evangelicals

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It now seems clear that the recent McCain VP buzz was just supposed to keep the senator on the front page rather than actually crash Obama’s world parade. However, as the Romney name keeps getting mentioned, some interesting people are starting to push back on a Romney VP pick.

Speaking as a Mormon, Orson Scott Card “begs” McCain to not commit political suicide by picking a Mormon as his VP.

What is he going to bring you? Utah? You have Utah already.

What Mitt Romney would do, as your vice presidential candidate, is weaken you in areas that you absolutely must carry: The South and the Bible Belt.

You cannot afford to underestimate the number of people who will never vote for a ticket that includes a Mormon. . .

When you consider that in the South, the black vote will — understandably! — be energized and turn out in record numbers, the last thing you need is for the Evangelical Christian vote to be unenthusiastic, with large numbers of them sitting it out.

And from Romney’s home state, Michigan Democrats have actually produced a web ad as a preemptive strike against Romney on his biggest strength, his business experience.

I think Romney would make the best VP, but he may not be the best political choice. So OSC’s point is legitimate and pragmatic but a total concession to the crudest of identity politics.

And if the Michigan Democrats really think Romney is such a bad pick, why are they running ads discouraging McCain to NOT pick him? Somehow I don’t think they have McCain’s best interests in mind.

Just as Romney seemed to finally answer the call to address the Mormon Question, the Huckabee surge came and fulfilled a year’s coverage of whether Evangelicals would vote for a Mormon.  The Iowa race was thus declared a “Holy War.”

Frank Lockwood makes the point that Evangelicals aren’t bigoted because a majority of Evangelicals voted for someone other than Huckabee.  Of course, Evangelicals aren’t the monolithic vote that they are too often described to be, just as Mormons aren’t.   Looking at the Iowa’s exit polls, Romney got the second-most number of evangelicals with 19% to Huckabee’s 46%

But, further review shows that Huckabee captured the religious beliefs vote with 56% of those who replied they mattered a “Great Deal” and 30% who said “Somewhat.” Romney won the vote of those who said “Not Much” (38%) or “Not at All” (40%).

I don’t want to overtstate the impact of the anti-Mormon vote.  Above all, I think it would be wrong and a huge mistake if Mormons joined the ranks of aggrieved minorities.  But it does look like Huckabee’s Christian identity pitch and leveraging anti-Momon sentiments made a difference.

 UPDATE:  Evangelicals were also 60% of the vote, up from 39% in 2000.  Huckabee’s surge unleashed a tsunami.

The technical term for this in political science is “Reverse Psychological Doublespeak Dog-Whistling”:

Huckabee: Don’t vote against rival Romney just because he’s Mormon

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said it would be wrong for caucus voters in Iowa to withhold support from rival Mitt Romney because of his Mormon faith, while criticizing the former Massachusetts governor’s economic record.

“I don’t think a person’s faith ought to be a plus or minus,” Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” scheduled to air today. “I would not want to think that people vote for me only because I’m a Christian.”

But for a state where one-third nearly half openly admit that being a Mormon is a negative, it doesn’t hurt to remind everyone who’s Mormon and who’s “Christian.”

Slate has a very interesting history of the “rivalry” between the Southern Baptist Convention and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Of course, the article strains to find some “extra meaning” in the current Romney/Huckabee conflict but it’s an interesting and a fair look that recognizes that if there is any conflict between the churches, it’s coming from the Baptists.

• “This isn’t the first time a Southern Baptist and a Mormon have battled for the White House—Mo Udall was a nonpracticing Mormon when he ran against Baptist Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976. “
• “In the early 1980s, Southern Baptist Convention leaders discovered—much to their horror—that 40 percent of Mormonism’s 217,000 converts in 1980 came from Baptist backgrounds.”
• “The Mormon Church has met efforts from the SBC and other evangelical groups with silence. While it maintains its claim as ‘the only true and living church,’ the denomination has avoided targeting specific faiths in the way it has so often found itself in others’ crosshairs.”

It ends with a hopeful note that the SBC may not be completely opposed to Mitt Romney, even if he belongs to a “cult”, which is “a false religion”, and his election may benefit the Church.  That’s progress, I guess.

Yesterday, John Podhoretz made this bizarre statement on Gov. Romney’s “Faith in America” speech:

For those who don’t know Romney is a Mormon, well, they sure will now. For the next two or three days, it’s all anybody will know about him. Chances are it is the word that people will most associate with him from here on out. I don’t think that’s a good direction for a campaign that finds itself in the fight of its life in Iowa against the most explicitly Christian candidate in the field.

Huh!?!? If anyone who didn’t know until yesterday that Romney was a Mormon, they weren’t paying attention to the campaign and won’t start now.  Forget the next few days, for the past year the media’s portrayal of Gov. Romney has been relentless reporting that Romney’s biggest challenge is that he’s a Mormon which could only be removed by making some JFK-type speech. 

(I actually believe that the Governor’s biggest problem is his perceived “inaunthenticity” and supposed flip-flopping, which he hasn’t been able to deal with very well due to the oppressive religious coverage.  The Evangelical acceptance of a Mormon candidate is overplayed by a media herd-mentality eager to pick a fight.)

Romney didn’t add anything new yesterday that he hasn’t said in countless interviews before.  However, instead of speaking to one reporter, Romney spoke on a national platform.  Now when some lazy reporter decides to recycle the Mormon Question, the Romney campaign can at least point back to yesterday and say “been there, done that.” 

Conventional wisdom has it that yesterday’s speech was an appeal to Evangelicals to accept a Mormon candidate.  But most Evangelicals who weren’t willing to accept Romney before, probably aren’t willing to today.   Romney’s biggest accomplishment was telling the media to back off and drop the daily coverage of his faith.

Yesterday, Romney Campaign 2.0 was launched.  He may not have added anything new of substance to his campaign, but he sounded presidential, perhaps authentic.  And instead of becoming the “Mormon” candidate like Podhoretz suggests, he’s done his best to level the playing field and leave the “Mormon” tag behind.

Charles Krauthammer outdoes even himself on Gov. Huckabee’s shameless and devious exploitation of religion in Iowa.  (emphasis added)

Just imagine that Huckabee were running one-on-one in Iowa against Joe Lieberman. (It’s a thought experiment. Stay with me.) If he had run the same ad in those circumstances, it would have raised an outcry. The subtext — who’s the Christian in this race? — would have been too obvious to ignore, the appeal to bigotry too clear . . .

Huckabee has been asked about this view that Mormonism is a cult. He dodges and dances. “If I’m invited to be the president of a theological school, that’ll be a perfectly appropriate question,” he says, “but to be the president of the United States, I don’t know that that’s going to be the most important issue that I’ll be facing when I’m sworn in” . . .

And by Huckabee’s own logic, since he is not running for head of a theological college, what is he doing proclaiming himself a “Christian leader” in an ad promoting himself for president?

Answer: Having the issue every which way. Seeming to take the high road of tolerance by refusing to declare Mormonism a cult, indeed declaring himself above the issue — yet clearly playing to that prejudice by leaving the question ambiguous, while making sure everyone knows that he, for one, is a “Christian leader.”

While I don’t expect Gov. Huckabee to meet Pres. Harrison’s fate, his campaign won’t make it out of Iowa unless it changes it’s tone quick.

Every mention of God in every inaugural address in American history refers to the deity in this kind of all-embracing, universal, nondenominational way. (The one exception: William Henry Harrison. He caught cold delivering that inaugural address. Thirty-one days later, he was dead. Draw your own conclusion.)

Most pundits seem to think the speech was okay with qualified nitpickings.  But if Evangelical leader James Dobson approves of the speech, then that’s all Romney probably could have hoped for:

Gov. Romney’s speech was a magnificent reminder of the role religious faith must play in government and public policy. His delivery was passionate and his message was inspirational. Whether it will answer all the questions and concerns of Evangelical Christian voters is yet to be determined, but the governor is to be commended for articulating the importance of our religious heritage as it relates to today.

I think Dobson likes Romney but just can’t quite bring himself to get over the Mormon issue.  Or his followers won’t let him.

Unable to wait for the actual speech tomorrow, more keyboard pundits are already taking a swing at what they think Mitt Romney should say.

Russell Arben Fox:

I’m neither a historian nor a scholar of my own religion. I am just a believer . . . These are matters that can only be understood–that can only be taken seriously–if one gets into high theology, which I am not qualified to do and have no more need to do than John F. Kennedy had a need to explain the sacraments to his mostly Protestant audience. This is not, this should not be, where the political argument lies.

Noah Millman:

When Senator Joe Lieberman was nominated for the Vice Presidency on the Democratic ticket in 2000, his reaction was, “is this a great country, or what?” My sentiments exactly.

Mark Hemingway at National Review:

Now given the importance of religious liberty, I recognize that unlike men, not all religions are created equal. Some religious sects advocate violence, fail to recognize basic human rights, or are driven by greed. Membership in one of these groups might very well be an important factor in evaluating the judgment of someone that wishes to hold public office. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does none of these things. Regardless of what you think of Mormon doctrine, as a civic institution I am very proud to be a member of it. Like many of my fellow believers, I have already held high public office and no conflicts between personal faith and public life have materialized. I cannot fathom a scenario where a conflict would emerge between the two kingdoms of my individual faith and the shared political responsibilities of all Americans.

and National Review adds possibly the only way to win over the hardcore Huckleheads:

You know what would really be funny? If Romney declares on Thursday that he has been saved and shows a YouTube clip of his baptism, and a hearty endorsement by Dr. Dobson.

Governor Romney’s speech begins at 10:30 am Eastern tomorrow.  I bet we’ll have a few posts out there explaining how he messed up by 10:40 am.

Due to the bruising nature of the primaries, Evangelicals have been getting a lot of ire in the Bloggernacle (a lot of it justified). Romney’s religion has been constantly rehashed as a stumbling block for the Evangelical vote. 

However, if enough Evangelicals support Romney and he gets the nomination, his religion “problem” won’t be going away.  Although the Mormon issue has been widely portrayed as a GOP matter, Democratic voters are even less likely than Republicans to vote for a Mormon.

Well, first of all, polls like this one (see Table 4) suggest that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to rule out voting for a candidate on the basis of his Mormon faith. Now maybe all those anti-Mormon Democrats are African-American Baptists or working-class Catholics, but Dems with a post-grad education are more anti-Latter Day Saint than Dems with just a high school degree, which at the very least suggests that there are plenty of secular voters who wouldn’t pull the lever for a Mormon. Not, presumably, because they want to establish an “only Trinitarians need apply” standard for public office in the U.S., but because they consider Mormonism weird and cultish, and they don’t want a President who buys into its tenets.

According that April 2007 poll, Republicans are more likely to vote for a Mormon than Democrats by 50 - 38. That may be because Democrats don’t like the Mormon religion, they don’t like religion period, or they don’t like the predominant politics associated with Mormons.  What else?  

Could Democrat voters be as bigoted as Evangelicals?

It’s been interesting this year to watch the Church and Mitt Romney reach out to Christians for their own reasons and in their own ways.

Gov. Romney has been actively courting GOP-influential evangelicals as a key to his nomination.  Rather than directly speaking on his religion (as so many pundits are demanding he do), he has continuously emphasized that it has informed his “values” which are similar to the rest of religious conservatives.

“The values of my faith are much like, or are identical to, the values of other faiths that have a Judeo-Christian philosophical background,” he said at a campaign event in New Hampshire this month. “They’re American values, if you will.”

In contrast, the Church has renewed its efforts to define itself as a Christian church while emphasizing its peculiar differences.  President Hinckley and Elder Holland’s General Conference talks rejected the creedal beliefs of mainstream Christianity based on what Holland called “post–New Testament Christian history”:

So any criticism that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not hold the contemporary Christian view of God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost is not a comment about our commitment to Christ but rather a recognition (accurate, I might add) that our view of the Godhead breaks with post–New Testament Christian history and returns to the doctrine taught by Jesus Himself.

Last week the Church followed up these talks with a press release emphasizing that “As people learn more about Latter-day Saint beliefs, they may see some distinct differences and yet find some unexpected common ground.”

Governor Romney glosses over his religious differences (smartly I think) while the Church unapologetically emphasizes its differences, and yet they are both seeking to establish that Mormonism (or at least a Mormon) has a place in the public square.  (Just to keep piling on, Harry Reid’s comments last week were not helpful in this effort)

There will always be evangelical clods who will feel they have a divine mandate to harass the Church and protest General Conference, but politically, I think there has been evidence that progress has been made.

• President Hinckley met with the late Jerry Falwell earlier this year where they discussed opposing against same-sex marriage efforts in California.
• Evangelical leaders seem to be reluctantly realizing that Romney is their best hope for representing their values and some have started to endorse him (whether he should accept some of them is another matter).

The Church has made it clear we don’t want to agree on everything theologically.  Or politically.  Just some respect and an acknowledgement that Mormons don’t have horns would be nice.  When Bob Jones University can join the 21st century and endorse a Mormon for president, I think there’s reason for hope.  

Speaking before one of the most conservative schools in one of the most conservative areas in the country (registered Republicans outnumber Democrats 11 to 1), Senator Reid was before an audience that is rarely visited by a prominent Democrat.  Senator Reid’s speech on “Faith, Family and Public Service” (PDF) (video and mp3 audio) did a very good job discussing his humble uprbringing, his conversion, and how his personal beliefs inform his Democratic politics.  

Discussing why ”I am a Democrat because I am a Mormon, not in spite of it” was a great demonstration that a faithful Mormon can be a Democrat.  Indeed, Senator Reid couldn’t be a better asset in the Church’s continuing struggle to show that it is politically neutral.  I imagine that the Church was very happy to welcome Reid to show that that it is hospitable to both parties and to highlight the fact that the most prominent LDS politician, ever, is a Democrat.

Unfortunately, Senator Reid’s talk was overshadowed by his comments in a following BYU press appearance where he:

• criticized President Benson and other conservative church leaders who have “taken members of the church down . . . the wrong path”
• implied church members are easily swayed and became politically conservative because they were misled
• childishly insulted our President (not the first time he has done this at a school)
• slammed conservative evangelicals: ”They are the most anti-Christian people I can imagine, the people from the Christian far right.”  (Does anyone see the irony in that statement?)

Whatever you may feel about his opinions, the resulting headlines:  “Reid: Right-wingers have taken LDS Church members down ‘wrong path’ ” and “Reid speaks out against past Mormon leaders” probably aren’t going to help sway anyone who thinks that being a good Democrat and Mormon is a paradox.

Even more embarassing for the Church are his comments about President Bush and conservative christians.   This has received some attention (and justifiable outrage) from conservative blogs but not enough in the Bloggernacle, unlike some subjects.  Not living in Utah, I don’t know how this has played out beyond newspaper articles.

At the end of his speech, Sen. Reid quoted Alma and  and then bore his testimony where he said (transcribed from audio, not in his prepared text but partially included in the BYU press release):

“I want each of you to leave this great education you have and go out and do good things for people.  Represent the Church.  Make people like President Gordon B. Hinckley happy with what you are doing, the life you are leading.”

Senator Reid promptly forgot his own counsel and undid any good he may have done with his impressive talk.  Too bad.