Article VI Blog

The last week has illustrated, once again, that there is a strong “not Romney” sentiment in the party.  When presented with an option of any sort, a large segment of the Republican base takes off for that option at something approaching warp speed.  It is this blog’s raison d’etre to examine religion’s role in that “not Romney” movement.  We have said many time here that religion is at play, but it is only one factor in a more complex equation and we need to spend a little time analyzing other factors, if for no other reason than to be able to counteract them.

Team Romney seems to be relying heavily on the fact that they really are the only viable candidate when the general rolls around  (let’s face it – if one thinks on traditional political lines, Santorum, Gingrich or Paul result in 48 states going to Obama, and losing the House) and that these “not Romney” spasms will pass and they will be fine.  There is a lot of sense to that notion; however, if some of the not Romney objections go completely unaddressed they run the risk of alienating this portion of the base sufficiently that they will stay home for the general.  Even the levels of Obama disgust in the party might not be enough to bring them out should they decide Romney is utterly deaf to their concerns.  Why bother if you have two “deaf” candidates?

Of course, one of the factors at play amongst the “not Romney” forces is Team Obama themselves.  We have written about this several times already, so I will not belabor the arguments.  It is; however, very disappointing that we allow ourselves to be played this way.  It is bad enough that the Dems are dabbling on our primary, but it is worse that we are falling for it.  Does this mean we lay down for Obama’s smackdown at religion?  Of course not, it just means we do not meet his expectations in our response.

I promise you that sometime this summer you will see Obama tack towards the center on this issue.  I cannot promise you that if we have committed ourselves to one of the lower probability of November victory candidates when he does that I will refuse to engage in a serious “I told you so” post or two.

The second non-religious factor at play requires more discussion.  Romney has been widely discussed as “the next in line” Republican and we do usually go for the next in line.  That said, much of the base thinks that the “next in line” mentality is responsible for Obama’s election becasue it gave us John McCain who probably could not have beaten my little sister were she the Democrat candidate.  The spectre of Bob Dole also hangs out there in this mindset as well.

But these people forget that Ronald Reagan was also the “next in line” by the time we got to the primary that he actually won.  His previous attempt and his work in and for the party had definitely given him that position.  Chances are very good that even Reagan could not have beaten Carter in ’76; the post-Nixon resentment of Republicans was just too strong.

The “next in line” approach puts our candidate through a crucible that tends to purify and temper them in a special way that, while it does not always produce winners, generally produces very good presidents.  If you examine the post-FDR White House I think you will note the Republican average is much higher than the Democrat one.  LBJ, Carter, and now Obama are all unmitigated disasters at the job.  Even Nixon with his enormous downside was not as bad at the job as any of those three.

The Dems have there own proving ground for presidential candidates, and Carter and Obama both represent deviations from that system.  Obama particularly beat the “Democratic elite” defined narrative that had practically coronated Hillary Clinton before Iowa.  The far left extremists of the Democratic party grew impatient and insisted on someone that agreed with them as opposed to someone who would simply advance the ball generally in their direction.  But with the exception of the radicals, most Democrats that I know know that Hillary Clinton would have done a far better job actually being president than Obama.  Heck, even I think that and I don’t think much of either Obama or Hillary.

As Republicans, we stand today in the very same position.  The far right of our party has grown impatient with the slow progress we make when in office, and the backwards steps when out.  They presume our presidential proving grounds, the “next in line” system, to be the problem.   It’s not – what it is is the thing that gives us our record of success when we manage to gain power.

Way back before Iowa, during Gingrich surge 1.0, I wrote the following:

Rather than the “peaceful transition of power” which has separated this nation from so many others, and is the basis for our freedom, we stand on the brink of wider and wider swings in our political transitions.  Something that would make the base on which we all stand far less firm than we have come to enjoy.

As the sober grown-ups, the Republicans have been the damper on the pendulum and maintained the base for all of us.  Neither the bigotry of anti-Mormonism nor the bloodlust expressed in support for Gingrich’s intemperance are pendulum dampening forces.  If the first two years of Obama prove anything, they prove that as Republicans we must hold our sobriety and reason even tighter.  The counter to a pendulum threatening to swing out of control is not to force it to swing more widely in the opposite direction, but to make it swing less in either direction.

There is much to separate Gingrich and Santorum.  Gingrich was, and is, repulsive as a candidate.  There is nothing repulsive about Rick Santorum and there is much to admire.  But his surge still represents swinging the pendulum more widely, not less.  This is a big part of what “next in line” does for  us.  It is part of holding our sobriety and reason tighter.

Is Romney perfect?  Far from it – who amongst us isn’t?  But he has been tested far beyond the alternatives.  That is a thing of value and should not be discarded.

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Last week at Time, Charles Murray had a piece on elitism, which prompted a discussion about meritocracy.  The REAL discussion is about resentment, and the fact that the unsuccessful seem to resent the successful.  I would add the resentment comes regardless of how the successful gained their success – it’s about something deeper.

It is the deepest of the theological mysteries as to the role of merit in the receipt of God’s blessing.  Not a mystery I want to even begin to untangle here.  I simply want to note one simple fact – the blessings are God’s to bestow.  Heck, even if you do not believe in a personal deity, the blessings are fate’s to bestow.  There is something, apart from us, that acts in who succeeds and who fails.  Unless, of course, we live in a totally areligious, fully materialistic reality.  But most Americans still believe in some sort of higher power, so let’s stick with the presumption.

Because blessing comes from something other than ourselves, to some unknown extent, there are two effects that should occur.  One, the successful cannot become too impressed with themselves because they know their success is not entirely of their own doing.  Two, the unsuccessful should be at least a bit more content in their circumstance because they know there is something behind it other than just failure or exploitation.  An egalitarian vision?  Perhaps – but this is where religion comes into the picture.

If success is a matter of “dumb luck,” simply the fates, then the picture is truly egalitarian.  But if success is in some part a matter of the will of a deity,  well then the deity defines, on some scale we may never understand, “merit.”  However, the effects of humility in the successful and contentment in the less successful holds evenly because of shared respect for the deity.  Lordliness and resentment are a result of rejection of the deity.

Two consequences to this analysis.  One, the reason there is a higher level of resentment today is because there is less acceptance of deific intervention.  Simply put, people no longer take comfort in their God and their faith.  This is a problem for the church to solve.

The other consequence lays in the lordliness we have seen, most especially from the current administration.  In a system such as our democracy, it is incumbent on those in power to act in humility – humility that can only be born of faith given a nation as powerful as ours.  This is where religion and politics MUST intersect.

And please note I have made this argument without reference to holy books or specific deities.  This is heart of the American civil religion.

This is the subject of a book, not a blog post, so forgive me if the discussion is fragmented and incomplete.

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Well, that’s what the pundits are calling it. “Home state,” of course, is a veiled way of saying “a state with a sizeable Mormon population.” (Fact: Nevada’s Mormons comprise 7% of its citizenry.) I’ve been following the Twitter commentary all day, and that theme has been relentless. There were comments on how Mormons organize informally, tweets from the Hard-right punditry wondering why Mormons even support Romney, and so on.

Finally, as the polls were closing, frequent Romney critic David Freddoso of NRO let loose an inconvenient bit of information:

“Non-Mormons seem to have preferred Romney over Gingrich by 42%-26%, a margin similar to that in Florida” http://bit.ly/wffowM

Oops.

Fox is also reporting that Romney won Catholics by a 2 to 1 margin, against two Catholic opponents.

Oops again.

Finally, Justin Hart, a Romney supporter, tweeted that if not a single Mormon had voted in Nevada, Romney would still have won by 20 points. You can do the arithmetic.

We do not – not – expect the news media to drop its obsession with Romney’s Mormonism as a theme for much of their analysis of his success. But we do like to point out, as often as we can, how specious their analysis is.

We also got this, in Romney’s victory speech:

“I will protect religious freedom and will overturn any regulation that tramples on our first freedom: our right to worship as we choose.”

That is clearly a reference to this week’s Obama administration rule requiring faith-based employers to include contraception services (including elective abortions) in the health insurance plans they offer their employees. We blogged about that in our post this morning. I am sure that John’s heart is gladdened by Romney’s statement, as is mine. No doubt Romney will develop that theme in the coming weeks and months. Jennifer Rubin tweeted that it will probably be a major attack point for him.

We’ll have more to say after all the numbers are in and the dust settles.

UPDATE: Even Gingrich just excused his crushing defeat by noting that “Nevada is a heavily Mormon state.” Will the press let him get away with that? Probably.

John, The Next Morning Says

In all my morning reading, only one source notes Newt’s clear Mormon swipe.  We did the math yesterday morning on this thing.  Not to mention that I fail to understand how 7% of anything is “heavily.”

I spent several years of my life in the early ’90′s working the gold mines in Nevada.  Mining is the second biggest industry in the state, behind gaming.  (I am an environmental consultant after all.)  There are very few roads in the state I have not driven on in part because there are very few roads in the state outside of Las Vegas and Reno.  In all that travel I don’t think I can remember seeing a stake house.  I can not leave my house here in SoCal without tripping over a Mormon structure of some sort, but in Nevada? – give me a break.

Gingrich’s comment is simply despicable.  Gingrich is done as a candidate.  Santorum has a case yet to make, but Gingrich is done.  Sadly, he will garner enormous press because he is a good show – but like most of what passes for “good TV” these days, its side show material – a little off color, trashy, with just a hint of forbidden.

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Indications out of Florida are that Evangelicals may be beginning to figure things out.   However, in certain bastions, in this case Texas, it is a difficult struggle:

Christian conservatives are gradually coming to terms with the idea that Mitt Romney might be the GOP nominee. And they’ve got some advice if he wants evangelicals to turn out and vote for him in November. Leading social conservatives want Romney to be very public about opposing abortion and gay marriage. The fact that he’s been all over the board on these issues is a problem, along with his Mormonism, but leaders say if Romney has any hopes of rallying the Christian faithful in the fall, he’ll have to be demonstrative in support of the social issues they care about. That, of course, is exactly what the opposite of what his political advisers are likely to recommend for a general election – where Romney will be trolling for votes among independents and moderates

Who knows if this is the true source of the objections or it is cover for simple theological bigotry, but there is one important fact that Evangelicals that are in the camp described have to bear in the mind.  We live in a highly divided nation on the matter of abortion and on the matter of same-sex marriage we are losing ground.  From that essential fact flows one important related fact – it’s not about the presidency.  Abortion is legal due to the courts and same-sex marriage is at the moment a states issue, which is where it should remain.

So, two conclusions flow from these facts.  One, if you want to affect these issues, focusing on the presidential election is pouring your resources down the wrong hole.  Yes the president appoints court members, but even then – a “litmus test” qualification for the court is in violation of the spirit of the constitution.  Which leads me to the second conclusion.

Long before we lost the political and legal battles, we lost in the court of public opinion on abortion.  (If you are among those that believe the court “rammed Roe v Wade down our throat,” check the records – states were legalizing abortion at a rapid pace legislatively.)  We have not yet lost the political battle on same sex marriage, but we re losing the battle in the court of public opinion.  Why?  Somewhere, we have lost our ability to change people’s minds and characters.  That is what the church is supposed to do.  The salvation narrative common to all Christian faiths is about changing people from “sinners” to “saints.”  Among the changes that such a conversion would seemingly create in an individual is an understanding of the social ills of things like abortion and same sex marriage.

The POTUS has to, I repeat HAS TO, be the president for all of the American people – even those that support abortion and same sex marriage.  If my evangelical brethren want a POTUS that is more forceful on these important issues, then maybe they should be spending more time on the the character changing aspects of the church’s mission and less on politics.  I think if they did, the politics might take care of itself.

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In this continuation of our inquiry into which candidate is the one whom people of faith should support, I’ll ask our readers to leave aside any judgments about Newt Gingrich’s admitted past moral mistakes, including his serial infidelities and the related divorces.

No, I want you to think, not about those mistakes, but about how easily he lies about them, how glibly he obfuscates the moral clarity surrounding them.

Not Like Clinton, or Just Like Him?  You Decide

First, the former Speaker of the House was asked in detail about whether he was hypocrital to pursue Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal when Gingrich himself was engaged in a long-term adulterous affair (with the woman who is now his wife).  Gingrich has an interesting way of distinguishing between his own sleazy infidelity and Bill Clinton’s lies about the same kind of behavior:

Gingrich, when pressed that it was hypocrisy, responded that “people listen to your question but don’t listen to the facts.”

When pressed about having an affair himself, he responded many people approached him at the time and explained lots of people had affairs. But he always responded that it was lying under oath that made it an issue.

“I’ve been through two divorces,” Gingrich said. “I’ve been deposed both times under oath. Both times I told the truth in the deposition because I know that it is, I’m not a lawyer and I know it’s a felony, Bill Clinton is a lawyer. He’s a Yale Law School graduate. He knew it was perjury. He knew it was a felony.”

In other words, “I may have been a sleazeball and a hypocrite, but I didn’t lie about it — at least not under oath!” There.  Do you feel better about this man now?

Like so much of what Gingrich says, this response is — how to put this delicately? — an insult to the public’s intelligence. As one of the commenters to the post says, “Gingrich wasn’t the same as Bubba because nobody knew publicly he was having ANOTHER affair, cheating on ANOTHER sick wife…if they had, none of [the Clinton impeachment drama] would’ve proceeded, perjury or no perjury.”

Yet another Politico commenter raises an ominous point: “Well, there’s an opening: Let’s see Newt’s depositions in the 2 divorces to check out whether he told the truth.” As long as he is a candidate, Newt’s past will be the gift that keeps on giving, as closet after closet is opened to reveal yet another skeleton.

And Another Example

Remember the great signature moment of the second South Carolina presidential debate, when Newt Gingrich rose up in righteous indignation and thundered at the elite news media, which had no interest in the truth but simply wanted to to get him, and any other Republican candidate they could?  Remember how he stated, with fiery certainty and crystalline clarity, that his campaign had offered several witnesses to ABC news who would counter his ex-wife Marianne’s story, but ABC was not interested in speaking to those people?

As Rick Perry might say, Oops.  No such thing happened.  Here’s the video:

Well, so much for fiery certainty and crystalline clarity. I must admit, I am impressed, in a morbid way, by the ease with which Newt Gingrich lies so convincingly.  Watching him do that is like observing the behavior of a rare and exotic species of animal. It is astonishing, frightening, and disturbing all at once.  Is this the kind of man we want as President of the United States?  R. Emmett Tyrell doesn’t think so, and reminds us that we have been down this road before.

Conservatives should not be surprised by the scandals that lie ahead, if they stick with him. Those of us, who raised the question of character in 1992, were confronted by an indignant Bill Clinton, treating the topic as a low blow. To listen to him, character was the “c” word of American politics. It was reprehensible to mention it. By now we know. Character matters. Paul, Santorum, and Romney have it. Newt has Clinton’s character.

It sure looks that way. Please, please, voters of Florida — and voters everywhere who care about electing decent men and women to positions of trust and authority — keep that in mind.
 

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Lots of  taxes paid, lots of charitable donations

The Wall Street Journal summarizes the Romney tax returns.

John Kerry, by the way, paid his federal income taxes at a lower rate than Romney – 13.1%, as opposed to Romney’s 13.9%.  This was disclosed in the 2004 election cycle.  No one made an issue of  that.  Why not?

Tithing – what’s that all about, anyway?

A pretty good explanation of tithing by Buzzfeed’s McKay Coppins.

Romney addressed the matter himself on Fox News Sunday:

“If people want to discriminate against someone based upon their commitment to tithe, I’d be very surprised. This is a country that believes in the Bible. The Bible speaks about providing tithes and offerings. I made a commitment to my church a long, long time ago that I would give 10 percent of my income to the church. And I followed through on that commitment,” he said.

“Hopefully, as people look at various individuals running for president, they’d be pleased with someone who made a promise to God and kept that promise. So, if I had given less than 10 percent, then I think people would have had to look at me and say, hey, what’s wrong with you, fella, don’t you follow through on the promises?”

Brief explanatory note:  Faithful Mormons pay tithing at 10% of their annual increase.  Exactly how one pays, and how one computes that 10%, is seen in our faith as a matter between the tithepayer and God.

Hugh Hewitt’s take on Romney’s taxes and charitable giving is a must-read.  Excerpts:

Ann and Mitt Romney are wealthy, and Ann and Mitt Romney are generous.  Very generous.  And this is to be admired.

Much of their giving goes to their church, and Mormon culture is very generous not just to those struggling in the congregation, but to the community, the nation and the world.  A minute or so of googling finds this story from the days after Katrina, representative of how the Mormons respond to disasters, which noted that “[a]s of Sept. 13, 140 truckloads of commodities and supplies, about 5.6 million pounds or 2,800 tons had been shipped into affected areas; with thousands of LDS volunteers giving 9,204 manpower days helping 1,606 Church members and 3,226 people not of the LDS faith, according to Garry Flake, director of Church Emergency Response. In addition, some 3,500 volunteers served Sept. 10-11.”

All denominations of any size have their charitable arms, like Catholic Relief Services and Presbyterian Relief and Development Agency, but the culture of giving is deeply embedded in the LDS community and reflected in the Romney tax returns.  In addition to direct giving to their church, the Romneys have supported cystic fibrosis research and the United Way, but the bulk of their giving is to their church….

They are very generous people, which in turn suggests they are good people, and while good people don’t necessarily make good leaders, it is far less likely they will be indifferent to suffering or intentionally malicious in their politics.

This is quaint stuff, certain to fall on deaf ears among the bare knuckled blogging community and the self-righteous among the media elite.  But it ought to matter to some voters, especially values voters, even those of different denominations.

(Emphasis added.) We couldn’t have said that better.

I’ll add this:  Romney’s tax payments and his level of charitable giving should never be mentioned by any member of the news media, in any publication or forum (yes, even those ridiculous MSM-run debates) without equal attention being paid to the other candidates’ tax payments and level of charitable giving.  Fair is fair.

So who is the best candidate for an American of faith? I’d say Romney or Santorum, depending on which one’s politics best aligns with the religious voter’s views. What say our readers?

Some Additional  Notes On Taxes

John Hood at NRO notes that the 14% number is entirely misleading.

Romney’s real federal tax rate on his investment income was more than 40 percent (being conservative, after deductions and such), since the revenue stream was subject to both a personal tax rate and the corporate tax rate….state taxes would bring the effective income tax rate on Romney’s investment income to 50 percent or higher. Every time a reporter or opposing candidate tried to say Romney’s tax rate was 15 percent, a competent campaign would call them out for misleading the American people.

And, by the way, one might reasonably wonder why the pro-Obama forces are attacking Romney, not Gingrich, in Florida. Big Labor (SEIU-COPE. SEIU.org) has invested $$800,000 in Florida anti-Romney ads.  One of the ads is directed at Hispanics, in Spanish, claiming “Mitt Romney Has No Shame.”

Why, oh why, would Big Labor be attacking Romney, and not Gingrich? Is there some reason they want Romney knocked out of the race?

Then there’s that notion of simply being a good man

Rich Lowry at National Review has some hard things to say about Newt Gingrich, whom he calls “the Republican Clinton, except less lovable and more roguish.” Ouch.  Referring to the now-famous John King incident in the final South Carolina debate:

Only one other politician in America could have played the victim card so expertly when confronted by the story of a wronged woman. Only one other politician would have thrown out so many obfuscating “facts,” or turned his lavish anger on and off so quickly. Only one other politician would have dared hope to turn such an embarrassing imbroglio to his advantage. If he was watching the debate somewhere, Bill Clinton must have chuckled in admiration and thought, “Well played, my friend. Well played.”

Newt is the Republican Clinton — shameless, needy, hopelessly egotistical. The two former adversaries and tentative partners have largely the same set of faults and talents. They are self-indulgent, prone to disregard rules inconvenient to them, and consumed by ambition. They are glib, knowledgeable, and imaginative. They are baby boomers who hadn’t fully grown up even when they occupied two of the most powerful offices in the land.

My friends, this matters.  What kind of a man we elect matters.  Bill Clinton did incalculable damage to our culture.  I recall, for example, having to explain to my then 8 year-old son what oral sex is — because of the President of the United States’ actions.  Do we want another man with a history of flexible morality serving in that office?  Yes, Gingrich says he has changed — has repented, in effect.  Well, I love redemption and forgiveness as much as the next believer in Christ, but I don’t necessarily believe that the redeemed person should be placed in a position of trust – and no office on earth involves greater trust than the American presidency.

And finally….

Jennifer Rubin asks. “Why Gingrich?” Read the whole thing.

And Dennis Prager, in Evangelicals and Romney , argues that “America’s survival is more important than one’s views of Mormonism.”  His best line:

In other words, fight the Left now. You can fight theology later.

Amen to that, Brother Prager.

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