Posted on 02/04/2012 6:53:17 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Very, very good e-mail lists — and an internal debate over whether to use them. “I'm getting really tired of the ads for Romney campaign trips coming from this list serve,” writes one young Mormon.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- At Mitt Romney’s first rally here earlier this week, there were plenty of hints that the enthusiastic crowd of 1,000 was stacked with Mormons. Kids walked around in BYU sweatshirts, moms chatted about LDS youth groups, and at least one supporter was overheard talking about making phone calls for the candidate as part of "family home evening" -- a weekly family night the church encourages its members to hold.
But while it's no secret that Romney's coreligionists have swelled the ranks at campaign stops from Des Moines to Reno, one question about the Mormon vote has gone largely unanswered this primary season: How, exactly, have they gotten so organized?
"We heard about it from some friends in our [LDS] ward," said one woman standing outside a rally held in a Las Vegas hotel supply warehouse. "We're so glad we could make it." Another Mormon standing nearby chimed in, "Everyone we know is voting for Mitt!"
The secret to the grassroots success lies, in part, in the unique national structure and scrupulous record-keeping of the Utah-headquartered Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While the church itself is politically neutral, it contains the structural groundwork for one of the most organized and effective voting blocs in the country—something Romney is poised to capitalize on.
Here’s how it works
In contrast with most other religions in the country, the Mormon Church is nationally organized in a strict, top-down fashion, like a corporation. Every congregation in the U.S. reports back to church headquarters in Salt Lake. Whenever an individual is baptized -- either as a child or as a convert -- local ministers take down the person’s name, address, phone number, and e-mail address, and feed the information into a national database maintained by officials in Salt Lake (and only accessible to certain church leaders).
From there, the individuals are assigned to geographically-determined congregations -- or “wards” -- of about 200-300, which they attend on Sundays. Their contact information is filtered into a local “ward list,” which is distributed to all local congregants for planning purposes--from coordinating Sunday school, to working out the logistics for church barbeques.
For decades, these ward lists were printed out and distributed after Sunday services, but in recent years the system has migrated online to LDS.org, where Mormons create logins to access the contact information for every fellow believer in the area.
For active Mormons, wards often become the center of their social universe: it’s not uncommon for members to visit their local chapels three or four times a week for various activities and meetings. Additionally, Mormons participate in “home and visiting teaching” programs, which require them to visit certain ward members on a monthly basis. In this context, ward lists become invaluable tools for Mormons’ daily life—inevitably finding their way into Google groups, listservs, and cell phones.
They also frequently become political tools.
Working the wards
The church expressly forbids using these directories for non-religious purposes, but that doesn’t deter many politically active Mormons from working their ward lists to get out the vote. Reports abound of members blasting out congregational e-mails soliciting support for partisan causes and candidates. One Southern California ward received several e-mails urging congregants to vote for an LDS politician running for local office. And in nastier example of the practice, ward lists in Alpine, Utah were used to spread an anonymous smear campaign against a candidate on the eve of a local election.
Several Mormons told BuzzFeed that as the 2012 primaries heated up, they started to see their fellow congregants use ward lists to organize local efforts for Romney.
Here in Nevada, Ryan Erwin, a consultant for the Romney campaign, acknowledged that the candidate has benefitted from grassroots efforts by Latter-day Saints, and said the campaign is proud of their support. But he also thinks the Mormon factor has been overstated.
“Mormons make up seven percent of the population here,” Erwin said. “If you read some of the reports in the media, you’d think it was 90 percent… it’s a little aggravating when you’ve worked for months to build up an organization and then they say, ‘Well, he just won it because he’s a Mormon.’”
That said, exit polls in 2008 showed that about 25 percent of Nevada caucus-goers self-identified as Mormon -- and Romney won that primary handily. This time around, polling indicates that he’s headed for a similarly dominant victory, and if it happens, local Latter-day Saints will no doubt deserve a chunk of the credit.
Much like how Iowa’s Christian home-school vote advanced its own grassroots efforts for Mike Huckabee largely independently of his campaign, there’s no evidence that Team Romney is officially coordinating with Mormon congregations. But anecdotal evidence suggests that a highly motivated base of Mormon supporters has effectively taken advantage of the LDS infrastructure to help Romney.
The Colonial First Ward listserv
One of the most illustrative examples is the Colonial First Ward listserv, which consists of more than 3,500 D.C.-area Mormons, many of them young and single.
E-mails obtained by BuzzFeed show the listserv being used frequently as a recruiting tool for Romney supporters -- gathering signatures to get the candidate on the Delaware ballot, requesting volunteers to aid the campaign’s Illinois operation, and organizing a get-out-the-vote trip to South Carolina on the weekend of the primary.
The fruits of that last effort were obvious on the ground in Columbia, S.C., where dozens of young Mormon students from Virginia and D.C. were found rallying for Romney at various campaign stops.
But not everyone on the listserv has looked kindly upon efforts to transform the network into a booster club for Romney, and a number of members have e-mailed complaints.
Matt Larsen, a member of the listserv, wrote last October: “I know I’m probably going to make enemies here, but I’m getting really tired of the ads for Romney campaign trips coming from this list serve. The disclaimer at the bottom of every list serve email states very clearly: ‘Items that will not be posted/that will be removed include: promoting your business, promoting political ideologies, and inflammatory comments and rhetoric.’”
The protests appear to have been ignored though, with members continuing to send out e-mails as recently as last month that requested volunteer help for Romney.
“The Colonial First Ward listserv seems to be a miraculous pro-Romney organizing tool,” grumbled one D.C.-area Mormon, who is a Democrat. “Whenever you get the contact information for 3,540 young Mormons in one place, I guess it has to be.”
“Suuurrrre.”
So that’s it. You think I’m Mormon, and that is particularly abhorrent to you that I’m also taking you to school on the Constitution.
Don’t worry, you’re wrong on the Constitution and have been corrected by a Constitution-loving Protestant. I hope that makes the bitter pill easier to swallow.
I hope you can see that an American who loves the Constitution would rail against your unconstitutional views.
“Sorry honey, you are going to have to show me where the poster says mormons should be prohibited from running. My post #404 shows nothing of the sort.”
This post says Radical Muslims. But it applies to the point which is religious freedom under the 1st Amendment.
Mormons, Muslims, and everyone else is protected under the 1st Amendment - but you knew that already.
Ok, sweetie. Show me one post I have ever made that is anti-Constitutional. Just one.
“Seems our engineer should stick to that, since it is apparent there is a gross lack of understanding what the constitution actually states as well as its application.”
Read the previous posts. You’re mistaken.
So school is in session, not so much for you since you are far smarter than the rest of us, but for those most interested in how all this Constitution and law stuff really works.
I will use my friend Reaganaut as an example if she does not mind.
Reaganaut is an American Citizen as well as a citizen of her local state and town. As an INDIVIDUAL she is free to practice any religion she chooses and no other individual, organization or government can infringe on that right in any fashion. She is also, as an INDIVIDUAL, free to support a person (or be against same) based on ANY criteria she chooses, be it religion, hair color, shoe size, favorite movie or any one of thousands such reasons.
HOWEVER, let us say the Reaganaut the individual serves on a board, commission or what have you that determines eligibility to be on a ballot for public office. The ONLY criteria she and her fellow members can use are those SPECIFICALLY listed in the Constitution and other laws of the land. Normally these focus on age and residency. Therefore she nor anyone else can remove or block a person from said ballot based on religion, hair color, shoe size, favorite movie or any one of thousands such reasons.
Now to the reverse. In accusing one of being “un American” for choosing to practice their God given Constitutional right to choose for public office FOR THEMSELVES an individual based on any criteria they desire you essentially are doing unto them what you accuse them of, namely acting un-American. Yes they can even say that they feel the person IS UNQUALIFIED for office based on religion, shoe size what have you. What they CANNOT do is in anyway prevent their fellow citizens from being given such a choice to make for themselves by denying said candidate from being on the ballot. Doing such denies their freedom of religion and moral conscience ether by direct action or implied wrong doing for the purposes of “shaming” them into some perceived line to toe.
A further point. No individual on this board, and more specifically in the so called “Inman” group that works towards exposing the very real issues and perils of Mormonism has EVER seriously advocated preventing any LDS member from practicing their faith, period. None would jail them, tie them up, destroy their places of worship or do anything to impede their religious freedom, an argument falsely used against them with sad regularity when they are are accused of same or worse.
Indeed in attempting to silence such individuals either directly, by coercion or by social embarrassment, individuals whose religion requires them to defend their faith, point our heresies and false teachings and save souls via any one of a number of methods their rights to practice their religion is being infringed. As long as they simply point out facts and engage in debate about the religion they take issue with and in no way impede the practitioners of said religion from going about their business beyond such debate they are behaving well with in the confines of our Constitution.
For those who are interested in knowing how things really work I hope this has proven informative.
For the rest, c’est la vie
That's good!
But; the statements WERE made by the LEADERSHIP of MORMONism.
I have NEVER seen any 'non-crazy talk' from subsequent 'leaders' of that church that repudiated these words.
One can ONLY 'assume' that MORMONism has EMBRACED these sentiments, since they have NOT been 'officially' denounced.
I'm glad to see that YOU have rejected them.
That's good!
But; the statements WERE made by the LEADERSHIP of MORMONism.
I have NEVER seen any 'non-crazy talk' from subsequent 'leaders' of that church that repudiated these words.
One can ONLY 'assume' that MORMONism has EMBRACED these sentiments, since they have NOT been 'officially' denounced.
I'm glad to see that YOU have rejected them.
That's true.
It IS a different question. You and the others have beaten the initial question so badly that it is nearly unrecognizable.
It's a NEW question; asked of a non-MORMON.
I shall reiterate:
Do you accept those statesments as being a truthful representation of the situation that MORMON leaders found around them; or not?
No; you are NOT forgiven for such a lack of a desire to collect a LOT more information before you make decisions.
Impossible?
Please...
“I have looked over the thread and find that you indeed are defining how individuals can vote or determine FOR THEMSELVES”
But you decline to cite examples because you and your friends are full of it.
Cite examples in context. You won’t find them. My position has been that you and your friends have been trying to define “Approved Religions” of which you exclude at least Muslims and Mormons - probably others, but I don’t know - the existence of even ONE has no Constitutional basis. #404 and many other places in the thread show this error in thinking.
You’re the ones that are trying to determine which candidates are even allowed to run for office/hold office. I called you out and you guys have been apoplectic, as bullies often are, when faced with a metaphorical sock in the face.
So go back to your nasty little huddle, study the Constitution, and be consistent from here on out, will you, please?
It’s all in the 1st Amendment. It was so important to our founding fathers that they put it there first. The reason is obvious - people like you guys who hate one religion or another and don’t want adherents to participate in our democracy like every other American has the right to do by running for office.
A couple of you have all ready stepped away from this gaggle nonsense. The rest of you should too by affirming the 1st Amendment. I absolutely and resolutely support the right of Mormon (or any other religion) candidates to run for office. I don’t care what crazy religious beliefs they may have - I support their right to run for office, and/or vote any way they wish, for whatever reason.
When you, the gaggle, vote as individuals - pull the lever for whomever you want for whatever reason you wish.
“That’s true.”
Great. That’s why I ignored your post. Nothing personal, it was just off-topic.
So, when a candidate gets over 90% of a certain religion (his own) voting for him in a state that that religion makes up 57% of the population; what can one infer from that data?
You’ve been ACCUSED;
so DEFEND thyself!
Don’t MAKE me have to show any evidence!!
Hold this thought.
TITLE:Mitt's Mormon Army: How It Works
Do you REALLY want to go there?Shall I start a BRAND new thread, with JUST that question, just so you will not be FORCED into deviating from your linear thinking?
“No; you are NOT forgiven for such a lack of a desire to collect a LOT more information before you make decisions.”
You’re uncommonly stubborn in your off-topic diversions.
How about this for agreement: I am not in a million years voting for Mitt Romney - and my reasons do not need to go beyond the purely political.
I don’t have to read your post to know I’m not Mormon, nor do I wish to ever be. I support their right, under the 1st Amendment, to run for office, vote and even spread their religion as they lawfully wish to do without interference. That’s the American way.
O...
K...
...because you and your friends are full of it.
“Do you REALLY want to go there?”
Yes. I was addressing a different issue that evolved from the discussion on the thread. That happens sometimes. You want to discuss Mormonism - which is fine, I just decline to participate because I’m not interested in that. As I said, nothing personal.
“Nothing personal, it was just off-topic.”
That was my post to you - specifically. It is as true now as it was when I posted it.
“...because you and your friends are full of it.”
That was a different post (to someone else) - I most certainly was responding - even attacking the views of individuals/groups who were attacking me - personally on this thread. Fair game both ways.
Are you really selectively quoting things from different posts out of context? Please, that should be beneath you.
“Don’t MAKE me have to show any evidence!!”
You’ll probably need to help. These folks are not very cerebral - They’ve been caught on the outside of the Constitution and are tap-dancing trying to argue a statement I never made.
But really, make sure you you don’t make stuff up by combining partial snippets of different threads like you did in your previous post to me - as I said, it’s really beneath you, and I think upon reflection you’d agree it’s fundamentally dishonest.
I’d accept your apology if you’d give it.
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