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.
Well ... I may have a cold ... but ... the plague?
And later could be found sucking up to them to regain some of the support of those same people he mad mouthed when he realized what a stupid mistake he had made.
Methinks we are too gracious. IMHO, their true intent is to harvest all value, move out of the US, then use the US and its territories as bait to bribe the masses in overrunning, looting, raping, and decimating the nation.
A question my Democrat friends just duck there heads and refuse to answer.
[How do you know that Cynthia Tucker is not a Christian?]
Their are two type of people in the world, Christians saved by grace through faith the moment they believed how that Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God the Father, died for OUR SINS, was buried, and rose again the third day and is alive and at the right hand of the Father making intercession for the saints.
The other type of people who don’t believe Christ’s word and therefore are not saved, many of whom are liberals posing as Christians and believing their church membership of good works will save them. Cynthia Tucker would be of that type, as her written words plainly declare.
You’re assuming I was talking about Cynthia Tucker. I was speaking as much about the secularists here at FR. Really my skill is not marketable (because it’s so simple).... I just rely on reading what people write.
well said
I’ve had a couple of debates with liberals and their final ‘trump’ was to say, “Well I would think that YOU as a Christian would agree that...”
Talk about judgmental. And talk about speaking from ignorance.
And one of those liberals was even a Christian. He actually said that it was my Christian duty to fork over more money to the teacher’s union. No kidding.
[Methinks we are too gracious.]
Perhaps. But I believe liberalism has two components, one is the deceivers who are Satan led and the other is the deceived, whom Satan leads using the leaders of the Satanic left.
Their doctrine is always clear and the blind leading the blind will result in America’s coming judgement by God in the person of Jesus Christ.
I'll bet Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have done more for "the poor" than all the prominent left-wingers combined (and I'd include billionaires Bill Gates and George Soros in that group.)
I don’t think much of the LDS religion. As a Catholic, I believe, as the Church believes, that the LDS organization is not Christian. As a Catholic, I believe that the god of the LDS is ontologically a different entity than Whom we worship.
Yet, I’d vote for Mr. Romney in a heartbeat if I didn’t think he was a fraud.
His religion has nothing to do with it.
Without their "hijacking of the Republican party" you would never have had Ronald Reagan as President. In fact, the GOP was a nationally minority party with no prospects until they joined with conservative Christians.
I initially thought you were referring to Mit Romney, but after rereading your post and the article, I assumed -- incorrectly -- that you were referring to the author.
BTW, I'm not willing to make a judgment based solely upon what a person writes. In my earlier career, I defended murderers, thieves, and adulterers, and often wrote legal briefs on their behalf, but that doesn't make me anti-christian simply because I wrote briefs in support of people who spit on the Ten Commandments.
I would never judge you by a legal brief you wrote on behalf of a person that you were defending. But if a person just logs on to FR and willfully writes stuff for a hobby or pleasure.... I think a lot can be descerned from that.
You think this hunt for Saviour mentality is limited to the right? The left has already proclaimed government as saviour, remember stem cell, global warming, survival of fitness at the welfare trough? Now Christ said these things need be and he told us to test the fruit, and yes I know some confuse testing with judging.
Now I am quite sure there will be somebody coming along real quickly telling me I am gossiping or judging and am on dangerous grounds. Just as the gods of government legislate blind loyalty to their means and methodology it really is not difficult to spot the same spot in denominationallism.
Agreed.
The secularist here are rabid. I'm a moral conservative, but I'm also a fiscal conservative. Persons being a fiscal conservative without that relationship with God are really not a pretty site. Just my opinion.
“The secularist here are rabid. I’m a moral conservative, but I’m also a fiscal conservative. Persons being a fiscal conservative without that relationship with God are really not a pretty site. Just my opinion.”
Good opinion you have. I agree with you.
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