Posted on 02/16/2007 1:03:23 PM PST by SJackson
Heard the one about the Mormon President? The shaky prospects of Mitt RomneyGerard Baker There are so many minorities now in the crowded field for the 2008 US presidential election that daily news coverage of the race is starting to sound like one of those politically incorrect jokes from the 1970s. You’ll recall the kind: A woman, a black man, an Italian and a Mormon are in a plane over the ocean . . .
We have Hillary Clinton, credibly promising to be the first female to be President, Barack Obama, the first African-American in the White House, Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York Mayor, the first Italian-American (and occasional transvestite) to be President, and Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts Governor, who launched his bid this week to be the first Mormon to get to the top.
Most of these potential firsts are lauded by commentators as representing great social and political progress. The exception is Mr Romney, whose potential breach of the infamous glass ceiling for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is regarded with considerable misgivings.
In fact, while the consensus seems to be that Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama can overcome sexism and racism, it is considered more or less axiomatic that Mr Romney is in for a very hard time on account of his religion. On the face of it, this seems odd. If you’ve been brought up on a diet of the usual liberal media stereotype of America as a nation of woman and black-hating religious maniacs, you have a right to be puzzled when you hear that a devout God-fearing white man faces bigger hurdles than either a feminist or a liberal African-American. But as with everything in the US, it’s more complicated than that.
Mr Romney should be a highly appealing candidate. He has just finished his term as Governor of Massachusetts, where in the most Democratic state in the nation, he was an effective and quite popular Republican chief executive. He is clever and good-looking, and has made a ton of money for himself. He is completely untainted by any attachment to the awful foreign policy mistakes of the Bush Administration for the past six years.
But his religious problem is that to win the presidency he must first win the Republican nomination, a contest in which evangelical Protestants, especially in southern states, have a disproportionate influence. Evangelicals are deeply suspicious of Mormonism, which they regard as a heretical sect, and not even Christian in any proper sense of the term. They find the whole story of how Joseph Smith is supposed to have received a new set of scriptures and refounded the Christian church in America, how his followers drove westward, with their many wives and their curious underwear, all a bit strange (this, by the way from some of the same people who want it taught as a scientific fact that God created the world in precisely six days, Adam’s rib and all).
Popular conceptions about the Mormons do not help Mr Romney or his fellow believers either. Though the church officially forbids polygamy, it will never be able to dissociate itself from past practice. Some of its rituals also invite a nervous scepticism.
Mr Romney is battling to shake off the religious doubts. He insists that Americans care less about which brand of faith you practise than that you are a good and decent person who lives according to religious principles.
He tackles some of the concerns with good, self-deprecating humour. He once said in a debate over gay marriage that he believes that “marriage should only ever be between a man and a woman . . . and a woman . . . and a woman . . .” Privately, he has enjoyed pointing out that he, the supposed polygamy-loving Mormon, has been married to the same woman for 37 years, while his principal rivals for the Republican nomination have — so far — been married an average of 2.7 times each — the Catholic Mr Giuliani (three times), the Episcopalian Senator John McCain (twice) and the Baptist Newt Gingrich (three times).
What is especially odd about the Romney problem is that it is only recently that Mormonism seems to have become a political burden.
There have been Mormon candidates for the presidency in the past and it hardly came up as an issue. Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah — a bishop of the Mormon Church — ran for president in 2000. Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat of Nevada, and the Majority Leader of the Senate, is a Mormon. Mr Romney’s father, George, a Governor of Michigan, was for a time the leading contender for the Republican nomination in the 1968 election. It was not his religion that felled him then, but an infamous remark in a radio interview that he thought he had been “brainwashed” during a trip to Vietnam in 1967: a comment that, given what some deemed to be his slightly vacuous intellectual qualities, caused one commentator to note that his experience could not have amounted to more than a light rinse.
Religious-political prejudices have been overcome before, of course. Many Americans were once much more suspicious of Catholics. But John F. Kennedy proved that it’s perfectly all right to have papists govern, less I think because of his declaration that he would not take orders from the Pope, and more because in his frenetic extramarital activity he was able to demonstrate that he was really, deep down, reliably indistinguishable from any other politician.
In the end, I suspect the Mormon issue will not be the largest impediment to a Romney presidency. He has suspiciously changed his position on critical social issues, for example — when he was running for governor of heavily Democratic Massachusetts, he was pro-abortion; now he is running for the Republican presidential nomination, he says he is anti-abortion.
Iraq, too, could hurt him. So far his approach seems to be the Basil Fawlty strategy — “Don’t mention the war!” He gives long campaign speeches without a reference to Iraq. But in what looks likely to be a foreign-policy dominated election, he will surely not be able to get away with that, and his inexperience in the national security field will not help either.
In the meantime, expect to hear a lot more about Mormonism in the next year or so than you will ever learn from those nice, smart young men who come and knock on your door.
If you’ve been brought up on a diet of the usual liberal media stereotype of America as a nation of woman and black-hating religious maniacs, you have a right to be puzzled when you hear that a devout God-fearing white man faces bigger hurdles than either a feminist or a liberal African-American
If H! is coronated, will she be the first black woman president?.......
Her husband will be the first black First Lady.
He's such a ho!........
Hear the one about the Mormon Senate Leader (Harry Reid-D)?
Hehe!
Funny, eight wives for Gingrich-Rudy-McCain, and polygamy is an issue.
If every other branch of Christianity were to send all of their twenty-somethings out into the world for two years of missionary work, maybe they'd be growing as fast as the Mormons. As I understand it, the families of the missionaries pay their expenses, not the Church. We can all learn from such devotion and sacrifice. Heck, if conservatives would just work two or three nights a week for their favorite campaign or cause, we could take this country back!!
Serial polygamy is ok, even lauded.
It is the practice of parallel polygamy 150 year ago that is frowned upon.
Even new PC computers don't have parallel ports now. Everything is serial so that they conform to the PC crowd.
I appreciate your service, however, I don't appreciate your view of Mormonism.
Problem is, America has become apostate, drifting from its Biblical moorings. 30-40 years ago it would have been different. Religious America was once aware of what Mormons believed, not now. Their beliefs are beyond wacky. 30-40 years ago, a Mormon for president would have been unthinkable.
The Mormons are way out there. Pretty schizophrenic origins, completely non-Christian theology. But, lots of us would hold our noses and vote for ANYBODY but Hillary.
GOOD post.
God forbid it comes to that. Romney hasn't gotten the nomination, you know. I am for Duncan Hunter, a true CONSISTENT conservative. Which can't be said for Romney.
Romney, a flip flopper like Cary, and from the same state as Cary. And a proponent of the false prophets Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to boot. Nein!
>>The Mormons are way out there. Pretty schizophrenic origins, completely non-Christian theology.
The full name of the church is “The church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints”.
>>But, lots of us would hold our noses and vote for ANYBODY but Hillary.
As would I, I kind of think a Giuliani – Gingrich ticket would do well. But I would love to have Zell Miller run for us.
I give you a scripture form the book you say I don’t read:
“Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2, http://scriptures.lds.org/en/job/38/2#2)
While your ignorance is breathtaking it is not attractive.
I am a Mormon, I am a Christian, and you really have no business questioning what is in my heart.
Have a nice day and try talking to a Mormon instead of just about one next time.
>>And a proponent of the false prophets Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to boot. Nein!
Interesting that you should chose a German phrase to go with your activities, you sound like a jack booted thug to me, with your knee jerk, anti Mormon rhetoric.
I hope Jesus softens your heart, or you may be in for a rude awakening.
It's not likely that I'll vote for Mr. Romney. I'm not persuaded that he's truly "converted" on social conservative issues.
However, I really couldn't care less that he's a member of the LDS.
If I genuinely believed that he was a conservative, I'd vote for him, at least in the general election.
The author gets it. Romney's political problems are political, not religious.
Hear the one about the Mormon Senate Leader (Harry Reid-D)?Dirty Harry's a Mormon?
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