Posted on 12/15/2007 4:44:26 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
For many sophisticated conservatives, Mitt Romney is an appealing presidential candidate. Before he served a respectable term as governor of Massachusetts, he rescued the scandal-plagued Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. He has also been very successful in business, making millions as the co-founder of a private equity investment firm. Though his hyperpandering to the narrow-minded in this campaign has cost him some honor, he's still smart, accomplished and photogenic.
He's also a Mormon, a biographical note that has caused considerable consternation among the ultraconservative Christians who make up a sizable portion of the GOP's core constituency. Many of them reject Mormonism as a "cult" and would be hard-pressed to vote for Romney because of it. That's the reason he is now under white-hot pressure from Mike Huckabee in Iowa, where hard-core believers have pumped up the Baptist preacher's poll numbers.
It's quite a quandary for those among the Republican establishment who see Romney as not only the most electable among the GOP nominees — he has more intellectual heft than Huckabee and none of Rudy Giuliani's considerable baggage — but also as a genuinely well-qualified candidate.
And they're beginning to fret over those right-wing Christians who have painted Mormons as the children of Satan, a faction that wasn't placated by Romney's recent speech in which he declared his belief that "Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the savior of mankind."
This curious fracture among the GOP faithful conjures up another bit of biblical wisdom: "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." (Hosea 8:7) For more than two decades, the Republican Party has employed a deliberate strategy of injecting "moral values" and religious beliefs into political and civic life — a strategy that found its apex in the election of George W. Bush, who, during a presidential debate, named "Jesus Christ" as his favorite philosopher.
Though the GOP was historically known for fiscal conservatism and government restraint, party strategists decided back in the 1980s to link arms with Christian zealots to secure the votes of their flocks.
Thus began a long association with such figures as Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, dogmatic, dictatorial and intolerant. Their Christianity brooks no dissent from a rigid and warped reading of the Bible that denounces homosexuality and decries abortion but has little compassion for the poor.
To win Republican primaries, GOP candidates are expected to kowtow to those Christianists, and they have, all the while dismissing as immoral "secular humanists" those Americans who want to protect the wall separating church and state. In recent years, there have been few establishment conservatives willing to stand up to the zealots — and those who did have paid a price. (John McCain, who rightly labeled Falwell and Robertson "agents of intolerance" in his 2000 presidential campaign, comes to mind.)
But with ultraconservative Christians balking at the prospect of a Mormon president, many top conservatives are suddenly annoyed. Earlier this month, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, accusing Huckabee of "exploiting" religion, wrote, "Mormonism should be a total irrelevancy in any political campaign." Trained as a psychiatrist, Krauthammer has never aligned himself with the right-wing religionists, but he has been much more circumspect about Bush's exploitation of religion.
A far stranger spectacle has been the sight of Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition executive, on the airwaves denouncing voters who would use religious beliefs as a test for political office. "We've really gone over the line in this election," Reed said recently, complaining that presidential candidates are being subjected to "a doctrinal frisk." Wow. You may recall Reed and his former mentor, Robertson, as among those who established the procedure, requiring candidates to assume the doctrinal position they laid out.
Time for these folks to stop invoking Christ's name and start listening to Christ's message. Mitt Romney's candidacy should depend on how he leads, not on how he prays.
[...ultraconservative Christians...]
As versus the ultra hateful malice filled demon led children of darkess of the ultraliberal leftist marxists that have been stealing the rights and monies of Americans for over 60 years now and are bent on making America a communist nation?
You speak about religious bigotry, like you thought it was a BAD thing.
Zealotry and bigotry are really two different things. Zealots defend their faith, bigots go out of their way to suppress those of different faiths.
What you see in Mitt Romney is a quiet sort of zealotry. Not a person to impose his faith on others. But it is good to know that he does have a reliable internal moral compass.
Personal faith DOES work in the real world. But there is an implied social contract here, you stay out of my beliefs, and I won’t try to change yours in any other way than by personal example.
It is interesting that the Democrats have started to move toward the religious right at the same time this loon is railing on. Bill Clinton could not get to church fast enough when the Monica crap hit the fan. What hypocrisy.
You support Huckabee.
[People who won’t vote for someone who doesn’t share their specific religious dogma are intolerant, closed-minded bigots.]
Like the athiest evolutionist religionists. Personally, as a bible believing Christian, I would settle for a man who is a conservative, which Mitt and Rudy and McCain and some others are not.
Merry Christmas.
Obviously the writer is well versed in the bible. /sarc
[...if conservatives were more intelligent they would be liberals and...]
And is liberals were more intelligent they would be fearful of the living creator God of Israel and of His Christ before whom they will stand in the day of their judgement.
Until then they will rant on.
The community which I live in and have been a lifelong resident of has no less than seven churches. The people here make no bones and no apologies about their faith.
My loyalty is with G*d and not with anybody else. My decisions at the voting booth are based on my conservative and christian principals. To expect me or anybody else to vote for someone with a different worldview than mine is dumb, stupid and idiotc. To say I'm not a true American becuase my loyalty is to G*d and to my conservative principals is also dumb, stupid and idiotic.
We had eight years of Bill and Hillary and what was the end result? 3000+ people lost their lives and the twin towers were blown up on 9-11-01.
President Bush has had to clean up the Clinton mess and has done an excellent job. We are winning the War on Terror and this nation is much more safer right now than it was during the Clinton-Gore adminstration.
And, quite frankly I would just assume have someone with christian values running this country than an athiest non-believing secular progressive.
Like I said My loyalty is to G*d and nobody else.
Regards...........
Oh, Cynthia! What a wonderful, rabid column! Amazingly, you did not inject race into it. What happened?
LOL!!!
I am so sick of this Mormon bashing on FR.
Please find the justification in the Bible for Rosary Beads, fish on Friday, the Pope's Deification, repeating Hail Mary's 100-times, and two dozen other things Roman Catholics do which to a non Roman Catholic (like millions of us) is a direct insult to the scriptures.
That said, I dearly LOVE all Catholics, and in fact married one who is the mother of my three children, and grandchildren.
Catholics are Brothers in Christ, and they make up the Best of America.
Do I understand HOW they come to accept these what-I-consider-goofy things such as CONFESSION BOOTHS, standing in a booth telling all your deep dark secret sins to another man?
No. But they ARE AMERICANS just like you and I, and thus should be treated with respect.
So just buzz off with your anti Mormon crap. It makes me ill.
Agree! That is why I call them what they are...the enemy, aka the ENEMEDIA.
If the candidate is unable to discern between Satan and God, why would any faithful believer anticipate the candidate to properly discern any matter?
Exactly. Snobs - all of them. If Romney was a true blue conservative, his religion would not necessarily stand in the way of my vote. But, he’s a liberal from all I can see. Another Slick-meister.
People knew Romney was a Mormon when he was leading in the polls, what took some time to get out was that he was a typical lying politican trying to pander to liberals and conservatives on the same issue.
Although, Romney has to be asking himself how in the world is Huckabee getting away with the same pandering / flip flopping that has come back to haunt the used car salesman from Boston.
How do you know that Cynthia Tucker is not a Christian? Do you have a special gift to see inside a person's heart and soul? If so, then you should patent it because you will make billion$.
Self loving Christian hating democrats who could not know the truth from the lies they live plague the communist democrat party and the main stream media, as Cynthia.
You are 100% correct. On a related subject: How can a Christian vote for a member of a party that believes infantacide is a womans right?
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