Today’s Reading List - August 24, 2007
RCP carried a VERY lengthy piece on Romney and the question yesterday by Jay Cost. The piece, while it makes some interesting points, is a bit ham-fisted. It just lacks subtlety, and certainly seems to miss the forest for the trees. Cost, a grad student, argues that while Romney's strategy on The Question is brilliant, his execution is flawed. He makes his argument primarily by a detailed analysis of the now-old-news WHO showdown. Cost's issues with Romney's presentation in that interview presume that Romney knew his comments were for public consumption. HE DID NOT. The vast majority of the discussion in that video occurred during a radio break, and Romney thought he was having a private discussion with the host. Such a situation hardly counts as a measure of Romney's tactical presentation with regards to the issue.
The other thing that I find interesting is that Cost argues that The Question may be an irrelevancy because:
Average voters - even average voters in a primary election - are not like political elites, i.e. those who by virtue of their knowledge of politics, their positions in politics, or their financial contributions to political actors, stand separate from the average voter. If "Romney and the Mormon Issue" is an intriguing title to you some four months before the first votes are casts, you are probably somebody who possesses a unique amount of political information that implies a difference between you and the average voter.
Average voters are not like you. They do not have a great interest in politics, and their knowledge of politics is highly constrained. This, I think, is relevant for Romney and the Mormon issue. I think that it is likely the case that the Mormon issue only becomes a salient issue in the mind of average voters if Romney's political opponents make it an issue. Of course, I can envision scenarios in which the Mormon issue becomes salient even if his opponents do not make it salient. However, it seems to me that the most likely path for this issue to become salient is if Giuliani or Thompson tries to make it so.
If this is indeed the case, and I think Cost is on to something here, the "average voter" is not going to see that interview video either, so again any "mistakes" he may have made are irrelevant. But then I don't think Romney made any mistakes in the interview. Most religious voters I know liked Romney getting a bit testy.
The other thing that stuck out in my mind about Cost's piece was this:
Romney and his campaign have drawn comparisons to John Kennedy in 1960. This is not all that valid - and so his frequent references to Kennedy seem forced and opportunistic.
How do I say this? That's just ignorant. Yes, "the Kennedy parallel" has been discussed to death as it relates to The Question, but it is not Romney that has drawn the comparison. Has he commented on it? Yes, every interview he has done, he has been asked about it, as if the interviewer thought he/she had discovered some arcane bit of previously unknown history - he had to comment on it. That said, he has not drawn the parallel himself at all, just responded to it. The press as been forced and opportunistic, but not Romney.
Speaking of students…
One at the University of Illinois makes more sense to me than Cost does, Still obviously student written though.
Guess what…
Romney won't be seeing September Dawn. Ooh, there's a surprise. The man is running for president, I think he probably has better things to do with his time than see a movie, any movie.
Finally…
Joe Carter points out who is the real enemy when it comes to religion and politics.
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One Response to “Today’s Reading List - August 24, 2007”
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coltakashi on 24 Aug 2007 at 4:33 pm #
Questions to Romney that touch on religion are mainly of two kinds, and in both cases the purported question is never the REAL question. Romney of course should not get caught up in talking about specific Mormon beliefs, because that is not really what reporters want to know.
The first kind of question is “Do Mormons really believe [insert favorite absurdity here]?” The REAL question is, “Are you and other Mormons really so stupid that you believe [absurdity]?” Romney’s response should be to the REAL question: “If you sincerely want to explore that issue, I recommend you contact the LDS Church public affairs office at lds.org. If you aren’t really trying to learn more about what Mormons believe, but are simply making a rhetorical statement that really asks ‘are Mormons so stupid that they believe [this]?’, let me answer your real question: Your six million Mormon neighbors in America are just as smart as any other group of Americans. They include their fair share of doctors and scientists and college professors and even journalists. Now let’s talk about what I would do if elected president.”
The second kind of question is “Since Mormons believe [place weird idea here], shouldn’t that cause Americans to worry about electing you because you [follow][don’t follow] that doctrine?” The REAL question is, “Since I am smarter than you about Mormon beliefs, shouldn’t I warn America about your [theocratic aspirations][hypocrisy]?” The answer to the REAL question should be “As a lifelong Mormon, let me assure you that your question shows you don’t really understand Mormon beliefs, and they are not relevant to a political issue as you think they are. To educate you in what Mormons really think about this would take hours. I am not here to correct your lack of understanding of Mormon beliefs, let alone persuade you to agree with them. I am here running for the presidency. Let’s talk about specific issues of public policy.”
If someone (like Mikelson at WHO) persists in saying the same thing, Romney should, rather than explain his qualifications as an expert on Mormonism, simply ask the questioner to answer some basic questions that Mormons would know the answer to: “Do you know who Oliver Cowdery was? Who was Martin Harris? Who is Dieter Uchtdorf? Who was Orson Pratt? Who was Heber C. Kimball? Who was James Talmage? Who was LeGrand Richards? Who is Dallin Oaks? Who was Neal Maxwell? Who was Moroni? Who was the other Moroni? Who was Nephi? Who was Alma? Who was Mormon?” After the questioner has stumbled along demonstrating his ignorance, Romney should then say, “If you don’t know the basics of who taught and led the Mormons, and formulated the Mormon understanding of Christianity, you’re not in a position to understand what Mormon beliefs really mean. I am not here to teach you to understand Mormonism. You are welcome to call up the missionaries and start attending Sunday School at your local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But in the limited time we have here today, I want to talk about the presidency of the United States. Won’t you join that discussion?”