Debate Comment (Updated)

Lowell: Well, just when we thought it really was quiet and The Question was fading away, it did come up in the debate, about 70 minutes in. Brian Williams touted an NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll that’s set to be released this morning, and noted that 44% responded that they still had concerns about a Mormon serving as president. (We will post the poll’s exact question and numbers as soon as they are published.)

Romney’s response, paraphrased: “I don’t think the American people will choose their president based on where he goes to church.”

That was not all he said, but he did get right to the heart of the issue.

Update: Here’s the entire exchange between Brian Williams and Gov. Romney:

Williams: Governor, we’ve got an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll coming out in the morning that says, among a lot of other things, 44 percent of respondents say a Mormon president would have a difficult time uniting the country. And I know you’ve answered similar questions about what you were able to do with the Catholic vote in Massachusetts, but 44 percent nationally, writ large, is a large number.

Romney: You know, I just don’t believe that people in this country are going to choose their candidate based on which church he or she goes to. I just don’t believe that. And, you know, polls ask people a lot of questions. And my faith isn’t terribly well known around this country. But I don’t think for a minute the American people are going to say, you know what, we’re not going to vote for this guy for a secular position because of his church. I just don’t believe it.

I think when the Constitution and the founders said no religious test shall ever be required for qualification for office or public trust in these United States, that the founders meant just that. And I don’t believe for a minute that Republicans or Americans, for that matter, are going to impose a religious test when the founders said it’s as un-American as anything you can think of.

I just don’t believe it.

And so I believe that I’ll ultimately get the nomination. I can’t be sure of that, but I’m pretty confident. And I believe in a head-to-head with Hillary Clinton.

The differences in our perspectives on how to get America going again and how to get us on the right track are as different as night and day. She takes her inspiration from the Europe of old, big brother, big government, big taxes. I take mine from Republican ideals — small government, small taxes, individual freedom.

I believe that free American people are the source of America’s greatness. And so I don’t think you’re going to see religion figuring into this race after people have had a chance to get to know all the candidates.

And here are the raw poll questions and data.

John adds: I think the Eris Trager at the Commentary Magazine blog said it best:

Tim Russert’s question citing a poll in which 44% of respondents claimed that a Mormon president could not unite the country was the lowest of blows.

Frankly, I think the press needs this religion story. They bet the farm on it more than a year ago.

Besides…

Time magazine is wondering if James Dobson is not stealthily backing Romney:

Christian right leaders are abuzz today because a new online candidate guide that has been posted by Focus on the Family Action, the political arm of Jim Dobson’s conservative Christian empire. The webpage offers edited excerpts of recent webcasts with the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, explaining where the candidates stand on “pro-family issues.”

[…]

This is all to be expected. But then it gets controversial. The video on Mike Huckabee, who is the overwhelming favorite among the nation’s evangelical voters, is surprisingly harsh. After praising Huckabee’s social views, both Perkins and Tom Minnery, a policy expert at Focus on the Family, hammer the former Arkansas governor for his foreign policy views. Minnery suggests that Huckabee does not understand the cause for which American troops are dying in Iraq. Then Perkins suggests that Huckabee lacks the fiscal and national security credentials needed for a conservative presidential candidate. “The conservatives have been successful in electing candidates, and presidents in particular, when they have had a candidate that can address not only the social issues, [but] the fiscal issues and the defense issues,” says Perkins. “[Huckabee] has got to reach out to the fiscal conservatives and the security conservatives.” Ouch.

So what about Romney? He comes up roses. “He has staked out positions on all three of the areas that we have discussed,” says Perkins. “I think he continues to be solidly conservative.” Then Minnery defends Romney from criticism that he is too polished and smooth. “Mitt Romney has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith,” Minnery adds. “But on the social issues we are so similar.”

None of these people endorse candidates in the primary as a matter of policy. Perkins participation is fascinating to me given that he has released two of his vital staffers to the Huckabee campaign, but these guys are also smart political operatives and the idea is to get behind a winner. Huckabee is a lot of things, but he is clearly not going to win this primary.

The picture seems pretty simple to me. Romney was leading with social conservatives until Huckbee put himself on their radar at the Values Voters Conference last spring. Then the dalliance, affair, whatever metaphorical noun you want to chose, began. But like all flirtation, it’s fun, but can never be serious. Commitment, energy and depth are required.

As the affair ends, there will be much thrashing and gnashing, but like all such things, the primary relationship will emerge stregthened when we are through it.

Lowell interjects: “Mitt Romney has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith.” I think he’s overstating the point a bit, but the statement does reflect an emerging alliance, which we’ve been predicting for some time. (Well, John has; I’ve just been hoping for it.)

Nothing does away with bias and bigotry like success . . .

In general, the word “Mormon” just does not come up much anymore - Well, until that silly question in teh debate and that is certainly the exception, not the rule. This has much to do with the fact that Mitt Romney’s success to date gives his critics little place to stand. Secondly, things are just too serious for a sideline issue like that. However, it is a crying shame that it was such a feature of the silly season. Thirdly, the criticism leveled at those that did engage in the worst of the discussion during the silly season has both delegitimized further discussion and innoculated Romney against just about any attack on this front.

But what I really wonder is if the various coded substitutes for “Mormon” have taken such root that it is no longer necessary to take the issue on straight? Well, we don’t hear the first of the great codes first - that being “flip-flop” - much but we have the new “too good” meme.

I hope somebody is doing some polling after votes are cast to ferret it out the answer to this question.

Meanwhile In The World Of The Real Religion-based Candidate . . .

Maybe Huck is the real reason the “Mormon” question is so quiet, he has so exclusively captured the religion spotlight.

The American Conservative writes of “The Audacity of Huck.”

It is precisely Armey’s understanding of “balance” that has created the backlash for Huckabee. Consider: Romney’s conversion to social conservatism is recent and, to many, unconvincing. Yet National Review endorsed him. Giuliani has been considered an enemy of social conservatism since he was first elected mayor of New York. And John McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts. Writing in The American Spectator, George Nuemayr sympathized with evangelicals: “How is it that the bar of conservative entry for a presidential nominee lowers for the Romneys and McCains, then rises for the Huckabees?” Nuemayr suspects that vitriol is directed at Huckabee not because he “takes this or that heterodox position on issues of economics/trade/foreign policy; it is that he’s a transparent Christian conservative.”

Oh, so now Huck is the victim of religious bias? Well, in a sense that is true, but it is precisely because he ran on his religion. It’s not bias, it’s the thing he tilted up for people to shoot at and that IS a problem. Ours is a nation of laws, laws adopted by a prescribed method. This method often aligns with the religious convictions of many, but not always, and to change that fact would be to eliminate freedom. There has been some interesting blog commentary of this as well.

And while we are on the subject of Huck, some former pastors do politics with more style than he does, thankfully.

And about Baptists:

But at the same time, their internal squabbles, racial and ideological splits and sometimes controversial positions have cemented the image that the thing Baptists most agree on is their penchant to be disagreeable.

The article is about trying to heal rifts inside the SBC, but those rifts should give one some insight into the Huckabee campaign, what it has done well, and why it is now failing.

Meanwhile…

Things are getting testy in religion and politics in Korea. Fascinating.

Serious or tongue-in-cheek. You decide.
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