Article VI Blog

Mitch Davis, whose photo is at left, is the creator of RunMittRun.org, a 527 organization supporting Mitt Romney's candidacy for president. What is a "527 organization?" one might ask. The short answer is that they are the "soft money" vehicles of choice in the post McCain-Feingold era. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and MoveOn.org are both 527 organizations, for example.

The longer answer is that 527's are independent non-profit political organizations that are created to receive and disburse funds to influence the political process. By remaining independent of a specific campaign organization, 527's are able to avoid most of the rules and regulations otherwise imposed by the FEC, most significantly the FEC's stringent donation limitations.

Mr. Davis announced RunMittRun's formation in July and reports that his effort has garnered over 700 articles in print, on the internet, and on radio and television in the ensuing weeks. For example, The Boston Globe reported:

A prominent Mormon filmmaker has launched a nationwide political organization to demystify the religion he shares with Governor Mitt Romney, in an effort to pave the way for a Romney presidential run.

Mitch Davis, who wrote and directed the 2001 movie "The Other Side of Heaven," about a Mormon missionary to the South Pacific, unveiled a multipronged campaign this week to help explain the faith to American voters who hold deep suspicions about Mormons and probably wouldn't vote for one for president.

Davis seemed like a natural for an Article 6 Blog interview, and he readily accepted our invitation. Here's the transcript, edited for length.

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Brown: You ready to get started?

Davis: Yeah, and let me just say at the outset, I want to congratulate both of you on what you guys are doing with Article 6 blog. I spent a lot of time on the site and I referred a lot of people to it. And it’s a remarkable piece of work. I applaud you for being months and months ahead of me on that. Very, very thought provoking stuff.

Brown: Well, thank you.

Schroeder: Yes, thank you. I wish we could take responsibility for it, but you should probably blame Hugh Hewitt.

Davis: Ok, well, I will blame him if I ever get the chance. I’ll thank him for it too. Article 6 is just a great piece of work.

Brown: I have a hunch before this is all over with you’ll be on Hugh’s show at some point.

Davis: Well, that would be a thrill. I mean that would be a real thrill for me and my blogging partner Randy also. He is such a huge fan of Hugh’s. He actually, a few months back, I guess, was losing the faith. He was just looking at the whole cavalcade of bad press Bush is getting and the way the whole thing just felt to be collapsing in upon itself, and he shot some sort of depressed email off to Hugh Hewitt saying, "Sorry, I’m abandoning ship." And within 15 minutes he got a personal email back from Hugh saying, "Don’t do it, don’t do it!" So, he’s been a faithful Hugh Hewitt fan ever since.

Brown: Okay. Our interview today is with Mitch Davis, and he will be telling us a lot more about his organization. Off the bat, I need to disclose that Mitt and I, I mean Mitch and I – I called you Mitt, that was a Freudian slip.

Davis: (laughing) Yeah.

Brown: Mitch and I have known each other for a long time, but there is no professional or financial connection between us. Maybe we wish there had been over the years, but there hasn’t.

Davis: There’s still time.

Brown: And I have no connection with your new organization, which we are going to ask you about. Fair enough?

Davis: Yes, that’s all correct.

Brown: So let’s start off, Mitch Davis, what is RunMittRun and why does it exist?

Davis: RunMittRun.org is a 527 political organization that I, along with a few others, have created to encourage Mitt Romney’s potential candidacy for the U.S. presidency. Several months ago I began to take note of his potential candidacy, started to read articles about him in "The Wall Street Journal" and elsewhere that were encouraging and exciting. But I began to notice there was a trend to end all of these effusive articles with the sort of postscript, "It's just too bad this guy’s a Mormon or he’d be our next President." And as that trend continued, and the volume increased rather than decreased on that particular issue, I just decided it was time to do whatever I could to counteract that. It just felt so unfortunate to me, and, frankly, kind of embarrassing that in the year 2006 in America, this is still the big issue that it seems to be in a lot of people’s minds.

Brown: Now, you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints yourself, correct?

Davis: I am. I am a Mormon, and certainly that has something to do with my level of frustration on this topic. I have asked myself if I would be as passionate about this if someone were saying, "Gee this guy’s the best candidate but he’s an evangelical Christian," and I think the honest answer is no, I wouldn’t be as fired up about it. But the good news is, that hasn’t been an issue in the past and apparently is not an issue today. So there seems to be this one remaining hurdle to the elimination of religious bigotry in America. And because it effects or relates to Mormonism, I guess that’s one of the reasons I’m as passionate about it as I am.

Brown: Let me ask you about that. As you know, I am a Mormon myself. I am the Mormon half of this blog. John’s the evangelical half, and I’d like to know if you feel the same way, I have, when I contemplate the fact that many people find my religious beliefs odd, or marginal or strange, I, myself, find that very thought odd and strange. Do you feel the same way?

Davis: Yeah, I do. Well, let’s see –

Brown: What I mean is, I feel pretty normal.

Davis: You don’t – you feel comfortable with what you believe, it doesn’t seem odd to you.

Brown: Right.

Davis: Yeah. There’s no question but what I think that’s the situation almost all of us are in. I remember when I took a dear friend, an evangelical Christian high school friend of mine, to an LDS fireside, and they showed a movie, and in this movie at the fireside, everybody there, I thought, had a spiritual experience. It was a movie that related the appearance of God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, to the boy prophet Joseph Smith. And I just was absolutely sure that my good friend, Ben, had felt the same spirit and had the same experience I had had. And we left and he said, "You know everything was great about that meeting. I just felt such a great spirit. But you know, that movie; when I saw Jesus Christ and God on camera, the way you depicted them, that just ruined the whole evening for me." And for me it was the pinnacle of the evening. So I understand, I understand why – I guess I have been dealing with that disconnect for so many years of my life that it’s not surprising, but at the same time you want to think that all reasonable people ought to be able to agree. We all ought to feel and perceive the same things in the same way.

Brown: Well, it sounds like what you’re focused on with your organization, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that you would like to help keep that sense of differentness, or "the other," from creeping into our political system and decisions. Am I right about that?

Davis: I think that’s exactly our priority. Our objective is not to inflame tensions or increase the magnitude of this issue. Our objective is to decrease the magnitude of it and to put it in a context that allows it to go away. I think that it is clear that the way the field of candidates for President is shaping up at this time, Mitt Romney is unquestionably going to be the candidate whose lifestyle and values most closely approximate and honor those of the evangelical Christians. There’s just no question about it. Unless somebody falls out of the sky, and I don’t see that happening. So, it would be a tragedy for America and for evangelical Christians, and probably Mormons last of all, because we are the smallest group in that equation, if the guy who could best serve our country and the interests of the vast majority of this country’s populace, were disqualified because of misunderstandings.

And that, for me, is one of the key things that we have learned in our organization during our brief life. I used the phrase bigotry earlier, and that’s a bad word. It’s a harsh word to use. I do believe that this is at the core of a lot of what is going on. But the good news is that the bigotry is not based on mean-spiritedness or cruelty. It is based, apparently, on ignorance, or lack of information, misinformation or disinformation. As we have tried to really assess why people would have a difficulty voting for a Mormon in such high numbers, it is clear that the reasons they would have that difficulty is that they really understand so little about Mormons. And what they do understand, they may get it only half right. Frankly, if I believed the things about Mormons that most people in America do, or at least a lot of them do, I wouldn’t vote for one either. I couldn’t, in good conscience.

Schroeder: Mitch, you say high numbers. What is your source for that?

Davis: We commissioned a scientific poll in South Carolina. We did telephone interviews. We hired a company named Lawrence Research and Associates, out of Santa Ana, California. It is headed by a Stanford-trained Ph.D., Gary Lawrence, a very reputable political and marketing pollster, whose clients include the Republican National Committee, the National Rifle Association, Wal-Mart, American Airlines. Very, very top drawer pollster. And the conclusion of the poll was very similar to the "L.A. Times" poll's top line. "The L.A. Times" poll's top line was that 37% nationwide could not vote for a Mormon. Our poll's top line was that 33% of those polled in South Carolina could not vote for a Mormon. So, about the same. The nationwide poll's results were slightly higher, but there is a 4.1% up or down margin of error with the poll, so it is essentially a wash.

But then we went further and said, "Okay, so, why? What is it about a Mormon that makes it hard for you to want to have one in office?" And the four key questions we asked were: True or False, Do Mormons practice polygamy? Are Mormons polygamous? 44% of those polled felt that Mormons still practice polygamy, actively. True or False, Do Mormons believe in the Bible? 50% of those polled believe Mormons do not believe in the Bible and have replaced it with the Book of Mormon. 27% of those polled believe Mormons worship Joseph Smith rather than Jesus Christ, and 25% believe Mormons are not Christian, with another 25% undecided on that topic.

So, you know, if you came to me and said "Hey, Mitch, could you vote for a polygamist, or a guy who belongs to a church that believes in polygamy, and they are not Christians and they don’t believe in the Bible, and they worship a guy named Joe Smith?" I couldn’t vote for that guy. I would have a hard time pulling the lever, regardless of his qualifications. so I guess I’m just as bigoted or would be just as bigoted as anybody else, given that kind of information.

Schroeder: Now, Mitch, do you have the demographic breakdown of the sample for that poll?

Davis: Yes, we do. And I will be happy to email you a more in-depth press release that breaks it down more. The survey was done proportionately on a county by county basis, based on registered voters and their religious breakdown. It was demographically cross-sectioned so that it would be proportionate to the voting groups throughout the state of South Carolina.

Schroeder: Well, I would love to see the data, because I don’t know if you’ve seen the latest on the LA Times-Bloomberg poll, but as the demographic data, which wasn’t initially released with that poll is creeping out, it turns out that a huge portion of the 37% in that poll was liberals.

Davis: Really?

Schroeder: Yes.

Davis: Ah!

Schroeder: It wasn’t necessarily evangelical bigotry, it was – against Mormonism – so much as it was left wing bigotry against religion.

Davis: The left wing in general.

Schroeder: Yes.

Davis: Well, there you go. There you go. Well, you know what, we will get some of that to you.

Schroeder: If you send it to Lowell, he can get it to me.

Brown: That’s right. And we would love to look at that, and also the questions that were asked, because there’s – the Power Line blog had some interesting analysis of the questions that were asked in the, as John mentioned, in the LA Times Bloomberg poll.

Davis: Good, good.

[Editor's note: After the interview Mr. Davis supplied to is this PowerPoint summary, prepared by Lawrence Associates, regarding the South Carolina poll. You'll need PowerPoint installed to view the summary. He also sent us this PDF version of the RunMittRun press release about the poll.]

Brown: As kind of a follow up question there, I noticed today, for the first time in a long time, I saw on the internet an excerpt from a rather infamous movie, I think from the early 80’s called The Godmakers. I’m sure you’re aware of it.

Davis: Oh, yeah.

Brown: I was reminded, as a member of the church, of seeing someone else describe my religious beliefs in caricature, when I didn’t recognize anything they were talking about. And I’m wondering, in the day of the internet, if that piece is there on the web, do you have a feeling as to whether we are going to see more of that kind of thing being spread around, in South Carolina, for example, and any other primary states in areas that are heavy with evangelical membership? And, if so, is it part of your organization’s goal to help provide some context to, or counteract that kind of thing?

Davis: I don’t have a crystal ball to know what tactics Romney’s opponents are going to employ. I think they are probably going to try to take the high road on the religion topic, publicly. But from a guerrilla warfare standpoint, it would be not at all surprising to see them do whatever they could to create viral content and disseminate viral content that will make him and his religion look crazy. And extreme, eccentric.

Brown: For the benefit of people like me who don’t understand what viral content is, what do you mean by that?

Davis: Through the internet you create small one to two minute e-mailable internet movies that friends can send to friends. "Check this out. Go to" – one version of it is, "Go to this website." But another version of it is, someone just saves it to their computer, attaches it as an attachment, as you would as an attorney, send a Word document to another attorney across the country, but you can just attach a one minute movie and send it to your ten friends. So, again, I can’t lob accusations at any one person, but I think that is probably exactly the way they would like it to do it. This stuff takes on a life of its own. There is no way of controlling it. And there is usually also no way to determine where it got started, or how it got started.

Brown: A digital whisper campaign. Well, anybody who’s been around campaigns, especially at the presidential level, knows that things get out there, and some of them may not even have any connection to any campaign. It might be a well-meaning supporter of a particular candidate or an opponent of a particular candidate. And you have just described something that is going to be a phenomenon that we probably haven’t see before, quite in this way, just because of the internet.

Davis: I think you are absolutely right. The folks at Daily Kos, the folks at moveon.org, they have really, really tried to find a way to plumb the depths of the potential of the internet. And I think there are probably a lot of forward thinking people who are way, way ahead of us on this one. And that is why our organization exists– to combat misunderstandings that may already be out there. But also, to be prepared for contingencies that we are quite certain will arise.

It’s funny that you would mention "The Godmakers." I was a missionary in Argentina for a couple of years back in the 70’s and the father of one of my missionary companions was one of the producers of "The Godmakers." He’s a former Latter-Day Saint who was excommunicated a number of times and ended up having sort of a vendetta against the Church. And my poor missionary companion—there we were, knocking on doors in Argentina, trying to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and the gospel of Mormonism, and him all the while knowing that his father was working full-time to attack the Church back home. Kind of an interesting phenomenon.

Brown: What is it that you are going to do in that regard? Is RunMittRun.org going to create viral videos and television ads and radio ads, or what – what part of the field are you going to occupy?

Davis: A lot of that will depend upon what our financial resources end up being. But we are absolutely going to create viral content for distribution, and already have created some, low, low budget stuff, that is working its way around the internet. We’re doing iTune podcasts of our viral content. It’s going to be available on YouTube and MySpace. Our website is actually up on MySpace for any who may want to access it through that portal. We are certainly going to do all that, but I think beyond that the bulk of our work will be television commercials and billboard. Perhaps some print media in specific areas. But we want to go with billboard , television and print are going to be our paid phenomena, our paid media.

Schroeder: Mitch, if I may, I assume because you did not name names when you said a few friends helped you set up RunMitRun that you wish to remain anonymous?

Davis: Well, not really, no. We have, we’ve hired a couple of political attorneys who are very well known in DC and, my, uh, we’ve worked with a company called Excel Entertainment that is a company that has distributed a lot of Latter Day Saints motion pictures, just because they are sort of — our initial focus with RunMittRun.org is we’re going to go to the core right away. That’s where we’re going right now. We are appealing to Mormons for help, bottom line. We are appealing to Mormons more than anything to metastasize this message and to carry it outside the Mormon core, outside of Utah region. So there’s Mitch Davis; there’s Randy Davis, the Vice President of Distribution; a film distribution for Excel Entertainment; there is Gary Lawrence, our pollster, there’s Cleta Mitchell our attorney, you know Cleta Mitchell, probably, at Foley & Lardner –

Brown: Oh, that’s right. That’s another item we should disclose. Cleta is a member of my law firm, Foley & Lardner LLP, in our Washington, D.C. office. I was totally surprised to learn that she was working with this organization, but I had nothing to do with that. That’s correct. Thank you for bringing that up.

Davis: Yeah. Yeah, Cleta's great. And then there are a few other paid consultants and then some money people who, yeah, at this point I don’t want to disclose who is giving us money.

Schroeder: Is the – did the seed money to found it, is that yours and a few individuals? Or where did that come from?

Davis: Yeah, the seed money is mine at this point, but we have a few individuals – well, mine and two other individuals. So, right now we are working off seed money but since we’ve gone live we’ve received a lot of donations over the internet and through the mail. I think our prospects are quite bright for a fairly aggressive, direct appeal.

Schroeder: Is there any church money involved at all?

Davis: Oh, absolutely not. No.

Schroeder: Okay.

Davis: No. There could never be, would never be, and there has not been in any way, shape or form.

Brown: On that note, what are the costs of making and airing the kinds of advertising that you are planning, and how are you going to raise that money?

Davis: You know, we can probably – the commercials that we have written can probably be produced well for between $50,00 and $100,000. To air those commercials will cost us around $250 per 30-second spot. And so, we will initially produce the commercials and, frankly, air them on the internet and disseminate them to news organizations, to get some free play going. And then we’ll take them nationwide or regional, depending on what the polling data are, and how we determine we can best help Mit and where he most needs help.

Brown: Are you going to start in the Bible belt?

Davis: Our intent, all the data right now, point us toward South Carolina, as the first place to go. We want to be strategic about this. We thing Mitt is advantaged in New Hampshire and Michigan, and doing well in Iowa, and this is first big test will likely be in South Carolina, so we want to be there, ready for him, ready to help. We’d also love to make John McCain fight for his life a little bit in Arizona. You know, it's interesting. You mentioned earlier, I was – I’m not sure what the question was that you asked, but I think it is remarkable – oh, I know, you were talking about how in political campaigns anything can happen. I think that it’s kind of remarkable that this early in the campaign, which is really a non-campaign period, John McCain has gone after Governor John Huntsman from Utah. And succeeded in naming his co-chair of his political PAC Straight Talk America.

Brown: Well, we all know how many electoral votes Utah has.

Davis: Yeah, so what is he really trying to do? That’s the question. What, I think it’s clear that what he is trying to do is split the Mormon – not split the Mormon vote, but, but torpedo Mit’s candidacy a little bit in terms of taking some of the momentum he might get out of his Mormon core. There is really no other reason to do that. But I don’t want to focus on the negative. The positive, for me the positive is this clearly to me shows that John McCain knows who his worthiest opponent is, and who his opponent is likely to be.

Schroeder: Do you think McCain pursued Huntsman? or Huntsman pursued McCain?

Davis: I don’t know the answer to that.

Brown: We may not know for a long time.

Davis: Yeah, we’ll probably never know. There’s a long history with Gov. Huntsman and Mitt Romney and it goes back to the Olympics and doesn’t have much to do with this Presidential election, unfortunately.

Brown: You have a 527 organization. You can’t be in communication with Romney’s campaign. Do you know that you exist? I’m sure that they do, but do you know if they know?

Davis: I imagine they know we exist because of all the news reports that have been broadcast far and wide and it is likely that some of the people that we have approached and will yet approach for financial support are people who have already been active in supporting Romney’s Commonwealth PAC and other state PACs. So I’m sure they’ve gotten the message, though I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of that. I do know that they know that we are planning on doing a documentary about Mitt’s candidacy and so I do know that they are aware of that.

Brown: I have a question for you; I’d love to know the answer to from your standpoint. You may or may not be aware of this, but we posted a bit on our blog about you and about some responses to your effort and one of them struck me as frankly odd. That was by a pundit named Ryan Sager, who’s a writer and blogs at Real Clear Politics. On July 19 he wrote about you and about your 527 and he included this quotation from a Salt Lake Tribune article about you: “Davis’ campaign, which he acknowledges likely will start with donations from sympathetic Utahans, could help Romney make his religion a non-issue, or end up reinforcing the cultish image many Americans have of the faith.”And then Sager says, “I’m going to guess the latter."

Davis: Um hmm.

Brown: Meaning that you’re going to reinforce the cultish image that people have of the Mormon faith. And then, as support for that, he quotes from your IMDB, the IMDB summary of your movie The Other Side of Heaven, which happens to be about a Mormon missionary. And I guess he concludes from that – also he points out that on your own IMDB page, there is another religiously themed project you have and so therefore, he seems to think that you’re going to reinforce a cultish image of Mormonism. What do you think of that?

Davis: Well, I guess I can understand why he could reach all of those conclusions. The movie The Other Side of Heaven was an effort on my part to put a human face on Mormonism and to diminish the cultish image that is often attributed to Mormons and Mormon missionaries. Everybody knows, you say, do you know who the Mormons are? They always say it’s those guys in the white shirts. And they often say, they ride bikes and wear helmets and backpacks. Everybody kind of knows who those guys are but nobody really knows that those guys do, what they feel, what they believe. So, my motion picture, The Other Side of Heaven, was an effort to take a little bit of the mystery out of Mormonism and to just show that we laugh, we cry, we believe, we pray, we yearn, we strive just like everybody else, particularly just like every other Christian.

So, that was an effort, and frankly, for anyone who has seen that motion picture, I don’t think they would find that there is anything cultish about it. To the contrary, the one criticism I have gotten from Mormons is, it doesn’t have enough Mormonism in it. Sorry. But it’s an effort to do the opposite.

The other motion picture I just completed – I shot a film in Israel called A House Divided, and it is a motion picture with no a shred of Mormonism in it. It does examine the current mid-eastern conflict in the context of a romantic thriller. It is the story of an American Jewish man who goes to Israel for the funeral of his father, who has been blown up in a bus bombing, and while there he meets and falls in love with a Palestinian woman. And so that movie certainly does examine Islam, Judaism and Christianity as they coexist and combust in Israel, but there is certainly nothing about Mormonism in the movie.

To the other question, to this Salt Lake Tribune comment: One of the great things about the internet is that we did go to Utah and sort of announce our website in Utah, but everybody in Utah quickly emailed all their friends and family outside of Utah, and most of the donations we are getting over the internet are coming in from outside of Utah. So the only purpose for starting in Utah was that would be a friendly place from which to emanate and broadcast our message to the rest of the United States, be it non-Mormon or Mormon. And so far, we’ve been effective.

I think the way you reinforce ideas of Mormonism being a cult is if you allow ignorance to continue to pervade the collective consciousness of America. I will tell you I have had some people say to me, along the lines of that comment from Ryan Sager, only non-Mormons should defend Mitt Romney, and that no Mormons should ever stand up for Mitt. And it’s a thought that had never occurred to me. But I understand the logic behind it. It’s almost like we are viewed so warily by the U.S. public that we just shouldn’t open our mouths any more, because we have no credibility. I find that kind of shocking and disappointing. But I understand the logic behind it. Maybe we just can’t even speak up for ourselves any more.

Schroeder: Mitch, let me ask this question, kind of the same question, from a somewhat different angle: As Lowell has pointed out, you are not permitted, or under the rules of the road, the 527s aren’t permitted to talk to campaigns. Okay?

Davis: Uh huh.

Schroeder: And our readers know, and I imagine you know if you have read our blog, that Lowell and I both have had the opportunity to meet with Gov. Romney, although we have, neither one, had much opportunity to talk strategy with him.

Davis: Yeah.

Schroeder: But, publicly, it’s obvious that the strategy he is taking today is to not talk about the issue very much. He just is rather dismissive of the religion issue.

Davis: Um hmm.

Schroeder: So, my question, which is approaching at somewhat the same angle, would be to ask you, do you think that by doing what you are doing now, do you think you are addressing the issue, or creating it? Because, quite frankly, in my mind, I can’t find – of course there are pockets of bigotry against Mormons in the evangelical community, I would be silly to say there weren't. The question is how big are they and how significant are they? And I have not yet been able to put my hands on data that says, it’s a big deal. You follow what I’m saying?

Davis: Yeah.

Schroeder: And I do think there is a strategic risk, in a situation like this, of in fact, inflaming the issue instead of quenching it.

Davis: Yeah, I agree that there is that risk. And we have to be very careful not to do or say anything that will throw gasoline on the campfire. We just can’t do that.

So we will be very careful. We will be driven by data and by very smart political strategists as well as political pollsters. The fine line we have to walk, frankly, is we have to acknowledge there is enough of an issue that people are willing to donate and produce television commercials and prepare to address the issue. Without making the issue bigger. So we have to acknowledge the issue. We have to rally around the issue without magnifying or exaggerating it. And that’s a tough one.

Rest assured, we’re not going to do anything stupid. We’re going to be very careful about how we address this. The commercials that we have planned, the campaigns we have planned, one of our mantras is that we are going to have some fun. We are not going to earnestly look everyone in the eye and scold them and say “Shame on you! You’re so bigoted, America!” We really would like to make people laugh a little bit at themselves and maybe a little bit at Mormons and be able to just chuckle this issue away. Because, frankly, for the portion of the evangelical community or the United States of America that is deeply bigoted, we are never, ever going to be able to turn those people. Ever.

But I think there is a large group of people who are just kind of on the fence, kind of wondering, “Hmm. I knew a Mormon once that I liked. He was a good neighbor and I liked his kids and they seemed like clean-cut, good people. I don’t know that much about them, but, I don’t know, maybe they really are weird and a cult. I just don’t know.” And for those kind of people, those are the ones we want to be able to say, "Oh, come on, come on, what are we talking about here?" So, we are not going to grab anyone by the lapels and try to convert them to Mormonism and we’re not going to grab anyone by the lapels and promote the Church in any way. Our only objective is going to be to eliminate Mormonism as a negative. Not to make it a positive in anyone’s mind.

Brown: Well, I don’t have any further questions.

Schroeder: I have a couple of others, just off the top of my head, going back over some old ground. Back to your poll, where forty-some percent of people thought that Mormons practice polygamy. Did you have any breakdown on that, as to whether those people understand the difference between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and Warren Jeffs' fundamentalist Latter Day Saints church?

Davis: We did not do any drill-down further questions and I understand where you are headed. Although, if you step back and analyze the question one step removed – does it really matter? If they are going to the voting booth and they don’t know the difference, they're going to make their voting decision based on bad data. I’m sure, if you did drill it down further and say, wait a second, "There’s the official church, there are splinter groups," the numbers might be different. I think the only thing our pollster was trying to determine is, when they walk into that room and pull the curtain shut, and they see Mormon or think Mormon, is it going to negatively effect them and why?

Schroeder: I guess one of the reasons I’m bringing the question up is because I certainly, as the evangelical Christian here, I certainly would have no expectation of the two of you to have a deep understanding of the difference between my stand on some issue as a Presbyterian, let’s say, on infant baptism, versus that of the Southern Baptist Convention, because you are not Presbyterians or Baptists. So, I guess the point I’m trying to drive at, Mitch, is that one of the unfortunate things you are dealing with in some of those questions is, just purely, in my watching of the news in the last six months, Mormonism has come up, number one, because of some stuff that Jeffs was just involved in, in the last few months; number two, because of Mitt Romney; and number three, frankly, Mitch, because of your efforts. Those would be the three biggest Mormon-related news stories in the last six months or so.

Davis: You know it’s interesting. I understand the big question mark in your mind: Is this really that big an issue, are people really that ignorant and will it really effect them that much? I will tell you that polling aside, I have grabbed my son, we have grabbed our video camera, we’ve hit the streets. We’ve put a microphones in people’s faces and said, "Could a Mormon ever be elected President of the United States?" And that’s a very unscientific thing to do, but you’ve got to know that the answers have been, over 50% have said no, of the people we have talked to. Said no. Interestingly enough, and many times they say, “No, never could." Why not? “Too many misunderstandings, they’re seen as a cult, the polygamy thing." A few of them have even said Warren Jeff, FBI’s 10 most wanted, etc., etc.

But then, oftentimes the people say, "No, America would never elect a Mormon President." I will ask the follow up, "Could you vote for a Mormon?" Almost invariably they say, "Absolutely, I wouldn’t have any problem with that." Why? "Well, because I'm more enlightened than everybody else" or "I knew a Mormon once." They often have good things to say about Mormons. The disappointing fact is that the opposite has also been the case. People who have said to me, "Absolutely a Mormon could be elected President of the United States," and then when I ask them the follow up, "Would you have any trouble voting for a Mormon," they say "I could never vote for a Mormon." Why not? "Because they’re not Christian," or whatever.

So, it is – my field work as a filmmaker has unfortunately buttressed some of this polling data. But what Mike Murphy, Mitt’s strategist has said, and I have seen this in print and I think he is absolutely right. He has said, I’m not worried about these numbers because these are numbers in a vacuum. These are numbers that are not connected to any specific candidate. When you put Mitt Romney on the stage and you see his list of accomplishments, his business acumen, his success as a family man, politician and business man, then you look at the Mormon issue, it will be diluted. I think that’s correct. I also think it would be an awful lot better if you were diluting a 10 percent or 13 percent factor, which is what the Episcopalians got, or 8 percent for the Catholics, versus a 33% or 37%. Mitt's obviously swimming upstream, which I would wish he wouldn’t have to do.

Schroeder: The data – Lowell, you may need to correct me for this. The last poll that I’ve seen that was exclusive to Republicans and maybe to evangelical Christians, put the would not vote for number at 17%.

Davis: I’m sorry, was that L.A. Times?

Schroeder: No, no, no, sir. This is several years older than that.

Davis: I am only referring to our poll data because I have them in my head. In our poll, 8 percent of South Carolinians — and again here’s the good news – South Carolina is not a Catholic state, it’s a very evangelical state, highly Baptist state. South Carolinians, the religion that fared best in our poll was eight percent, the Catholics. Only eight percent would have a problem voting for a Catholic. And it was thirteen percent for Episcopalians – McCain’s religion — and then actually fifteen percent for evangelical Christians. There was a backlash against evangelicals within South Carolina, where they fared poorer than Catholics or Episcopalians.

Schroeder: Did you poll the same question for Jews?

Davis: No, we didn't. I will definitely have all that data forwarded to you. It was a pretty comprehensive poll and the data are sound. The guy who did this poll is just not a slouch and the numbers can be respected.

Schroeder: Well, I think that’s probably all I have.

Brown: Great.

Davis: I wish I could think of something really remarkable and glib to say to you guys before signing off. Maybe this: If you ask the question, "Could you ever vote for a “blank” for President?" – and if you filled in virtually any subgroup in America — blacks, women, Jews, into that sentence – if you said that sentence out loud, you would be immediately branded as an anti-feminist or an anti-Semite, or as a racist. But it is kind of remarkable that you can ask that question, "Could you ever vote for a Mormon?" or, better yet, make the sentence a statement, rather than a question: "I could never vote for a “blank” for President. I could never vote for a black, I could never vote for a woman, I could never vote for a Jew" You would be slaughtered for saying that! But "I could never vote for a Mormon" seems to still be kind of – it’s out there, and it's perfectly legitimate political dialogue.

But the good news is, if anyone on this planet can take that issue and address it forthrightly and win the issue, I think it’s Mitt Romney. I think he’s just that good. And I just want to make sure he has a few people supporting him in that effort, so he doesn’t have to get his hands too dirty. I just don’t think anybody should have to open up their private religious beliefs to such specific scrutiny as apparently some people thing Mitt ought to do. I just don’t think he should have to do that, or that anyone should have to do that. Regardless of their faith.

Brown: Maybe you’re thinking of an interview that occurred a few months ago in which a reporter actually asked Gov. Romney about his underwear.

Davis: Yeah. Give me a break. You show me yours, I’ll shown you mine. That kind of – and that is why I believe Mitt has taken the approach he has taken which is basically to not dignify a lot of the questions with an answer or with a detailed or specific answer, in the hopes that some shred of common decency would drive some of these people to understand that – they’re walking on sacred ground. They’re stepping in places they really have no right to tread.

I personally have sort of reached the conclusion that reporters and opponents are going to continue to be classless on this issue, and they’re not going to just allow him to get out of jail free, to quote a Monopoly phrase. I’ve been watching this for almost a year, and I just keep waiting for it to go away and I just don’t think it is going to go away of its own accord. I think it is probable that Mitt, at some point after he declares his candidacy, will address the issue, will do the John Kennedy thing. But, frankly, to do that now, before he’s even a candidate, it doesn’t make any sense. It is not – I think in the proper time and the proper way, he will address it. And hopefully it will go away.

Schroeder: Well, there are a couple of comments I would make first of all. While I agree with you that a candidate for any office shouldn’t have to talk about his underwear under any circumstances, I would remind you that Bill Clinton captured an entire generation that way.

Davis: True. Yeah. Yeah.

Schroeder: So, it’s something worth thinking about. But the other thing is, and Kathryn Jean Lopez at the National Review made this comment in her recent pieces about the L.A. Times Bloomberg poll, that, which is the same that the PAC campaign manager is making, that once it’s not a Mormon, once it’s Mitt Romney, that the picture may be, the numbers may not be nearly so bad.

Davis: You know, religion is not a rational exercise. It is not a rational part of our lives. It is highly personal, inherently spiritual, and emotional rather than rational. And that’s why it’s such a pit of quicksand to step into. That’s why I loved Mitt during a recent interview when someone asked him about religion and his bizarre beliefs. And he said, "Well, you know, let me tell you one of the more bizarre things I believe. I believe that there was a guy named Noah and there was this huge flood coming and God told him about the flood, so Noah got an animal, male and female of all the species on the entire earth, built a boat, got them all in the boat, and floated away safely with his family while it rained for forty days and forty nights and a flood covered the entire earth. Can you imagine that?"

And I just remember sitting there thinking, yeah, that’s exactly right. If you started to really parse what are some of the more bizarre beliefs of Mormonism, maybe they would be that a guy named Jesus died and came back to life after three days or that he walked on water or that he fed 5000 people with a few loaves and a few fishes. It is not rational. It is easily ridiculed. And especially when you take it out of context.

One of my best friends is a Catholic. One of the beliefs of Catholicism that he personally most appreciates is the doctrine of transubstantiation. Do you know what that is?

Schroeder: Oh, of course.

Brown: Sure.

Davis: Frankly, I was ignorant of that particular belief until he described it to me. He believes that the wafer and the wine become blood and flesh inside his mouth. And that is blissful and poignant and beautiful to him. Frankly, the first time he described it to me I found it kind of macabre.

Schroeder: So do most Protestants, by the way.

Davis: Okay. So, should my good Catholic friend never be allowed to be President of the United States because he embraces that belief personally? Of course not. But, that’s why it is so hard to take anything as personal as issues of faith, out of context, throw them into a 30 second commercial or a televised national debate and say, "Hey, Mitt, you've got twenty seconds: Your funny underwear; what are they about?" Or, "Twenty seconds, your innermost personal religious beliefs, lay them out there for us." It just doesn’t work. So that’s why I feel like there are certain areas that just ought to be off limits. And I know I am preaching to the converted on that.

Brown: All right, we will get this transcribed. Thank you very much for a very interesting interview. And we look forward to further involvement with you. I think that our blog will be open to you if you have information for us that you would like us to comment on, or –

Davis: That’s no small thing. I really appreciate what you were doing well before me.

Brown: Thanks everybody.

[End of interview.]

Additional Resources:

Lawrence Associates PowerPoint Presentation Summarizing South Carolina Poll

RunMittRun Press Release re South Carolina Poll

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