Again, the Left Wins the Ugly Attack Award; and the Wall Street Journal Speaks
CBS reminds us of something we already knew:
As Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has pondered his choice for vice presidential running mate, there’s been no shortage of unsolicited advice. One of those advisers, the Government Is Not God PAC, has given him $2,000 along with the strong suggestion that he had better not pick former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
The group sprung for an ad this spring calling on social conservatives to sign a “No Mitt” petition, sponsored by Troy Newman of Operation Rescue, Sandy Rios of Culture Campaign and Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation.
That’s old news and the only reason for CBS to carry it now is, as the Veepstakes draw closer to the finish line, to remind people of The Question. Apparently they fear Romney in the #2 role almost as much as they did in the top slot.
Lower Down The Ticket . . .
A congressional race in Tennessee, is getting too ugly to believe. Sometimes I wish there was a way to censor campaigns – but come to think of it there is! It’s called voting.
But Worst Of All . . .
Comes a column from an admitted Obama supporter out of Pensacola:
But Bobby Jindal, now serving as the Republican governor of Louisiana, tells the story about how he personally helped cast supernatural spirits out of the body of one of his close friends. That occurred before the Republican Party helped him get elected as governor, but that creepy story is resurfacing since Jindal’s name keeps coming up as a possible vice-presidential candidate for John McCain.
[...]
Mitt Romney is the less creepy choice. But it is a tough choice nonetheless. There is no question that Mitt is on McCain’s very short list for vice president, and again, as an Obama supporter, I’m good with that. I remember when Mitt spent $97 million during his primary race. In the end, he was regarded so poorly by his own party that he actually had to spend $380,000 for every primary delegate he bought.
But it wasn’t just the perfect hair and the weird banker’s smile that plagued Mitt.
Republican dirty-trick types were incredibly successful in equating Mormonism with cult-like groups such as the Moonies, Scientologists and Wiccans. Mitt’s own party spent millions undermining both Mitt and Mormonism. In the end, Romney ended up looking like a UFO follower patiently waiting for his alien mother ship to pick him up and fly him back to Planet Kolab.
Let’s see, in a single short column, this guy manages to smear just about everyone on the right or in the Republican party. But I have to tel youl, to take pot shots at Jindal for claims to have participated in an exorcism, in other words attacking his faith as weird, and then, just four paragraphs later, accusing those making such attacks on Romney as “dirty-trickers” absolutely defies credulity to me. Apparently it is only a dirty trick when the other side does it.
I guess I should not get so riled up about a piece from a small local paper that is practically incoherent, but when it is so dipped in poison, as opposed to opposition, it simply must be decried.
The Wall Street Journal Takes the Pragmatic View
Lowell adds:
In its lead editorial today, the Journal ran a summary of McCain’s best choices, and said this about The Question:
A name often mentioned is Mitt Romney, who looks and speaks the part and as an entrepreneur himself could help on the economy. The former Massachusetts Governor failed to catch fire in the primaries, though, and, however unfairly, his Mormonism seems to be an issue with many evangelicals. Our own concern is that he continues to defend his state health-care reform even as it looks increasingly like a fiscal disaster.
(Emphasis added.) This is fascinating on several levels. To begin with, the same piece describes Senator Joe Lieberman as “a splendid VP in our book” who “is solid on foreign policy and taxes,” but would “probably alienate too many social conservatives.” No mention of whether Lieberman’s Orthodox Jewish faith would “be an issue” with any voter demographic.
So maybe Judaism has passed the “Kennedy test” and is now an acceptable faith for a presidential candidate, just as Catholicism is. (I am not so sure.)
I always like to re-cast statements made in the press about Romney’s Mormonism, using other personal characteristics. Try these evaluations of any potential vice presidential pick:
- “However unfairly, his Hispanic heritage seems to be an issue with many anglo voters.”
- “However unfairly, his African-American ancestry seems to be an issue with many white voters.”
- “However unfairly, her female gender seems to be an issue with many voters.”
Kind of hard to imagine, aren’t they?
What we have here is the foremost conservative editorial page in the country throwing up its hands on this question: Can a Mormon be elected president?
No, they say; that’s unfair, but it’s the reality.
I am not convinced, but for discussion purposes, let’s assume they are.
If you’re a Mormon kid in this country, your parents cannot yet tell you that you can grow up to be president of the United States.
If you’re an evangelical, even one who supported Romney for president and who would like to see him as vice president, you must accept the distasteful reality that enough of your co-religionists have made such a stink about Romney’s faith that the leading conservative newspaper in the turns thinks the Governor is not viable as McCain’s running mate.
If you’re James Dobson or Al Mohler, you might toss and turn just a bit in your bed at night and wonder if you should have shown a bit more leadership — even a little spine — toward those who look to you as a leader.
Maybe you regret just a little bit that a paper like the Journal, which is friendly to the people you lead, simply assumes the existence of unyielding religious prejudice among them.
Maybe you regret even more that the Journal finds such prejudice so unyielding that a political candidate who professes a particular religion is unable to serve.
Maybe you realize that you were in a position to stop that from happening, but did nothing — and probably even gave license to the prejudiced members of your flock.
That cannot feel good, deep down.
We might have a chance to see if the Journal is right, if McCain does pick Romney.
I have my doubts. But what we should all be thinking about is the place to which we have come.
It is not pretty.
John comments on the WSJ: Fact – some Evangelicals have a problem with Romney because he is a Mormon. Question – is it enough to disqualify him from consideration as Vice President? If we answer “yes” it is to our shame, if we answer “no,” there is a segment of Evangelicals that would as a result be banished to the political wilderness.
Some things to think about in answering this question:
- The “McCain coalition” inside the Republican party, currently the most powerful faction therein, does not include Evangelicals – he got here without us.
- There is a difference between opposition to and discomfort with Mormonism. Many Evangelicals have a discomfort level, but few, I think, have outright opposition.
- People are lazy and it was therefore easier to vote for Mike Huckabee in the primary than do the work necessary to overcome the discomfort. There is no Mike Huckabee in the general. There is no one else for the uncomfortable to vote for, so worst case scenarios, they stay home, but opposition votes are not going to happen. Given the composition of the “McCain coalition” that may not be nearly as disasterous as people want to think.
- People vote for the president, not the vice-president. Any anti-Mormon sentiment is going to be significantly muted by that fact – think orders of magnitude.
- We no longer hear NOTABLE Evangelical leaders making anti-Romney noises. We are hearing it from also-rans and wanna-bes, but not from the bigs – We are not even hearing The Question from the bigs.
Put all this together and what do we have? We have a concern, but probably not “an issue,” and certainly not a deal-killer. It is truly sad that we must even be concerned with any candidate’s religious affiliation, we discussed that yesterday. But that said, identity politics, in all its forms, do seem to be a fact of life this cycle. In my opinion, the best we can hope for is to try and make sure all identities get a fair shake.
So, where are we?
- Identity matters in politics, that is a sad fact right now. We have to change that or it will spell the end of the Republic, but that change will not happen in this cycle.
- Romney’s Mormon identity, in the Veep discussion, may be getting that game played a bit louder than other identities, but it is still the same game that is being played for every candidate.
- Romney’s Mormon identity is probably not a deciding factor in this one.
One man’s opinion.
Lowell’s final comment:
I’ll pose one further question: Will any credible national Evangelical leader write to the Wall Street Journal and take issue with the Journal’s pragmatic conclusion that “however unfairly [Romney's] Mormonism seems to be an issue with many evangelicals,” and that he is therefore a problematic choice for veep? For that matter, will any such leader state even the views that John has expressed above?
That would be nice to see, but I am not holding my breath. We can expect the deafening silence on this issue, from those who should be leading on it, to continue.
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