Romney: pitch-perfect on “doctrines” vs. “practices”
As an addendum to John’s post earlier today, here’s some more about that incident in Wisconsin yesterday. There is video is at the link, but the most important part of the event is reported there as well, in Romney’s follow-up comments:
“This gentleman wanted to talk about the doctrines of my religion. I’ll talk about the practices of my faith,” [Romney] said. “I had the occasion in my church to be asked to be the pastor, if you will, of a congregation.”
Romney described his work as a bishop in his suburban Boston ward, or church. Mormon clergy, called bishops, are unpaid leadership positions and perform similar duties as pastors do in other churches.
Romney described counseling church members dealing “with unemployment, with marital difficulties, with health difficulties of their own and with their kids.”
After addressing his religion in a speech during the 2008 Republican primary campaign, this campaign cycle Romney has attempted to keep his focus on the economy. The occasional references he makes to his church often deal with his time spent working with struggling parishioners.
“When you get a chance to know people on a very personal basis, whether you’re serving as a pastor or as a counselor or in other kinds of roles, you understand that every kind of person you see is facing some challenges,” Romney said Monday. “And one of the reasons I’m running for president of the United States is I want to help people, I want to lighten those burdens.”
This is exactly what Gov. Romney ought to be saying about religious questions that come his way. No, he’s not a spokesman for the church; it would be politically silly for him to take on that role, and it’s not fair to expect him to do so. But when he talks about what his faith meant to him in his life and how he served, people get a better sense of Romney the man. That is much more important to know about a presidential candidate than what he thinks about the proper mode of baptism.
The later comments to the news media by his questioner, Mr. Hatch, are also instructive — or should be, if anyone in the MSM is paying attention:
Speaking with reporters after the event, Hatch, the questioner, said he believed his question was relevant considering the general election race against President Barack Obama.
“Either he believes the Book of Mormon or he doesn’t,” Hatch said. “I think that’s an important issue. He’s going up against a black guy! He’s going against Obama. This is a racial issue.”
Here we have someone who is not a Mormon trying to tell the world what Mormons believe. (The guy is interpreting the Book of Mormon, for goodness’ sake!) It is ridiculous to begin with and irrelevant in any event. The account would have been more accurate and balanced if it had included a sentence something like this: “Hatch, who said he is is not a Mormon, said….” As for what the church believes and teaches about race, that’s crystal clear and was restated only a few weeks ago. The MSM should know that, rather than give space to seemingly crackpot questioners with an axe to grind from rival campaigns.
But as we have said before, the MSM has a certain reaction to efforts like Mr. Hatch’s. It reminds me of the way our family’s house cats respond to this:
They just can’t resist it.
Posted in News Media Bias, Understanding Religion | 4 Comments » | 
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JLF9999 on 03 Apr 2012 at 2:19 pm #
The ban on blacks in the priesthood is something we Mormons have debated for decades. It is nothing new to us. Interested readers can go to this website for a more thorough discussion but I doubt that Mr Hatch wanted to discuss the issue with Mitt. He was looking for a “gotcha” moment. It is plain to see young Mr. Hatch could not care less what Mitt had to say about the subject as long as he could attack him for something. His was a political calculation, one that I am sure we will see again. Fair enough. Mitt handled it well. But you would think the opposition would do a better job of preparing for their moment and not waste it. He had to know what Mitt would say if he had just done a tiny bit prep.
coltakashi on 03 Apr 2012 at 11:42 pm #
Does the LDS Church public affairs office have an on-call media relations number that reporters can call and get an answer on what Mormons really believe when some ignoramus makes a “when did you stop beating your wife” attack like this? I know the Church doesn’t want to look like it is part of Romney’s campaign team, but so much junk like this gets circulated before the Church can pick it up through monitoring and respond in a normal way, so that the response never catches up with the original breaking news. If the Church had a cadre of public affairs specialists who could be contacted 24/7 when a reporter is writing a story like this, perhaps the rebuttal could at least get a line in the story. I would think that any reporter who is fair minded and knows about a rapid answer service, someone who can give them a pithy response, like “There are many Mormon families of mixed racial heritage, and there has never been a teaching prohibiting such marriages. Mormons reflect the larger populations where they live. For example, in places like Brazil and Hawaii, the mixture of different ethnicities in the population is reflected in the Church membership there.”
coltakashi on 04 Apr 2012 at 12:05 am #
Watching the coverage of the Romney blowout in Wisconsin, Maryland and DC tonight, the story is Romney dominance, and the weirdo racial intermarriage attack is nowhere evident. I guess part of the best response to that kind of junk news is to make positive news that crowds the other stuff off the air.
In the service of that, may I suggest that Romney’s team work on crafting some short and memorable statements that reporters and viewers will want to take away with them, some phrases that will be self-sustaining in word-of-mouth tweets and office conversations. Tweaking an already resonant phrase from American history, parallel to iconic statements in the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address or in patriotic hymns like America the Beautiful, with a variation that speaks to the issues in the present contest, can help to provoke thought and evoke emotion. It needs to feel organic to the message, not a forced connection.
Perhaps something like “The current contest for the Congress and the presidency will determine whether we are free to make our own lives, or lose that control to bureaucrats who think they are smarter than we are. Our nation needs a new birth of economic freedom so that we can govern our own lives.”
Bookmarks 04/04/2012 « Conservative First on 04 Apr 2012 at 6:18 am #
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