Now here’s something: Orson Scott Card asks McCain not to name Romney his running mate. Why? Here are the crucial ‘graphs from OSC’s open letter to Senator McCain:

What Mitt Romney would do, as your vice presidential candidate, is weaken you in areas that you absolutely must carry: The South and the Bible Belt.

You cannot afford to underestimate the number of people who will never vote for a ticket that includes a Mormon.

Even if the number is as low as ten percent of the Evangelical Christian voting base — an optimistic estimate — that saps your strength where you need to rack up large majorities.

When you consider that in the South, the black vote will — understandably! — be energized and turn out in record numbers, the last thing you need is for the Evangelical Christian vote to be unenthusiastic, with large numbers of them sitting it out.

Can you afford to run the risk of losing a single southern state? Because that is the risk that Romney as your Vice President would expose you to.

It’s going to take time — years! — for Romney, through his own efforts, to overcome the unjustified but genuine bias against Mormons. In four years or eight years he might be perfectly viable in these regions.

But right now, at this precise moment, he is not. No Mormon would be. . . .

[E]ven though I am every bit as much a Mormon as Mitt Romney, and I resent the slanders that have led Evangelical Christians to hate us, I must beg you not to make the mistake of appointing him as your running mate.

(Emphasis added.) OSC is a keen observer of national politics and has lived in North Carolina for many years, so his views deserve respect and attention. Our regular reader and commenter coltakashi, who pointed us to OSC’s post, observes:

If [Card] is correct, I am amazed that a lot of people in the South would think that a Mormon who is a father of 5 sons and many grandchildren, and married to the same woman for over 35 years, is a greater danger to Evangelical Christians than a man whose “Christianity” has no problem with gay marriage and abortion and whose pastor for 20 years has . . . said “God d–n America.”

Well, Coltakashi, you read this blog and so you know we agree with you. Truthfully, however, I just don’t know if Orson Scott Card is right or not. I hope he is wrong; I fear he is right.

You cannot afford to underestimate the number of people who will never vote for a ticket that includes a Mormon.

There was a time when I was very skeptical of such claims. I remain skeptical, but less so.

For example, there really are no hard polling data supporting OSC’s assertion, but . . . but . . . are polls worth anything in this context? Do people answer questions about The Question honestly? Outside the sanctity of the voting booth, will likely voters really admit, unashamedly, that they would never vote for a Mormon?

Yes, in the primaries Romney actually did well among Evangelical voters. But what about that chunk of Evangelicals in places like South Carolina who went overwhelmingly for Huckabee? We suggested here that the pro-Huck Evangelical vote was based on identity — the “he’s one of us” phenomenon.

But did all those pro-Huck voters make their choice on that basis? Lurking among that slice of the Evangelical vote, is there a sizable group who will be “unenthusiastic, with large numbers of them sitting it out,” as OSC claims?

I hope not. But who can really know? I would feel more comfortable if I felt assured that the James Dobsons and Al Mohlers of the world would exercise some leadership, like making a passionate case for Evangelicals voting for Romney the Mormon.

So far that has not happened. Dobson seemed very favorably disposed to Romney, but afraid of his constituency’s reaction to any endorsement or even any encouragement to vote for a Mormon. Mohler seemed to have a genuine conscience-based reluctance to vote for a Mormon, for fear of “mainstreaming” a religion he feels is false. Result: Mike Huckabee’s remarkable success as “the Evangelical candidate,” in splitting the social conservative vote, and eventually in assuring John McCain’s nomination.

It’s going to take time — years! — for Romney, through his own efforts, to overcome the unjustified but genuine bias against Mormons.

I disagree with OSC here, at least in part. It is not any candidate’s job to overcome religious bias. Card’s point that it will take time to overcome anti-Mormon electoral bias is spot-on, however. I suppose having a Mormon veep candidate would help.

I end with another question: How will anti-Mormon voters really vote in a race involving a Mormon vice presidential nominee? Will they vote at all? And is the group of voters who actually care about a candidate’s religion big enough to make a difference? The fact is, no one really knows.

John (back but grossly jet-lagged) comments: Absent Huckabee, The Question is a problem only for a minority of Evangelicals. Most Evangelicals did not side with Huck because of the Question, just because he was “one of them.” No such forces at play in the general. What a Romney Veep nod would do is marginalize the radically conservative and bigoted Evangelical minority permanently. Not such a bad thing in my book.

News Media Consistency Watch

The Pew Forum excerpts this Wall Street Journal piece (Journal link may require subscription), which examines in depth Bobby Jindal’s conversion from Hinduism to Catholicism. The conclusion:

“I’ve always thought that each of us as an individual should make our own decisions,” said Mr. Jindal. “I think it is unfortunate that so often in modern society we tend to try to group people by stereotypes and hyphenated identifications.” That’s a lesson he may soon be taking to a wider audience.

Well. That seems reasonable to me, but I do wonder:

• What will the more extreme elements of creedal christianity — the ones who find Romney insufficiently Christian — think of Jindal’s Hindu upbringing and conversion to Catholicism, rather than an Evangelical faith? In Louisiana it’s very safe for a politician to be a Catholic convert. What about Iowa and South Carolina?
• Will opponents use Jindal’s religious background against him, as in photos of Jindal as a boy in Hindu traditional dress? Will someone like Mike Huckabee innocently ask a New York Times reporter, “But isn’t Bobby’s real name Piyush?”
• Should Jindal need to discuss his religious conversion and current beliefs at all? (I vote no.)

It has been a strange year for religion and presidential politics.
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