Article VI Blog

After a very busy weekend, items worthy of the reading list were a bit scarce Monday. Still, one of our readers offered some provocative thoughts about our view that the most vicious and high-profile religious bigotry against Mitt Romney has come, and will come, from the Left.

Our reader thinks we are underestimating the extent of evangelical bigotry:

With respect, I think both Lowell and John are still knocking down a straw man. Both readily concede that some evangelicals will oppose Romney on religious grounds. We all know that it easy to find anecdotal anti-Mormon bigotry from these quarters. But we also have a polling data that suggest the numbers to be significant. It is all a question of degree.

Both bloggers assert that the degree is not enough to meet some straw man criteria — not one of "large numbers" (Lowell's term), or "elections are won by majorities" (John's). At other times, both have cast the issue to be one of whether there is more bigotry from the left than the right, which is an utter non sequitur.

I suggest that, objectively, it is not necessary to reach any of these straw man levels to show that prejudice is significant. There does not have to be a majority of evangelicals that are prejudiced, or even a plurality. What ultimately matters is the marginal difference it makes in an election, and elections often turn on a few percentage points. And in venues such as the South Carolina primary, it may be more than just a few.

Time will tell. But meanwhile, denial is not such a good thing.

To be clear: I don't know how John sees this, but I think there is statistically significant prejudice (bigotry) against Romney among a group of evangelicals who are "hard core" anti-Mormons, for reasons of malice, misinformation, and yes, sincere and (to them) principled belief. As Hugh Hewitt stated in his book, Romney does have a Mormon problem– and so does the rest of the country, the problem cannot be wished away:

This vision [that Mormonism is a] 'cult' is difficult to square with the sunny Mormons one encounters at Boy Scout jamborees, on city councils across the land, or in the professions and business. But for those who do not know any Mormons, or at least not that well, this background music dominates the attitude they bring to the idea of a Mormon candidate for the presidency … [W]hat Romney confronts is the widespread attachment of the term "cult" to his religious beliefs. This is a political problem of the first order.

Do I have hard evidence of significant evangelical bigotry? No; no one really does. But Romney's polling numbers, although strong in New Hampshire and Iowa, are so consistently low in South Carolina, even without Fred Thompson in the race, and Evangelical/Baptist population there so high, that at least part of the explanation for the low poll numbers has to be religious bias. Unless something extraordinary occurs, he's not going to do well there, especially with Southerner Fred Thompson in the race.

But, but . . . I haven't seen anything yet that convinces me that this problem will keep Romney from getting a fair shot at the Republican nomination. I do think it will cost him a strong showing in South Carolina (and the liberal news media may make much of that).

Even so, when I consider this question, I always come back to the five high-profile attacks on Romney so far: Jacob Weisberg, Damon Linker, Garry South, Kenneth Woodward, and Al Sharpton. All are from the left. It seems to me that the bigots on the right lack are either low-profile, or lack the spine to come right out and say what they think about the significance of Romney's faith, or both. Left-leaning pundits and activists, however, seem to have a strange sense of license about making bigoted statements that for any other religious faith would be simply unacceptable. (See Weisberg's Slate column, for example.) Perhaps by dressing their prejudice up in intellectual garb they think they are doing something high-minded.

So, as our reader suggests, it remains to be seen what damage religious bigots will inflict on Romney. I continue to believe that the true "gloves off" attack will come if Romney is nominated, in the general election.

John comments: There are several questions involved in our comments. The first is what is worthy of media coverage? I have never said there was no bigotry, I have only contended that in the end there is not enough to make a difference in the outcome of the election. Bigots are real, and they may even be regionally concentrated, but it is a big country. The press over covers it. Ask yourself this - where is the press coverage of the Klan and its anti-Obama comments?

South Carolina is not the hinge state it used to be. The realignment of primaries means that the usual patterns cannot be relied upon. Even if bigotry is real and significant in South Carolina, I am far from convinced that Romney's nomination will be that adversly impacted.

Which brings me to my biggest point - this is an election, not a campaign to end anti-Mormon bigotry. Crossing barriers and ending bias are very different things. Crossing a barrier is often a necessary step in ending a bias, but it is just one step of a very long journey. Media looks for symbols, so "the first black XXX elected in Mississippi" means the end of racism in Mississippi - HARDLY. Ask in black in Mississippi and they will tell you a very different story. Should Romney prevail, it will be in spite of anti-Mormon bias and bigotry, it will not mark an end to it.

What matters are ROMNEY'S polling numbers, and while he is not doing as well in South Carolina as elsewhere, one must also remember that is part of his strategy. He is not pouring the effort into there the others are. He said in an interview on Hugh Hewitt's show that he forsaw Florida's primary move and he was concentrating there. Thus, in South Carolina they have had less opportunity to have his person overwhelm the concerns than other places. There are a lot of reasons for the polling to look the way it does, and not all of them mark an end to the campaign, or that anti-Mormon bigotry is bigger than I think it is.

Elsewhere Around The Web

Sam Brownback has apologized for the weekend gaffe by one of his campaign workers:

The Kansas senator “was very disappointed, clearly sort of personally hurt that this had happened in his team, and he said he is going to be very aggressive to make sure it doesn't happen again,'' spokesman Brian Hart said. “There's no place for this in his campaign.''

That story, although about a mistake for which the instigator has apologized, has nevertheless generated other stories like this one. The news media beast is always looking for something to report about.

CNN's Situation Room (as reported by Media Matters) manages to cover The Question — yesterday, no less– without adding one bit of new information to the discussion.

And here's a somewhat conspiratorial view of the anti-Romney forces.
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