Article VI Blog

About That Washington Times Piece . . .

. . . It is drawing almost universal condemnation, or at least denial on the Mormon angle. Although NewsMax retells it, Huck’s Army is talking about it, saying:

I never opposed Romney because of his religion. I think that’s a really bad reason to be against somebody. If Romney had been the person who agreed with me on the issues and campaigned honestly and Mike had been the guy who didn’t have convictions and was willing to be whatever the polls told him to be, I would have been a Romney supporter. I care about the candidate’s character much more than their professed faith.

Meanwhile, the staff at the Real Clear Politics VP Watch blog said this:

So the Hucka-fans are willing to trash Romney to get their guy on the ticket because, among other inanities, he’s a Mormon? Romney might have appeared to conservatives to be too accommodating by half when he ran in the primaries, but the idea that he’s a closet pro-choicer, gay-marriage enabler is laughable.

Which sounds far more like reality to me. The fact that “Huck’s Army” is running away from this story so fast and so hard is evidence that they know it is political poison. Matt Lewis at Townhall calls the story “recycled” and says:

Sure, there might be some anti-Mormon votes out there — but the threat that he would cost McCain 5-7 percent of the vote seems purely hysterical to me.

Hot Air cites the factual problems in the story. But my favorite response comes from The Carpetbagger Report:

For the first open cycle in a long while, the religious right has had no discernible impact on the presidential race. And yet, the movement continues to believe that it’s powerful enough to start calling the shots when it comes to the Republican ticket, or at a minimum, that the religious right can veto those who fall short of its standards.

[…]

This is all terribly foolish.

First, when a guy like Tim LaHaye says, “We aren’t against Mormonism,” it’s not exactly a stretch to think they’re against Mormonism. For many evangelicals, this was a problem during the Republican primaries, and religious right activists haven’t exactly grown more tolerant over the last few months.

Yep. That just about puts it in a nutshell. From my angle this blog has been dedicated to the proposition that Evangelical opposition to Romney based on his faith would spell the end to Evangelical political clout, and we are watching that clout slip away before our very eyes. And yet, not satisfied with the damage done to date, this bunch is pushing this story which can only increase the damage past the point of repair. It is truly, truly sad.

In a slight aside, why no mention of Romney in this analysis? This Colson staff blog has been known to make negative Mormon comments before.

Meanwhile, In Obama Land…

Prayer and a big OOPS:

However, it now appears that Maariv had collaborated with the Obama campaign in getting the “private” prayer, with its “modest” supplication to the Lord, out to the public, buffing his Christian credentials and showing his “humility.”

That’s gonna leave a mark.

For those who missed it, here’s Gerard Baker again, stretching the “Obamessiah” thing to a very funny limit. Good enough to link to a second time.