iowa caucuses that it failed to anticipate Rick Santorum's rise. "Part of the reason for the ceiling [of support], quite frankly, is the Mormon thing," a Romney aide told the authors. "If he was even an Episcopalian, he'd be better off today."
Negative perceptions of Mormonism so worried Romney's 2008 presidential team that, according to Politico, "the dilemma had its own acronym in campaign power point presentations: TMT (That Mormon Thing)."
Of course, Romney's ideologically malleability and political opportunism -- not his faith -- has always been his biggest liability with conservatives. But the Mormon angle allowed the media to portray conservatives as bigoted theocrats.
The media's preoccupation with anti-Mormon sentiment on the right has distracted from what is arguably a much more pervasive anti-Mormonism on the secular left.
Reams of polling data make clear that anti-Mormonism is not exclusively, or even predominantly, a problem on the right. A 2011 Gallup poll found that 27% of Democrats said they wouldn't vote for a Mormon of their own party for president, 50% more than the 18% of Republicans who felt that way. In a Quinnipiac survey, 46% of Democrats said they wouldn't be comfortable with a Mormon president, while 29% of Republican respondents felt similarly.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Exactly. We have a very small number of anti-Mormon trolls, and I often wonder if those few posters are plants to make us look like bigots. Anti-LDS bigotry is the opposite of valuing individualism, a trait that characterizes real conservatism. I am not LDS, but it's Romney's big government liberal political beliefs that make him unacceptable, not his worship practices.
No argument here
And that matters to liberals why?
“Anti-LDS bigotry “
I believe that is commonly referred to as the “truth”.
Bigotry is when you restrict people because of the way they are, not because you disagree with their beliefs.
Otherwise, we are all guilty of anti-Democrat and anti-liberal bigotry.
Besides, if he's as devout a Mormon as he wants us to believe his Conservatism is, there's nothing for Libs to worry about.
..and like the Thirty Years War defines Protestantism.
Romnutz is a Saul Alinsky acolyte, as was his Daddy.
Note Romnutz is anti-gun, pro queer marriage (He’s the legal father of Gay marriage).
Did I mention he is the inspiration for ObamaCare?
The problem is that there are a whole buch of things to dislike about Mormon theology that impinge on a President’s judgment, but that were wept under the table by the GOPe. There are reasons presidential candidate Joseph Smith got whacked that are important even today. Now the chickens will come home to roost.
Why did they wait until after he was the presumptive nominee to make an issue of it?
</sarcasm>
But....
all the lds/mitt defenders here on FR told us the mitt’s peculiar religion would never be brought up by the dems/media
Is Romney even Mormon in the first place? Seriously. Do Mormons believe public and private behaviors are governed by a completely separate set of standards? Do Mormons believe in gay rights and abortion? As far as I can tell, Mitt Romney has a wonderful family life, but his public policies are all about creating an anti-family environment for the rest of us. Again, is that even good Mormonism?
Wow, the ignorance about the LDS faith on even the most basic issues, from “freepers” supposedly knowledgeable about it never ceases to amaze me. A Mormon Bishop is on the same level as the minister of a local congregation. If you are going to trash us, at least get your facts straight.
What are the LDS policies on homosexuality and abortion? Is it OK to completely separate private and public behavior, i.e. compromise with evil in public so long as you live a moral life privately?
Right on. I’m getting pretty sick of people on FR accusing people of bigotry, like the lefties do, in order to silence opinions they disagree with. I guess they’ll say I’m bigoted against bigotry-accusers now.
Romney doesn’t have to be the President, he just has to be the Republican nominee. He can be very liberal as a government official. Most of us aren’t mormon, and thus, are enemies or non-persons. He won’t be tolerant with other Mormons. OBEY AND PAY OR GET OUT OF THE WAY.
Re; The Romney sons.
With their big east coast smiles, they look quite handsome, don’t they?
In 2008, word was that there were no nastier campaigners than the Romney boys and their elitist friends. That’s why Guiliani, McCain, Thompson and Huck were united in their disgust for the underhanded tactics and rude behavior the “boys” elicited toward all who didn’t have the last name of Romney.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree...
Funny how a dose of Rino-ism and a few undercover promises can make these former candidates “quick forgetters”...ie, McCain and Huck now doing their slobbering act over Mittens.
Not this bishop. He is a prime mover in his organization, not a local minister.
It might be a bigger issue here (though not necessarily a deal breaker) if Mitt were actually something vaguely resembling a conservative, rather than a flaming, Liberal, Socialist.
Mormonism has some very strange beliefs, which would have to be considered. But until such time as a truly, conservative, Mormon candidate emerges, it is a moot point. Most FReepers wouldn’t vote for a lying Liberal, if he sat next to them in church every Sunday.
BTW, how long until the left starts the rumor that Bishop Mitt will ban coffee, tea, cola and all other products that contain caffeine, in accordance with Mormon beliefs?
Nonsense. This tripe that always gets served up about FReepers being trolls if their views happen to conflict with someone’s pet electoral theory, well, its getting stale. It’s demonization, not reasoned argument. It basically means you’ve got an empty chamber, no response to the real argument, which here is that for many of us, me included, Mittens’s religion is a factor and with good cause.
Bigotry you say? Define bigotry. I understand it to mean an uncritical rejection of something or someone, not based on reason but on pure animal impulse. Christian rejection of Mormonism is no more bigotry than rejection of global warming and the tooth fairy. Reason, augmented by history, suggests that Mormonism is incompatible, not only with the most basic elements of Christian theology, but with the principles of natural law that govern this Republic, and nonchristians as well as Christians are right to be concerned over making President a high bishop of a religion based on self-deification. As someone else said, making Romney the Republican nominee puts us in the unhappy condition of having to choose between someone who thinks they are God and someone who thinks he can become God.
Bottom line, you cannot ask voters to surrender their First Amendment right to express their beliefs at the polls, even if those beliefs are religious in nature. And you will not succeed in tarring and gathering fellow FReepers who share those beliefs, because too many of us recognize The Mormon Thing as a real and rational vulnerability to Romney’s candidacy.
You stated a bishop is the same as a Cardinal, I was clarifying to you that you are completely wrong in that regard. A bishop is over a local congregation, similar to a priest or pastor. And to state he is a “mover and shaker” in the church is also inaccurate. He has served as a bishop and stake president, and 99% of the members of the church in the US know him not from his church membership, but from his running for office.
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