A “Presbyterian” Romney - Would It Have Been Different?
Yesterday, Lowell asserted:
I continue to believe that if Mitt Romney were a deeply religious Evangelical Presbyterian, with the same resume, he’d be the presumptive Republican nominee right now, way ahead of McCain, with Huckabee not even in the race. Why? Because Huck would not have been the “values voter” (meaning Evangelical) alternative to Romney. He never would have taken off in Iowa, conservatives would have flocked to Romney, and the entire narrative of this race would be different.
I will not and cannot deny that a creedal Christian, of any stripe, Mitt Romney would have produced a very different narrative to the primaries, but it would far from make him a sure thing. There are any number of reasons and I will discuss a few here.
Evangelical Discontent
Throughout the entire second W. term that has been growing discontent amongst Evangelicals with the Republican party. It is born of an apparent lack of progress on the Evangelical issues, primarily abortion and defense of marriage. Any Republican candidate perceived to be the “establishment” Republican candidate was, and is, in trouble. We see this in Huckabee’s continued acquisition of Evangelical votes, even with Romney gone, and his own status of mathematical impossibility. There has been a revolt brewing for a while.
Iowa Is Nuts
Pat Robertson won Iowa. Howard Dean won Iowa. Iowa is often not predictive, and often, in the Republican caucuses goes seriously religious. Even a creedal Christian Romney would be out “religioned” by a Huckabee, he was a pastor after all. Romney needed Iowa, or New Hampshire, to start the ball rolling, that much is true - but he lost New Hampshire as well, and those people pay no attention to religion. The momentum strategy lost on more fronts that just religion.
Romney’s shot at catch-up after those first two was probably better absent the Mormon factor, but he was still going to be playing catch-up, a risky proposition.
Rudy’s Stumble
Rudy was conservative, but not socially so. He was supposed to coalesce the conservative vote, absent the social conservatives, and then Romney would appear a better alternative since he had some social alternative appeal, and would thus complete the three-legged stool and prevail. But Rudy’s coalescence of the economic and national defense conservatives was necessary for Romney to be able to seal the deal with the social conservatives. As it was, Rudy was a non-factor and that coalescence never occurred. Even if a non-Mormon Romney could have captured social conservatives early, without the coming together of the other two legs, the moderates were going to drive through the hole in the line and sack the quarterback. Otherwise, Huckabee would be at least close, if not winning right now.
This is a conservative loss, not just a religious one.
Never Underestimate Southern Baptist Judgementalism
For better or worse, Evangelicalism is dominated by the Southern Baptist Convention. Now, there are very reasonable and good Southern Baptists - but as a generalization, they condemn not only Mormons, but Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and as my denomination, Presbyterian, moves increasingly leftward, we too become victims of Baptist judgment.
This attitude makes “one of their own” about the only acceptable alternative, particularly in light of the brewing rebellion discussed above. They feel like they have compromised with the areligious (Reagan and Bush I) and the differently religious (Bush II) have have not gotten anywhere. It was going to be one of theirs or it was not going to be at all. A Mitt Romney that was anything other than SBC, particularly with an SBC alternative in the race (Huckabee), was going to lose with social conservatives.
California and Gerrymandering
I think Romney would still be in and fighting today had he managed to at least split the difference with McCain in California on Super Tuesday - and the polls certianly indicated that he should have. However, with congressional district assignment of delegates, combined with congressional districts gerrymandered to favor Democrats, Romney left California almost empty-handed.
The new California primary system is a huge blow to conservatism in general and it has little or nothing to do with religion. A strong Rudy probably would not have faired much better in the Golden State.
Now, again, a non-Mormon Romney would have had a huge effect on the interplay of these factors and things would have gone very, very differently, but a non-Mormon Romney would still be far from a sure thing.
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3 Responses to “A “Presbyterian” Romney - Would It Have Been Different?”
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CarlH on 13 Feb 2008 at 9:16 am #
A 1999 article, “No Man’s Land”: The Place of Latter-day Saints in the Culture War, by BYU Law Professor Frederick Mark Geddicks seems to have anticipated–in an entirely different context–the factors that would give Romney problems in 2008, at least from a religious perspective. (The link is to a webpage from which the entire article (6.83 MB) may be downloaded). His introductory summary could be easily adapted to cover “The Question”:
“Of course on cultural issues there is little question that Latter- day Saints are closer to the ‘orthodox’ right than the ‘progressive’ left. Latter-day Saint beliefs and practices include a traditional allocation of gender roles within a two-parent family, a moral code that forbids all extramarital sexual relations, a law of health that prohibits consumption of coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs, and doctrinal declarations that oppose abortion rights and same-sex marriage. Virtually all of
these Latter-day Saint attitudes and practices are shared with other conservative Christians. ‘A moralism that rejects social and individual permissiveness,’ concludes one study, ‘is where Mormons and conservative Christians stand on common ground.’
“Nevertheless Hunter’s interpretation of the sources of cultural conflict oversimplifies the political relationship of Latter-day Saints to other conservative Christians especially conservative Protestants. Notwithstanding their similar cultural attitudes, Latter-day Saints and conservative Christians are divided on at least three important issues. First, Latter-day Saints have a historically shaped consciousness of the precariousness of minority religious status, a consciousness that is not generally shared by conservative Christians in the United States. Second, their radically different understanding of Christianity makes Latter-day Saints a target of criticism and attacks by more ‘orthodox’ Christians especially fundamentalist and Evangelical
Protestants. Finally, in contrast to the resurgence of conservative Christian activism in the last two decades, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an institution has remained largely apolitical since the 1960s. The first two of these differences actually place Latter-day Saints as
close to the cultural left as to the cultural right, if not closer, while the last places Latter-day Saints outside of the culture war paradigm altogether. All of them suggest that Latter-day Saints should not be uncritically grouped with conservative Christians on cultural issues.”
I think Prof. Gedicks is reaching a bit on the last of his points, particularly given the evidence of voting patterns amount the LDS since at least 1980. But the narrative of Mormons as “the other” has certainly played out in this election cycle in many, many ways.
Among the LDS right now there is a lot of blaming Huckabee personally and Evangelical Christians more generally for the failure of the Romney campaign. I agree with John that view is much oversimplified. On the other hand, Lowell’s statement has much truth to it–not primarily because of the Evangelical voting phenomenon, but because of the drum-beat of the press on The Question–as so thoroughly documented by A6Blog for the past two years–that has dogged Romney from the outset of his campaign (the effect of which, in relation to the early frontrunners, and others, is impossible to measure), and ultimately set up the identity politics that Huckabee’s campaign, and especially his surrogates, exploited to split the social conservative vote. It is not unreasonable to believe, as Lowell does, that Romney would have gained traction much earlier absent the incessant pounding of The Question. The fact that Huckabee’s religious angle still seems mostly to be getting a pass from the press only tends to validate the view, IMO.
CarlH on 13 Feb 2008 at 9:37 am #
Lowell’s comment is obviously unprovable. And John correctly points to a number of other factors that likely played a role in the primary results. However, all of those factors–including Evangelical discontent and Southern Baptist judgmentalism– would likely have played out differently for an Evangelical Presbyterian Romney, rather than a Mormon Romney. (Romney would still have suffered in the South as a “Yankee” with a past record that understandably gave pause to all social conservatives, including LDS ones!)
While there is much blaming of Huckabee personally and Evangelical Christians more generally for Romney’s failure among LDS people right now, my personal view is that–agreeing with Lowell, I think–the difficulty that Romney had in getting traction in the early going and even the Huckabee phenomenon (and even his ability to exploit the Mormon issue among as broad a part of Evangelicals as he has) is due very much in large part by the incessant drum-beat of The Question, both in the mainstream media, and among the political punditry (published and on-line) over since the inception of Romney’s campaign as so thoroughly documented by A6Blog over the past two years.
justamere10 on 13 Feb 2008 at 2:53 pm #
When Mitt Romney’s campaign was in full swing posts ‘exposing’ the Mormons clogged the campaign blogs and comments. Anti-Mormon messages morphed out of nowhere like mushrooms after a rain storm. LDS authorities seemed astonished at the intensity of the criticism…
Read the entire article at:
http://mittromney.townhall.com