Shame, Moving Forward, A Quiet (?) Weekend, and more…
Moralizing In The Wake . . .
I like Mitt Romney, quite a bit. At the moment he has my vote, but this was never, for me, about Mitt Romney. Forgive me while I get on my soapbox for a minute.
There is little doubt Iowa was about identity politics and specifically religion identity politics. Even Romney himself agrees. We documented a lot of that on Friday and there is more. Consider this out of the Guardian in London and this from PBS’ Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. Kim Lawton of the latter said:
Well, you never know what voters see, but certainly Huckabee positioned himself as the Christian candidate. Now, that could have been a slight swipe against Mitt Romney, the Mormon candidate, who really challenged him there. And Huckabee said I’m the Christian candidate, you know, maybe saying hey, I share your values as an evangelical, as a Southern Baptist minister. Mitt Romney did reach out to evangelicals, but Huckabee was ultimately more successful. He talked a lot about convictions, and I think there was an appeal to character that really resonated with the evangelicals there.
Some of our commenters on Friday argued that attraction to the same is just politics as usual and different from bigotry. While I agree it is a lesser sin, it is still a huge problem, especially given how Huckabee played the campaign. His sly asides and what he allowed to go on on his website demands withdrawal and apology. He apologized to Mitt for the one “brother” comment, but that web site of his . . . .
There are just too brief comments I want to make before moving on to New Hampshire.
First, reactions like this one abound over all over the Mormon internet world:
I once looked upon the Christian right as my allies in a fight against immorality. I am not so sure anymore. It remains to be seen whether their irrational hatred of the LDS people and doctrine have a significant impact on Republican and national politics.
And that is a mild one by the way. It’s true, Mormon identification with a Mormon candidate would make such sentiment inevitable in any loss for the Mormon candidate, but I cannot argue with it in this instance; the religious nature of Huckabee’s appeal is too obvious.
As Evangelicals, do we really think it is smart that we have made potential enemies here? It hurts our political action (several million votes are at stake here) and it tears down bridges that would allow for mutual understanding and perhaps even conversion. If you are one of those Evangelicals primarily concerned that a Mormon president will condemn souls for eternity – think how many souls have now been condemned because they will never listen to an Evangelical again because we are apparently hateful, bigoted, small-minded creatures. That is point one.
Lowell: I have been thinking a lot about this. I am a dog lover, and like to analogize to dogs. After the last twenty months of blogging about The Question and daily contact with Evangelical attitudes towards Mormonism, I tend to think of Evangelical Christians as I do about dogs I see coming toward me on the street– especially when I am walking my own dog: Dogs are great creatures, with tremendous capabilities, but unpredictable and potentially dangerous to me. When I see a pooch approaching me on the street, no matter which breed, I wonder: Is this one going to wag his tail at me, or is it going to snarl at me and menace me and my own beloved dog?
Just as I am nervous around unknown canines, when I meet someone and learn he is an Evangelical Christian, something inside me tightens a little, and I am instantly wary of him. Is he going to be a friend, someone with whom I have so much in common, or is he full of loathing for, and animus toward, my deepest and most treasured beliefs? Does he consider me “Mormon garbage” like the Huckabee supporters posting at Huck’s site?
In other words, is he going to bite me?
This is sad. But I fear I have an awful lot of company among my LDS brethren and sisters.
Point two is even deeper theologically. (Forgive me.) The Wall Street Journal described “Huckabee’s New Deal” as “more God, more government.” Radio talk show host Mike Gallagher said this:
Perhaps the reason so many are worried about Mike Huckabee’s current popularity is because he’s actually a guy who believes that the solution to all of our woes is the government, not churches or charities. On Jay Leno’s show, he gave us a glimpse into who he truly is, a guy who leaves the ministry (“the stands”) and wants to be part of the government because he feels that government is the answer to everything.
As evangelical Christians, our hope is in our Lord, not in our government. Recall what Peggy Noonan said on Friday:
…the presidency, as an office, can actually make real changes in the areas of economic and foreign policy, the federal government has a limited ability to change the culture of America.
If we as Evangelicals are putting our faith to “fix” America in a presidential candidate, or in the office of the Presidency itself, we are putting it in the wrong place. And what is worse is that in so doing so we are withholding that faith from the God we claim to so heartily be defending.
OK, I’ll stop short of a full-fledged sermon. Enough Iowa.
On To New Hampshire . . .
The entire tenor of the conversation has radically shifted. You don’t hear much religion talk in New Hampshire, you hear about “mavericks and independents and change.” In some sense I am grateful that the religion talk has died down. Or has it?
Politico writes about “religious” voters flocking to Huckabee in NH. Of course that is a pretty small group there, but what I find most fascinating is Politico trying to paint Huckabee as ecumenical. The story opens with anecdotes on Jewish and Catholic supporters for the Huckster. I wonder how long that will last when he makes a “Christ-killer” crack about the Jews or a “Mary worshiper” crack about the Catholics. Anecdotal stories like these are easy to come by, but get me some figures. If Huckabee has ecumenical draw in any significance it would qualify as either the greatest con in American political history, or sad evidence of the depth of the bigotry exception when it comes to Mormons.
The Question in New Hampshire is going to be much more indirect, if it is there at all. The Saturday and Sunday night debates were notable for it lack of religious discussion. One thing keep tickling at the back of my mind. The candidate that is “defined” by his faith sure is not talking about it much in a place where it will not win him a lot of votes. That does not strike me as much of a “definition.”
Lowell: Ouch!
“Profiling”…
The New York Times Magazine on Sunday published a lengthy profile of Mormonism. Not a lot of new information here, and more balanced than many such pieces have been. However, in one section entitled “Persecution and the Art of Secrecy” I cannot help but wonder if they do not seek to perpetuate the “Mormons lie” meme. People fear secrecy, and especially Granite Staters. They just assume something bad is going on in there.
We addressed the issue of secrets before. I refuse to link to it out of respect for Lowell and my other Mormon friends, but I don’t think there are any Mormon “secrets.” There are enough former Mormons, disgruntled and otherwise that have written about it that if you are really interested you can find out whatever you want. Of course, much of it has to be run through a strainer and despun. Secrets build community. I can’t find anything any more sinister than that. Wrong, theologically speaking, perhaps, but not sinister.
Lowell: I’ll have more to say about this later today.
The Bigger Picture…
Here is an op-ed out of Turkey. It looks at what has happened with religion in the primaries so far and ponders what that means for potential Islamic candidate. It does not paint a pretty picture. Question: By playing the religion card as overtly as he has, has Huckabee in fact already, as a candidate, cost us ground in the war against Islamofascist terrorism? The ramifications of The Question run deep.
Setting The Record Straight…
Powerline reprints some thoughts from an AEI scholar emeritus, comparing Huckabee to Jesse Jackson. Dean Barnett made the same comparison 12/20/07.
For the record, I drew the comparison for the first time October 30 of 2007. I actually made a similar point regarding Sam Brownback in the fall of ’06, but we won‘t count that as the race had not taken shape then.
Remember, you read it here first!
Finally, from Lowell: Since our last post there have been two New Hampshire debates. As John noted, what a difference one state makes! After the Sunday night debate Fox News had Frank Luntz on with one of his focus groups. The focus group was fairly overwhelming in its disdain for Huckabee’s playing the religion card. I can’t find the specific clip on-line, but here is one related Luntz clip and here is another. We will not see much Article VI activity, I suspect, until Michigan next week, and I think we will see The Question in all its glory during the South Carolina primary campaign.
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CarlH on 07 Jan 2008 at 9:12 am #
Having reflected for a couple of days about the results in Iowa, the Friday comment by Ralph, and other developments, it’s important for LDS people (like myself) to look at the big picture. John and Lowell have consistently criticized identity politics have on either side of the Evangelical/LDS divide. I’m convinced there is certainly a lot of Mormon identity politics going on in relation to the Romney campaign. I’ve wondered to what extent the focus on “The Question”–and particularly perceived attacks on the LDS religion–has pushed some LDS people toward a stronger identification with the Romney campaign. I definitely think there is some (a lot?) of that going on. It’s something LDS voters need to watch themselves on. Some (many?) LDS people have or had qualms about Romney, for many of the same reasons other conservatives–they have wondered about the bona fides of his conservatism, especially his belated conversion (at least politically) on the abortion issue. Challenges on those issues are clearly “in bounds” (even though I personally think he’s satisfactorily answered those concerns).
On the Evangelical side, I’ve decided that there is really more good news there than my first reaction took into account. While the religious identity politics that Huckabee made so prominent in his appeal in Iowa were very blatant, he still got less than half of the self-identified Evangelical vote (at least according to the CNN entrance polls). Romney got about a fifth of that vote. Not bad, I think given all the circumstances. Even Romney’s campaign almost seems to have acknowledged that what they underestimated was the turnout of the Evangelical voters, not necessarily the split of the vote. Among the Evangelical voters, there was a big component of identity politics, but how much of it was primarily anti-Mormon is impossible to gauge.
That being said, the fact that Huckabee seemed all too willing to use the anti-Mormon card (and refusing to disavow the tactics of some of his supporters), however, says much more about the candidate himself than the Evangelical voters.
That Huckabee and McCain seem now to be engaged in a tag team punching match against Romney, only magnifies this “negative” about Huckabee given the things that have come out of the McCain campaign since early on. As such, I think a McCain-Huckabee ticket would be particularly difficult for LDS voters to get behind.
JLFuller on 07 Jan 2008 at 12:17 pm #
CarlH said:
I don’t disagree with that. Originally I was a McCain supporter and will be if he is nominated. My swing to Romney was more of a mid course correction than a change in destination. It was brought about by all the anti-Mormon junk being splashed about. It was easy for me to correct the misconceptions and challenge deliberate distortions when I came across them. But the more I got into it the more I saw myself drifting away from John. His mother’s remarks finally topped it. Her bias was right up front. It to affect McCain given he was raised with it.
I can understand why many Evangelicals favored Huckabee given he is held in high esteem in his denomination. I feel that way about Romney, although I am not unaware of some of his short comings. I continue to have misgivings about Romney’s ability to take a punch and a couple of other things. However his willingness to get back up after being knocked down and go at it again impresses me. I am anxious to see how that works out for him tomorrow in New Hampshire. Doggedness is a must-have trait for any president. It is what I admire about President Bush.
Huckabee’s comment about politics being a full contact sport resonates with me. Appropriate shots across the bow are part of the rules of the game. But personal shots at Mormons and religion changed all that for me for both McCain and Huckabee. It would be like attacking one’s family. You just don’t do that unless the spouse is a former president. Huckabee’s cranking up of the “Don’t We All Hate Mormons Together?” machine told he could not be an honorable president. I still feel that way. Evangelicals who bought into it tells me a lot about them too. But I have to say most just don’t know enough about Mormons to form an unbiased opinion.
fitzwdarcey on 07 Jan 2008 at 12:56 pm #
I think you are likely correct that many LDS people are attracted to Romney because he shares their faith, and that should not be the reason for support. As this blog has documented, there are also many LDS members who wish Romney wouldn’t run or would end his candidacy so that the anti-Mormon stuff stops. I have read many comments that state that this is the only reason Romney won big in Wyoming. They call Wyoming a Mormon state. The difference is there are not the numbers to back up that claim.
The biggest difference is that Romney is not out specifically courting identity followers. He is also not out alienating evangelicals by saying inflamatory things about their faith. Huckabee, I think, helps drive a lot of LDS members away from himself and possibly the GOP.
I most heartily agree, as I have heard it from many LDS members, that a McCain Huckabee ticket regardless of what order it is in, would be difficult to support for many mormons.
ncultra on 07 Jan 2008 at 4:34 pm #
While it’s reportedly true that less than 50% of the self-identified evangelicals voted for Huckabee, he also beat Romney by less than 10%. I’m pretty sure that the difference between the actual outcome and a Romney victory was that group of evangelicals who voted against the Mormon.
coltakashi on 07 Jan 2008 at 5:51 pm #
I am encouraged by the fact that there are many people in the conservative column among the commentariat who have criticized Mike Huckabee’s encouragement of division and conquest within the Republican Party. On the other hand, with all the attention they have paid to the general points of Huckabee identifying himself as a “Christian leader” and Romney simply identifying himself as a Christian, without any claim to special holiness–even though he gave exactly the same kind of service that Huckabee did as a pastor, and did it entirely without pay. the general news media have not gone after Huckabee and his campaign for this kind of religious fear-based negative campaigning in the way they would if the minority religion being attacked was Judaism or Buddhism or even Islam. It’s as if the national networks agree that Mormons are really weird, so it’s no big deal if one of the candidates mentions it.
I am also disappointed that the major news media has not investigated Huckabee’s background with more thoroughness. They are so concentrated on the horse race and the shifting winds of opinion that they have no time to dig up facts. There is little about Huckabee’s work as governor, as a broadcast businessman, and as a minister. What was his character? Did he act in love, or with selfishness? What did he say about other people, including Mormons, when he was a minister?
I knew people from Arkansas who were amazed that America could elect Bill Clinton, but the news media told little about the escapades that we learned about later during the Whitewater investigation. What we get is an election as a spectator sport, just another form of basketball.
The fact that Huckabee refuses to allow review of the sermons he wrote for his years as a pastor is a red flag. There are twelve years of his thoughts being poured out. What did he say? What is in the sermons that we are not going to find out until the guy with the nuclear codes briefcase is following him around?