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Mitt Romney faces an anti-Mormon bias just as strong as the one his father confronted during his own presidential run more than four decades ago, according to a Gallup poll. Eighteen percent of Americans say that if their political party nominated “a generally well qualified person for president who happened to be Mormon,” they would not vote for that candidate. Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, is a devout Mormon who once presided over the church’s Boston stake. When Gallup asked the same question in 1967, during George Romney’s bid for the White House, 17 percent of Americans said they would...

In state after state, evangelicals have sent Mitt Romney a clear message: We’re just not that into you. Some evangelicals do pull the lever for Romney. But consistently there is a wide gap between Romney’s support among evangelicals and his support among other groups. On average, there is a 19-point difference between Romney’s support among non-evangelicals and his support among evangelicals in Republican primaries, according to ABC News’s survey of primary states with exit- or entrance-polling data available. That’s a sizeable gap — and one that has complicated Romney’s path to the nomination. Evangelical leaders are dismissive of the notion...

If Gingrich, Santorum or Paul were deacons or ministers of Catholic or Protestant churches, they would certainly be asked what their vows, promises and duties were and will they conflict with the oath of President of the US. I am asking the readers first if this is a fair question for Romney, second has it been asked and answered before, and third if it hasn't been asked who will most likely have the opportunity to ask this question during the GOP primary process?

Sacred underwear, baptizing holocaust victims, gods of their own planets. When some of America’s most celebrated pundits and public intellectuals talk about Mormons, these are the images that are summoned. Ironically in this “Mormon Moment”—signaled by a hit Broadway musical, polygamous housewives on TLC, and of course two Mormon presidential candidates—Mormons, long considered quintessential “outsiders” to mainstream American culture, today find themselves at the center of the American zeitgeist. Yet it is the Mormons’ supposed theological weirdness that is the centripetal attraction. As Joanna Brooks has noted in these pages, the New York Times recently featured Harold Bloom’s musings on...

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa - At his third and final stop of a one-day swing through the state of Iowa, Mitt Romney did his best to keep the focus on the economy, but ended up addressing both his faith and President Obama's role in bringing down Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi. Asked by reporters as he was leaving the Council Bluffs Chamber of Commerce whether the president deserves some credit for the death of the ousted Libyan leader, Romney said: "Yes. Yes, absolutely." At an earlier town hall in Sioux City, Romney expressed satisfaction at Qaddafi's demise. "I think it's about time....

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has publicly distanced himself from the anti-Mormon rhetoric of a prominent Baptist minister who has endorsed his presidential campaign. But new evidence suggests that Perry’s team may be quietly advancing the notion that Mitt Romney’s faith should disqualify him from the White House. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has publicly distanced himself from the anti-Mormon rhetoric of a prominent Baptist minister who has endorsed his presidential campaign. But new evidence suggests that Perry’s team may be quietly advancing the notion that Mitt Romney’s faith should disqualify him from the White House. Lane responded the next day with...

Is a religious war breaking out in the Republican Party? On Friday, Pastor Robert Jeffress of the 10,000-member First Baptist Church of Dallas took the podium at the Values Voter Summit to introduce and endorse Rick Perry. Gov. Perry, said Pastor Jeffress, is a leader with "a strong commitment to biblical values" who defunded Planned Parenthood, that "slaughterhouse for the unborn." He contrasted Perry with an unnamed rival. "Do we want a candidate who is a conservative out of convenience or one who is a conservative out of deep conviction? Do we want a candidate who is a good, moral...

...Mr Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who leads the Republican field of candidates for president, has never been able to shake off doubts over whether evangelical Christians would support him if he became the nation’s first Mormon nominee. snip Charlie Cook, a political analyst, predicts that Republicans will see a drawn out contest between Mr Romney, who has limited credibility with hardcore conservative voters, and Mr Perry, who is ideologically in line with conservatives but has not made a smooth transition from the governor’s mansion in Texas to the national stage. The two will spar at another debate on Tuesday...

In the days before the Values Voter Summit in Washington, aides to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney grew concerned about a speaker scheduled to appear shortly after Romney's speech on Saturday morning. Before such events, campaign aides routinely check who will be speaking before and after Romney; it's normal due diligence to know if there are any speakers who might be sources of controversy. [snip] That's when what had begun as an issue of concern over a variety of intolerant remarks turned into a Mormon issue. Seeing Jeffress' words, Bennett decided to include a passage in his speech addressing the...

The pastor who introduced Texas Gov. Rick Perry at a conservative gathering Friday said rival presidential candidate Mitt Romney is not a Christian and is in a cult because he is a Mormon. Robert Jeffress, the senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Dallas, made similar remarks about Romney when he ran in the 2008 campaign. Event organizers at the Values Voters Summit selected Jeffress to introduce Perry, but the Perry campaign was consulted about the choice and approved Jeffress to introduce the Texas governor. Jeffress endorsed Perry at the event and introduced him as "a proven leader, a true...

After Rick Perry’s wobbly performance shifted some momentum back to Mitt Romney, conservatives began another round of speculation about his appeal in the early-primary states. It seems that his religious affiliation remains a serious problem for him. USA Today reported on latest Gallup poll question: Although three of four Americans say they would support a presidential candidate who is an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Gallup Poll finds that 22% say they would not. That figure has not changed much since Gallup started measuring opinion on this subject in 1967. One difference comes...

...we pretty much know what kind of re-election campaign Barack Obama is going to wage: A relentlessly negative one, which...will focus almost exclusively on making the challenger seem unacceptable rather than defending the sitting president’s accomplishments. Thanks to Ben Smith at Politico, we also know roughly how the White House plans to “destroy Mitt Romney,”...By “attacking him as inauthentic, unprincipled and, in a word used repeatedly by Obama’s advisers in about a dozen interviews, ‘weird.’” Weird how, you ask? Here’s Smith: The character attacks on Romney will focus on what critics view as a makeover, both personal (skinny jeans) and...

Mitt Romney is on track to get the Republican nomination for president the same way his 2008 rival John McCain did. The former Massachusetts governor was the runner-up in the last open primary and is not facing anyone strong enough to knock him out of his place in line. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found 30 percent of likely GOP voters would back Romney. Second, at 14 percent, was Sarah Palin, who is: a) not yet running, and b) not yet literate. This is in spite of party purists' fury over Romney's record of helping people and running...

June 18, 2011 4:00 A.M. Romney’s Religion Problem Andrew C. McCarthy Mitt Romney is said to be the early frontrunner in the GOP presidential sweepstakes. One rival, Newt Gingrich, is perceived as floundering in a swirl of unforced errors and staff insurrection. Yet when it comes to Islam, which will continue to matter mightily in the next administration, the frontrunner could learn a thing or two from the flounderer. The issue is not religion. It is the seditious Islamist political program. Most Americans, myself included, would prefer not to have to think about Islam at all. Muslims forced their beliefs...

In an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan, the second part of which aired tonight on the network, presidential candidate Mitt Romney pushed back against the host's questions about how his Mormon faith might influence his policy should he win the White House in 2012. Asked whether it's actually possible to separate his faith from his job as president should he be elected, Romney responded, "Absolutely. You don't begin to apply doctrines of a religion to the responsibility of guiding a nation or guiding a state." Romney explained that he opposes abortion rights and that he is in favor of gay...

Is it appropriate to be focusing on a presidential candidate's religion in 2011? Newsweek certainly thinks it is, and created a cover for its June 13-20 issue prominently highlighting Mitt Romney being a Mormon in a fashion that is guaranteed to raise a few eyebrows: What you probably can't make out is the following at Romney's right bicep: Yes, it says, "Mitt Romney, Mormon for President!" Not very subtle, is it? The image led Real Clear Politics' Tom Bevan to tweet Sunday, "This leaves me dumbfounded." In fairness to Newsweek, this cover is a parody of the poster of the...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney announced Thursday that he will once again seek the Republican presidential nomination, but four years after his first bid, analysts say he will once again face the same unique hurdle: his Mormon religion. SNIP Mr. Romney steered clear of his religion when he kicked off his campaign in New Hampshire, but that could change this weekend when he and Mr. Huntsman travel to Washington, where they are scheduled to speak at the Faith and Freedom Coalition (FFC) conference — an event that could provide an early snapshot of where they stand with religious conservatives. Ben...