To be sure, Glenn Beck was accompanied by an impressive array of interfaith leaders – Catholics, Jews and evangelicals who, despite theological differences – appeared on the same stage as Beck because his message of restoring honor and returning to faith in God struck such a strong chord with them.

But leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were not officially represented at the Lincoln Memorial event, however. Why not – especially since the Church respects the right of all faiths to raise their voice in the public square?

Otterson’s entire post is a must-read, but some other excerpts show the general thrust:

The fact that Beck has a huge megaphone doesn’t change the principle [that Church members are urged to study issues and use their vote for whichever party most closely aligns with their ideas of good government].  Mormons obviously are free to express whatever views of good government that they care to espouse, and many of them do. Their views may of course be influenced by their faith and values, but they speak as individuals, not as Church spokesmen. They may also disagree with each other. Since the same church embraces Senator Harry Reid, Governor Mitt Romney and Glenn Beck – all active members – that shouldn’t even need saying.

This is old stuff for long-time readers of Article VI Blog, but it’s worth repeating.  Now and then (actually, more often than that) pundits and critics suggest that a Mormon president would take direction from Church leaders in Salt Lake City.  I am not reluctant to assert that there is no evidence to support that fear – none whatsoever – and plenty of evidence that it is groundless.  It remains to be seen whether that part of the anti-Romney meme will live on, or die out as nothing more than a rumor.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Well, frankly, it was all of the above.

The United States of America has always been a religious nation without a specific religion.   We have always had something variously called the “civic” or “civil” or “public” religion that was pious, moral, believed in a supernatural and an objective good, but was insufficiently defined ever to rise to the level of an actual, organized religion.  It was a banner under which many religions united to work together as a nation.  This compromise has served us well because religion has flourished in our nation like no other place in history.

The civic religion has served as “battleground” that defined the rules of conflict between competing specific religions, and by keeping that conflict civil, forces that have ripped apart virtually every nation in history have been held at bay.  But some aspects of the civil religion are beginning to fray.  The belief in a supernatural and objective good seems no longer to be part of the common understanding of our nation.  One would think that in such a circumstance those of us that still hold such would unite under a banner to restore it – if we do not, the consequences would be disastrous.  NO religion will survive.

Ross Douthat’s analysis of the Beck rally is both insightful and problematic.  Insightful in this:

Latter Day Saints and evangelical Christians arguably share enough affinities to belong in the same “cultural family,” as Weigel puts it. But you’re more likely to find them in competition, from the streets of American suburbia to the mission fields of the developing world to the 2008 election’s great Mike Huckabee-Mitt Romney throwdown. It’s a case of theological differences trumping cultural commonalities: The two faiths occupy opposite sides of a theological chasm that makes the gulf between Catholics and Protestants look narrow by comparison, and many evangelicals bristle with hostility for what they regard as Mormonism’s cultish pseudo-Christianity.

The problems arise when he then goes on to seemingly fan the flames of the conflict rather than try to quell them.  Yes, we do compete in the mission field, but if our nation cannot maintain its civil religion and accompanying religious truce in governance, there will be no mission field on which to compete – all religion will find itself banned, or an “official” religion will squeeze the rest of us out.

Some, worried that capitalism and politics will become a god, sound warnings that lead others to send for the wrong message at the wrong time. The forces that deeply oppose, those that do not believe in the supernatural and objective good, will – when they get the story straight – use our religious differences to split a coalition that could otherwise preserve the civic religion.  They will try to make us look foolish.  They will look calm and cool and collected while we will look like religious thugs.

The analogy is old and tired, perhaps to the point of triteness, but that does not rob it of its essential truth – It was necessary to ally with Stalin to defeat Hitler.  There was an imminent and violent threat that had to be dealt with before the subtle and quiet threat of communism.

There is an imminent and violent threat to religion in America right now – and it must be dealt with before the religious “cold war” between the faiths can be fought.  The Beck rally in Washington this weekend past was about that pressing threat.  I’ll take any ally I can get.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

The SLTrib’s opposition to Mormonism in general and Romney in particular is no secret. Peggy Fletcher Stack’s work for that paper is exceptional in its coverage of Mormonism and she appears truly neutral on the candidates, but she also appears token at the paper.  So it is unsurprising that their blogger would try to spin the story, but some things are just ridiculous:

The 2012 presidential election’s wandering in the wilderness has begun in earnest and Utah has two potential candidates in high weeds wrestling with a special challenge — they’re Mormons. But Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman Jr. are taking different approaches to downplay their long, proud Mormon heritages.

According to the Deseret News, Mitt Romney, who was slammed by conservative Christians despite his openness in explaining his religious beliefs, is going to duck the question and hope for the best.

Romney is going to “downplay” and “duck” “despite his openness?”  Can anyone figure that out for me?  Here’s my best guess – pure political spin.  Warchol is hoping that you will walk away with the words “downplay” and “duck” stuck in your mind and that will form your opinion of Romney instead of the actual facts, which by his oxymoronic formulation he can claim he has reported.  That’s spin at its finest (worst?).

Being a blog post, partisanship is expected, even when paper branded, so we cannot really bust his chops for media bias here, but spin is simply abominable.   If you oppose someone, you should have the honesty to simply do so straightforwardly and directly.  And the backhanded use of religion as the attack weapon of choice, well…let’s call it “Huckesque” and leave it at that.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

The paper, entitled “Mitt Romney’s Religion: A Five Factor Model for Analysis of Media Representation of Mormon Identity,” appeared in the May issue of The Journal of Media and Religion. This paragraph will bring a smile to those who’ve followed this blog for a while:

For many, the combination of Mormonism and Romney’s ‘flip-flops’ on many hot-button issues gave reason to oppose him. Conservative activist Brian Camenker’s report on Romney’s shifting positions gave ammunition to conservatives to withdraw support from Romney. Vanderbilt University researchers found Romney’s flip-flopper label was an easy cover for anti-Mormonism. In the end, it was the rise of Huckabee and the political primaries in the evangelical-dominated South that derailed Romney’s bid for the presidency. For many, Romney’s run represented a misguided attempt to curry the favor of evangelicals.

That almost makes me think Professor Baker is also a regular reader here. (Seriously, with this paper she has moved to the top of my list of “People I’d Like to Have Lunch With.”)

Here is the article abstract from The Journal of Media and Religion (it costs $30 to see the entire piece):

Mitt Romney’s religion accounted for 50% of all religion-related presidential primary campaign stories in 2007, and 30% of Romney’s total media coverage focused on his Mormon faith. This article reviews that coverage and considers it within the larger historical context of the complex relationship between media and Mormonism throughout the 180-year history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A factorial model (the first in the area of Mormon Media Studies) is proposed by which to document and analyze the wider societal influences that are reflected in media representation of Mormon identity. The model’s 5 factors include the media, the Mormons, other religions, secular influences, and politics/government. The model assumes an interrelationship among the five factors. Factor influence and relationships among factors vary according to time, issue, and circumstance. The model relates to informational (not entertainment) media. Suggestions are made for application of the model to academic studies.

As I jokingly note above, we documented and analyzed all of this as it occurred.  If you’re interested and want to save $30, be sure to read our “Telling The Story” series for our version of this same tale, minus the Smoot comparisons, which we examined in our five-part series reviewing and commenting on Kathleen Flake’s book “The Politics of American Religious Identity.”  You may recall that Flake’s book was about the Smoot seating hearings.  You can find our posts about that here - here – here – here and here.

John Jumps On Board…

..Because The Huckabee “boomlet” has become a “Boom?!”

In the words of Jacob McCandles when confronted with rumors of his death: “Not hardly.“  Here’s how this went down.  Huckabee did Fox News Sunday last Sunday.  If you read the transcript, this is what he says:

I haven’t closed the door. I think that would be foolish on my part, especially when poll after poll shows that there is strong sentiment out there. I end up leading a lot of the polls. I’m the Republican that clearly, at this point, does better against Obama than any other Republican. You know, I’m not totally unaware of that.

At which point the MSM and leftie blogs went ape – The Hill – HuffPo – Politics Daily – The Fix – USAToday – one very right wing outlet sounded the trumpets – News Max.  His home town paper was a bit less impressed.

Let’s analyze what’s really happening here.  Fox commentator Huckabee appears on FNS in a short segment.  That sounds more like a promotional appearance than a serious interview to me.  The idea was to generate some heat for Huckabee’s show and based on the coverage, I think they got it.  Secondly, Huckabee is prone to exaggerated claims.  He still claims to have finished “second” in the 2008 primary race despite the fact the delegate count, and his speaking slot at the convention, clearly indicate to the contrary, even though he stayed in the race far longer than the actual second place finisher – Romney.

Huckabee is a media guy now – he has speaking fees to maintain, and his bread-and-butter constituency is not what it used to be.  The Huckster needs the possibility of a run to continue to make a living.  And of course, the MSM and non-team players are always willing to stir the pot on our side.

There’s a lot of coverage here, but no meat on the bones.  Call me when Huck’s fundraising gets better and he loses at least 60 pounds, until then its all posturing for ratings and fees.

UPDATE (7 hours after initial publication) – Told ya so! I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet….  Back to the initial post.

And Speaking of Lefties Doing Some Pot Stirring…

What do you think Marc Ambinder is up to with this piece?  [Lowell interjects:  I do not like his suggestion that Iowa and New Hampshire just be allowed to go ahead with their February primaries.   Why should those two quirky, small states, whose voting is so easily manipulated, be allowed to set the tone for the entire campaign?]

Mormon Stuff…

This is silly, and discriminatory – CNBC covering “Mormon” business.  Most business school graduates prefer to hire grads of the same business school,  Nothing to see here.

This is just great read.  Would that other forms of Christianity were as open minded.

Here’s another one with idiot commenters.  Why someone has to turn that story into a religio-political comment is beyond.

General Religion Stuff…

This is so utterly simplistic as to be annoying.  (In fact it is self-contradictory, but it is not worth the effort to demonstrate that fully here.)  One can judge a candidate’s character, or stance on issues, without reference to religion.  Religion does indeed influence those things, but it is not wholly determinative.  When you drag religion into it, it indeed starts to get about “us” and “them” instead of about the issues at hand.  And that leads to unnecessary conflict.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that “bravely” trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force.

I agree with John’s post below (responding to my own post just below his): I do not like religious humor.  (I do recognize that it will always be with us, however.)  So the announcment that South Park’s creators plan a Broadway play making fun of my own religion (Mormonism) did not make me happy. The only silver lining I can see is that at least my church is considered sufficiently important to warrant satiric attack.

But back to Douthat’s op-ed. Read the whole thing.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Regardless, he is plowing ahead as if when it comes to presidential elections, he is “The Voice” – of what I have no idea, but he just writes that way.  So, when he published in Time this week a look ahead at 2012, people listened.  The piece in question is an obvious attempt to revitalize Obama’s rapidly fading political fortunes by painting the entire list of Republican possibles as somehow unelectable, and grossly disorganized.  He focuses most of his attention on Romney and Pawlenty, as is fitting since they are the only two seriously at work right now.  His analysis of Pawlenty is so brief as to be almost nonexistent.  It is actually Romney that is the target of his “wisdom.”  Before we get to religion, let’s address this comment:

But his liabilities are equally formidable. . . . and, perhaps as grave — no kidding — his striking nonchalance about transporting the family dog in a box tied to the roof of his car en route to a family vacation.

Look, I follow this stuff pretty closely and I have not heard anyone in serious political circles bring that story up since 2007.   I am sure the loony left of the animal rights movement have not let go of it, but how many of those people are there?  Ten . . . twelve?  Come on, Halperin, if you want to dredge up old worn out stuff to help your candidate, you’re going to have to do better than that.  And yet, the most left newspaper in all of Great Britain thought enough of it to not only pass it on, but embellish it a bit:

Meanwhile, this business with his dog in a box on the roof of the car as the family took a driving vacation/motoring holiday seems to be mushrooming into for Romney what the haircuts were for John Edwards. I would think Republicans would like it. He shows he’s pro-torture.

That’s echo chamber stuff if I ever heard it – and I hate to break it to these guys, most Americans do not live in the chamber.

I did that in part to set up the real discussion which is Halperin’s invocation of the Mormon issue:

Romney has the stronger hand but some real problems. He retains almost all the strengths he brought to the battle two years ago, when he was the runner-up to McCain: a record of accomplishment in business and government; a stately mien (and famously great hair); a solid and photogenic family; a New England base, anchored by a vacation home in primary-powered New Hampshire; and vast personal wealth and fundraiser prowess. But his liabilities are equally formidable. Some are the public’s long-standing bigotry against his Mormon faith. . . .

Romney has new challenges too. For one, he hasn’t demonstrated that he has learned some key lessons from 2008, and he still seems unable to talk openly and with passion about his faith or political convictions.

This too was echoed elsewhere, this time in an oddsmaker’s take on the field:

The ugly truth of the Southern Baptist-dominated Christian Right in the US is that while it shares so much political ideology with the faithful of the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons), the bigotry against their religious cousins (See: The American Religion: The Emergence of The Post-Christian Nation, by Harold Bloom, 1993, Simon & Schuster) is far too steep a barrier for Romney to survive politically.

Were these efforts not so transparent they would be dangerous.  What we can take away from this primarily is that with Obama clearly fading in the polls, the left is trying desperately to tilt him up by taking negative shots at the presumptive Republican nominee.   But they have little ammunition to do so with, so they repeat, without a hint of variance, the line of argument that they think worked last time.  Please note, both accounts take shots at the traditionally Christian right that are much harder than the shots they take at Romney.  According to these guys, I wear a hood and burn crosses in my spare time.

What they fail to realize is the incredible animosity that such attacks generate and the ever building opposition that Obama is generating as he treats the American people as if they are too dumb to know what is good for them. Yes, Romney has a religion issue, but it is fading into the woodwork pretty rapidly as people just get angrier and angrier at the current occupant of the White House.  If Obama keeps going like this “anybody-but-Obama” will trump “anybody-but-a-Mormon” going away.

Halperin’s piece is about matching up against Obama, not the primaries.  He acts as if the religion issue will be as active in the general as it was in the ‘08 primaries.  Heck, it’s not going to play as hard in the primaries as it did last time unless Huckabee or some other foolish stand-in wants to shoot themselves in the foot very publicly.  And even then it will be more sound and fury than political reality.  Most Republicans, even those of us heavily motivated by our religious convictions, can do enough political math to understand that we divided ourselves last time and that’s why we lost.  That mistake will be too fresh in everyone’s mind to be repeated this time.  We are not THAT stupid.

Bottom line is this – Romney has some challenges ahead of him, any aspirant to office does.  And they are right in the areas where some of them will be, including religion, but this stuff is so overstated and so fawning over Obama as to be almost parody.  Obama will not be “easy pickin’s” in ‘12, but the bar is lowering quite a bit from ‘08, and if the MSM continues to sound like they did in ‘08 they will ride the bar into bankruptcy – at least those that are not already there.

Lowell adds . . .

It seems that Mark Halperin wants to be the next Theodore White.  We’ll see if he succeeds, but I am skeptical.  (I mean, the dog on the car roof story?  Really?)

And by the way, let’s keep in mind that the “oddsmaker” who wrote about Romney’s membership in “The Church of the Latter-day Saints” (always suspect a would-be pundit who can’t get right the name of the church he’s writing about) is a man named Al Giordano.  Mr. Giordano is the publisher of The Narco News Bulletin, “Reporting on Democracy and The Drug War from All America.” (Hint:  He’s not in favor of the drug war.)  Now, I don’t know Mr. Giordano but when it comes to evaluating Republican candidates I think he has a credibility problem.  This is a pundit who calls Sara Palin and Mike Huckabee “the crazies.”  Now, there are many grounds on which to criticize Palin and Huck, but that they are crazy is not one of them.

The fact is, at this point Romney is the front-runner and no one has the money, the organization, and the rapidly-increasing pile of political chits that the Governor has.  The political battlefields have been littered over the years with the bones of early front-runners, but Halperin has got to come up with some substance before anyone pays much attention to his rather vapid thoughts, recycled from 2007-08.

And with that, I am out of here!

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

When we wrote our 2008 recount, we defined that meme as one of the more damaging actions of the press during the cycle.  It did the most damage in Iowa and last week saw Romney return to Iowa on his book tour.  Here’s the story from the Des Moines Register and the Iowa Politics blog.  Should Romney elect to run in 2012, Iowa does present him with some serious strategic challenges.  Recent polling suggests that today the GOP primary choices are Romney and Huckabee, and Iowa was where their showdown in 2008 really mattered.  We still think the odds of the Huckster getting in are low, but given that his success in Iowa was based largely on his playing the Mormon card, it would not be hard for someone else to do so this time around leaving the battle lines about where they are.

Thus it is quite legitimate for Jonathon Martin at Politico to write a piece about possible Romney Iowa strategy, or for Ben Smith to point out that his book signing looked a lot like a campaign event.   Martin saves until the 4th from last paragraph of a long piece, this little goody:

His problem in 2008 wasn’t just that the evangelicals who dominated the process wouldn’t support a Mormon candidate; it was also that Romney struggled at times to connect with voters who demand personal contact.

I think Martin is right in that.  Romney is impressive and “real” when you meet him.  Pressing the flesh can go a long way to overcome suspicion concerning his religion.   It’s the comments to both of these posts where one starts to really see problems.  From the Smith post (this is the entire comment):

Come on. No-one is going to elect a Mormon to the presidency.

It gets worse from there.  (Dear readers, please do not forget our call to Online Activism.)  But aside from the usual snotty stuff, both post’s comments have some serious discussion about Romney’s religion and its effect on his electability.  I heard the same sort of discussion after a public event a week or so ago where presidential possibilities were examined.

The very left “Media Matters” tried to respond to Martin, but they were typically snippy and dismissive.  The very first comment out of the bag on that post:

The other Romney Riddle: will the Sarah Palin Troglodyte Christian Nutbag wing of the Republican Party really support a Mormon? They consider Mormonism a cult, you know. In their minds, it’s about the same as Scientology.

Which brings me to the main point I want to make here.  Romney’s religion is a not a factor that we can consider in political calculation, even in reasonable discussion.  We went through this with Jim Geraghty in the last cycle.  Accepting his religion as a factor accepts that which is unacceptable.  Such discussion must be denounced.  Legitimizing it in any fashion leads precisely to what we see in the Media Matters comments – derision towards religion generally.

And make no mistake, the left wants this is a big way.  It is clear that Democrats see Romney as the current front runner – Obama is setting him up to take the hit over healthcare that he does not deserve.  We have already discussed how the entire health care thing feeds the “flip-flip” mis-impression which is fueled by Mormon suspicion.   If we take Mormon out of the equation, that house of cards grows a lot weaker.

It is very sad to me that some of my fellow orthodox Christians, very smart ones for that matter, fail to see that singling out Mormons leaves the door open for the same kind of ugly attacks against them that Mormons have suffered.  That is why I tend to agree with this guy – a Mormon analog to the ADL might be a useful thing – and I think smart orthodox Christians would be behind it as well – for the reasons I just discussed.

You Need Look No Farther…

…than the coverage of the so-called “Christian” militia story of the last week if you doubt my contention that the left wants to put orthodox Christianity into the same cross-hairs as the Mormons.  We need look no further than Great Britain where Christians are “held in contempt.”  Of course, we do not always help ourselves.   Consider this coverage:

• CNN
• TPM – more
• Examiner

Surprisingly, it is a gay outlet that points out that the only one of this bunch that appears to be a registered voter is a Democrat.  These people are about a “Christian” as the FLDS is “Mormon.”  The press has beaten the very specious connection of these people to the Christian faith to death.  The appear to have no motive to do so other than to paint Christianity is general as populated by wackos, violent wackos – certainly angry wackos.

This stuff not only hurts Christianity, it hurts Republicans.  There is no question that the Tea Party folks are a bit angry.  Dan Quayle is concerned they will go third party, but Salon, the lovely left Salon, thinks they are indistinguishable from the GOP.

And then, of course, there is the NYTimes obvious campaign to discredit the Roman Catholic Church by falsely implicating the Pope in some of the abusive priest scandals.  This has been well documented elsewhere, so we are not bothering, but it is atrocious.  It also marks a shift in the religious influence of Christianity inside the Republican party.  Given that Evangelicals kind of self-destructed last time, and as the Democratic party has turned continually anti-religious, the Catholic influence inside the GOP has been rising.  So now they are targets too.

Come to think of it, we may just need a “Religion ADL” that defends us all!  Or maybe instead of an “ambassador,” we’ll need a “czar.”

Back to 2012…

There was serious stuff on the docket last week:

Members of the RNC’s Temporary Delegate Selection Committee are working on a proposal they hope can reform the primary calendar. Their proposal must pass a high hurdle later this summer, when two-thirds of the full RNC must ratify whatever they come up with.

Hotline clearly wants to make this about Romney. Which means they also think he is the presumptive at this point.  But it’s about everybody and it needs to be done.

Pawlenty seemed to have something up his sleeve according to All Headline News.  The Corner found it good, but not all that startling.

The Rick Santorum drums are continuing to beat according to Politics Daily and The Des Moines Resister.  If he gets in, I still do not think it will be to win, it’ll be to garner support for other initiatives.

Somebody is pushing Haley Barbour a bit more.  Haley may be the best fund-raiser in the game, but….

John Thune keeps getting discussion as well, particularly from Chris Cilizza and those that read him.  If Thune is in this time it’s a dress rehearsal or he is running for Veep.

I am so very proud of my alma mater, Butler University, basketball team, and I like Mitch Daniels – but this pushes a point just a little too far -  besides someone much smarter has already tried the metaphor.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Romney’s 323-page book is laced with lists and policy prescriptions — three “pillars,” 14 priority points, 64 agenda items — that focus mostly on the economy and national security. He defends the Bay State health care plan and argues it differs in fundamental ways from the one congressional Democrats have drafted, noting that it didn’t include a tax increase or government-run plan.

But he doesn’t discuss his conversion from supporting abortion rights while running in his home state to opposing them when he sought national office. Nor does he try to explain or defend his Mormon faith, an issue in 2008.

(Emphasis added.)  It is interesting – and significant, I think – that the reporter, Susan Page, apparently considers Romney’s Mormonism a significant omission from his book, which is about public policy.  She also equates his religious faith with his past position on abortion, as if both things were of the same importance.  But abortion is also a matter of public policy.  Ms. Page’s treatment of both subjects suggests that she thinks each one is politically embarrassing to Romney.

I wonder if this is a harbinger of coming MSM treatment of the issue.

John Chimes in…

OK – maybe I spoke too soon yesterday when I said there was no religion chatter.  In addition to the USAToday piece that Lowell cites above, Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government site had this to say:

As for Romney’s weakness, besides his Mormonism which may again hurt him nationally, the fact of the matter is that this is a Governor that implemented a state-run healthcare system.

OK, so there is some religion chatter, but it is a of a very different tenor than last time.  Both these mentions of religion make mention of 2008 as if to say, “It was such fun last time, let’s not let it go.”  Note that in both cases the mentions are asides.  By this time last cycle we had detailed and heavily researched articles from Terry Eastland and Amy Sullivan.

It’s too early to say if we are seeing a template for how it will be discussed, but it seems reasonable.  The left wing media, not wanting to get their bell rung as bigots,  are going to discuss policy, and mention religion – just evoke the emotion from last cycle.  But I think its a losing way to approach it, the near universal revulsion at Obama’s policy initiatives and the continued high rates of unemployment are just going to make people read over this stuff in a effort to get to the central issues.

There is one other thing that I think bears mention – These mentions come from reporters, not analysts, not pundits, not columnists.  In the world of journalism there are people that report and people that set the agenda.  Reporters are good people that do good work, but its the agenda setters that make me worried.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Funny though . . . Romney was on the dais at Brown’s victory speech and Brown called him forward for thanks – the first call after his family.  Do you need other facts?  Calling this “spin” is actually being kind.  Romney played this just right – he was an enormous amount of help to the Brown campaign.  Cash from Free and Strong America was just the beginning – staff was loaned.  Let’s face it, there is no such thing as a Republican “machine” in a place like Massachusetts, but given that he came closer to beating Ted Kennedy than anybody and got elected governor there, Romney comes as close to having one as possible.  No Republican could have pulled this off without him.  But despite that, Romney stayed, as far as coverage was concerned “in the background.”  This was Scott Brown’s campaign, not Mitt Romney’s.

And that points out the huge difference between this administration and a possible Romney one.  This president enters the room and he insists that the spotlight shine on him.  When he went to Massachusetts to stump for Coakley, he sucked all the oxygen out of the room.   Romney did far more for Brown than Obama even thought of doing for Coakley, and yet he did it in a way that left the spotlight on Brown.  Service, not ego, was what mattered here.

And that seems to me the heart of where religion and politics intersect.  Good religion, regardless of theology, makes us better people – it makes us people of service and goodwill, not self-service and personal will.

Lowell adds . . .

Romney played this one very well.  Ed Carson at Investor’s Business Daily:

“Ex-Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney was . . . a key backer of the little-known state senator [Scott Brown] back when he was seen as a sacrificial lamb.

“While some are already touting Brown as a 2012 presidential contender, Romney could be the big beneficiary. He’s helped deliver the 41st GOP Senate vote, perhaps derailing Obamacare. Activists will remember that.”

I think so too.

John Updates The Next Morning…

Here from the local Massachusetts press is a recount of what went on in Brown’s suite as news of his victory spread.  Key ‘graphs for our thesis above:

He said he’s been “calling everybody I know, doing everything I can to make sure Scott Brown won. Finally we can tell Washington, ‘We want you to listen.”‘As 10 p.m. approached, and Brown prepared to go down to the crowded ballroom to give his victory speech, former presidential candidate and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney looked over his speech of introduction for Brown. “This is heroic,” he said of Brown’s win. “It wasn’t expected that he would have a victory this big.”

With everyone piling out of the room to head downstairs, Ayla smiled, sending an affectionate glance toward her dad as he consulted withRomney.

Romney did introduce Brown at the victory celebration.  A sure sign that he was key to the campaign.  And yet, no mention of that on TV coverage last night (Even Fox which is what I watched) and when Brown thanked Romney, he had to step from way back in the crowd to receive Brown’s handshake.  So far back I did not spot him until he came forward – unlike the unmistakable visage of Doug Flutie and other Massachusetts luminaries.

And it was former (perhaps to be again?) senior adviser to Romney’s presidential campaign, Kevin Madden that had an op-ed in the WSJ this AM:

Republicans could easily recline and leave Mr. Obama and the Democrats to self-destruct. Majority status and control of Congress is conceivably in reach just by reminding voters you can’t blame Republicans for Washington’s current appetite for excess, since Democrats are in control of this mess. It would be a safe maneuver because it’s true.

However, for Republicans the progression from malcontent to sustainable movement involves learning from President Obama’s mistakes. Unlike Mr. Obama, the party can go beyond ideals and process ideas that deliver an actual reformist agenda. The party can prove to a disaffected public that we stand for more than just winning elections but instead are dedicated to reforming a broken system and governing a nation with public support. A Republican Party that avoids the same shortsightedness and reflexive partisanship that has defined President Obama’s first year in office will be one truly deserving of majority status and deliver on the promise of a remade America currently eluding Mr. Obama.

That sounds like the map for 2010 and beyond to me!

And on a final sad note, this “tweet” passed through our little twitter monitor at right this morning:

OMG Romney is on stage with Brown lapping up the victory. This is a nightmare. The Mormon takeover.

We certainly hope you all are taking our advice and actively engaging in comment “policing.”  See “Online Activism” above.  You might want to set up a Twitter account.  After all tweets are just comments without context.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

But for Huckabee, or his advisers, to devise and execute that strategy the playing field had to be in a certain condition.  A general might call it “shaping the battlefield.”  Of course, in this case, Huckabee did not shape the battlefield so much as devise a strategy that most effectively responded to the existing conditions.   Even so, those conditions played perfectly into using religion as a weapon and nobody was better suited to wield that weapon that Mike Huckabee.

In point of fact, Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith became, as a result of relentless press coverage, the defining characteristic of his effort.  It was discussed and written about in enormous volume, and with incredible repetitiveness, in virtually every news publication in the country.  How it was written about varied significantly based on the viewpoint of the publication in question, but all of them felt compelled to write about it – and then write about it some more.

For the left, in which we will here include the MSM, discussing Romney’s faith was a win-win.  With persons self-identifying as traditional Christians making up a huge segment of the Republican primary vote, discussing Romney’s faith served to: 1) emphasize that Romney was not the same as most Republicans, and 2) paint the picture of most Republicans as close-minded religious non-thinkers.  Romney, because of his extraordinary organizational skills, was widely viewed as the front runner.  The Democrats viewed him as the most formidable candidate they could face in the general election.  It was in their best interest to have anyone other than Romney as the Republican candidate.  By dividing him out, using religion as the wedge, from the “average” Republican they could not help but lessen his chances in an age when identity politics are on the rise.  By painting the average Christian, especially Evangelical Republicans as close-minded and discriminatory, they also lessened the chances of the Republicans generally in the general election.

It should also be remembered that one of the primary tenets of left-leaning thinking is that religion is purely a divisive force in the political arena, and hence should be excluded from any voice in the public square.  If they could create a religious rift inside the conservative movement, it would be evidence greatly strengthening their case that there is no room for the religious in the public square.

In this post, and the one following, we examine the battleground-shaping attacks on Romney as related to his faith.  In this post we examine those attacks as they came from the left.  Our discussion breaks down into two essential threads.  In the first we discuss the “MSM Memes” that took hold and seemed to shape virtually every story written about the matter.  In the second, we examine the most egregious of the hit pieces and commentary that came from the left – naming names and revisiting our debates with the protagonists in the drama as their pieces were published.

The MSM Memes

“Mitt Romney, a Mormon . . . .” Events have clearly demonstrated that the left was right – that at least among some Republicans, Mitt Romney’s religion was divisive.   In our next post, where we discuss the “battleground shaping” attacks that came from the right, we will see that much of the divisiveness did not come from Mormonism, but from traditional (or “creedal” as the Mormons like to say) Christians who felt it important to make sure everyone knew Mormons were not like them.   This meant that the simple mention of Romney’s faith could produce the desired effect.

In April of 2007, an e-mailer to this blog did a simple Google hit count survey and found that the vast majority of articles published on Mitt Romney mentioned his religion.  This compared  to articles about other Republican candidates where their religion was barely mentioned – in the case of McCain only a fraction of a percentage.  The work was done long before anyone took Huckabee seriously so data on him do not exist, but I certainly do not recall anything like the volume of mention Romney “enjoyed,” and Huckabee, after all, is Baptist clergy!

Most pieces did not discuss Romney’s faith directly; rather, they referred to it in passing.  “Mitt Romney, a Mormon . . .” was certainly the most direct and likely frequent formulation.  However, also common were throw away sentences like, “Some doubt Romney can win over the critical Evangelical vote because of his Mormon faith,” or “Romney’s Mormon faith makes his climb extra steep.”  Articles simply discussing poll results or campaign appearances felt it necessary to mention Romney’s faith.   Such was not the case when discussing other candidates, but with Romney it seemed that the word “Mormon” had to appear within a paragraph or two of the first mention of his name.

Most notable of these efforts would be the Newsweek cover story of October 1, 2007.  The cover featured a picture of Romney and over-titled the piece and the magazine, “A Mormon’s Journey.”  The piece itself appeared in the magazine under the far less religiously-identifying title of “Campaign ‘08: The Making of Mitt Romney.”  But of course, it was that cover, which did little but associate Romney and his faith, that appeared on newsstands and in grocery checkouts throughout the nation.

For the millions of Americans who saw it – the vast majority of Americans that do not eat sleep and breathe political writing – this would define what they knew of Mitt Romney – that he was a Mormon.  (As a side commentary, the news weekly is leading the decline of dead tree media and episodes like this make me ever more grateful for that fact.)

“What Mormons Believe . . . .” We were also treated to countless articles attempting to summarize Mormon belief.  And when I say “countless,” I mean I lost count somewhere late in 2006 – my calculator ran out of digits.  I beg your indulgence regarding the lack of linking to exemplary pieces in this section.  There was just too much material to get through to find suitable examples.  There were three characteristics that seemed to mark these pieces.

The first characteristic was that few of them quoted either LDS officialdom or LDS material, and those that did seemed to always make sure and “fact check” those representations against some traditional Christian source.   Let’s set aside for a moment the question of whether one actually believes all that Mormons do or not, it should be remembered that I do not.  Such an approach presumes that Mormons would misrepresent their own beliefs.  Does one “fact check” a Papal encyclical against the president of a Baptist seminary?  When Osama Bin Laden tells us what he believes of Allah, do we run off to the comparative religions department of some university to see if he got it “right?”  When it comes to matters of faith, how can anyone other than the holder of the faith be “the expert?”

The CJCLDS is nothing if not prolific in publishing what it believes.  Just check the references section of this blog.  It is an interesting characteristic of “journalism” that it requires the interview.  Reporters have to talk to somebody.  Book research never seems to be enough to write a journalistic article.  Well, most of the LDS I know tend, when asked what they believe, to point to the various LDS resources.  Those that do talk about it, always preface it with, “What I believe does not necessarily represent the official teaching or belief of the church.”  But traditionally Christian experts in “cults” always seemed just a little too willing to tell the average Mormon what they really do believe.

The second characteristic that marked these pieces was that they tended to emphasize the peripherals of Mormon belief, not its center.  Most religions have a core set of important beliefs and then a large peripheral body of literature that the average believers rarely concerns themselves with, if they are even aware of them.  For Protestants there is glossolalia.  For Roman Catholics there is an enormous body of near ‘mythos’ regarding angels and demonology.  For Jews there is numerology.  For Mormons there are the statements of some early Mormon leaders and the long-abandoned practice of polygamy.  This is not to say that each of these things are not seen as sacred by some adherents of those religions, but it is to say they are not things that enter into the daily lives or even daily practice of those adherents – or at least most of them.  It is also to say that to outsiders these things appear a bit strange.

Yet, when we read stories about Roman Catholics we hear not of angels and demons, unless we are reading a Dan Brown book.  These things do not define the average Roman Catholic.  Nor do beliefs about how the Book of Mormon came to be, or where Jesus appeared define  the average Mormon.  The heart of Mormon belief is a story of sin and redemption, different in detail but not generality, from any of the other western monotheistic religions.  Yet the press, in discussing Mormon belief focus’ not on that primary core, but on the peripheral “oddities.”

The third characteristic of these pieces is that they were often sidebars, or side boxes, to articles that were discussing Romney or some other aspect of the presidential campaign.  Rarely, at least in major outlets, is Mormon belief written about on its own terms.  Rather, it appears in some sort of context, as if they need an “excuse” to discuss it.  This has three effects.  One, given the second characteristic we just discussed, it serves to link those oddities with the primary discussion at hand, so in the case of the ‘08 primaries, it linked Mitt Romney and Mormon “oddities.”  The second thing it does is sort of erase the piece from the record.  Articles are often carefully archived.  Sidebars and snippets are a different thing altogether.  Finally, such short bits can never do justice to the totality of belief for any religion.  It’s a pot shot, not an examination.

There was a classic example of a piece that combined all three of these characteristics.  It was a Newsweek side box from August of 2007 on celestial marriage.  When I went looking for it, I found where this blog linked to it, but when I followed the link it was “dead,” it was in fact a side box, and not an article, and therefore not subject to archiving.  I could not even find it as a cache somewhere.  Thus this piece meets our third criteria.   I frankly cannot recall whether the piece cited official Mormon sources or not, but I do recall it cited traditional Christian experts “interpreting” the ramifications of the doctrine and being quick to point out that Mormons therefore still believe in polygamy.  Thus we meet our first criteria.  And of course, almost by definition, after-life marriage issues are peripheral to he core of a religions doctrine.  There was no examination of anything to do with sin, atonement, behavior in this life – things that affect how a religion functions in the here and now.

The net effect of all these pieces carrying these two memes was to set Mitt Romney apart as some sort of “freak,” or at least a little “weird.”  There is an old joke about women in the south – they use the phrase “bless their heart” as cover for just about any insult imaginable.  “My that’s an ugly baby – bless his heart.”  That seemed to be what the press was trying to do with Romney – act the carnival barker (”Come see the amazing two-headed baby”) but do it in a fashion that at least lacked the appearance of being discriminatory.  And yet, like the blessed ugly baby, that word “ugly” just hangs there.  Of course, they would argue that it was news because most Americans know about Episcopalians and Baptists, but most do not know about Mormons, and it is the press’ job to inform.  If that information had a negative effect, the problem is with the average Christian, not them.  There’s that win-win we talked about early in this post.

In point of fact, Mitt Romney’s faith was hardly news.  Mormons dating all the way back to Joseph Smith have run for president.  If Americans don’t know about Mormons, it is not for lack of information – that is plentiful.  For most of us it is as available as answering a knock at our door politely.  Certainly by the time Iowa got serious the word on Romney’s faith was out there – but then the continuing coverage at that point may be more Huckabee’s fault than the press’ fault.

Hit Pieces and Comments

While the press coverage of Romney’s religion was relentless, the left-leaning punditry was downright mean – in some cases the fact that they are still allowed their positions of influence is a stunning condemnation of the left.  In this section we are going to look at the worst of them.  In most cases there is specific article or piece they wrote that we link to in the boldfaced opening to the paragraphs dedicated to the discussion; in one case, however, it is a body of work.

Amy Sullivan – We are fond of saying that Robert Novak, as presented by Hugh Hewitt, gave us the idea for this blog.  But Novak was not the very first to write on the issue of Romney’s faith.  He certainly was the one who wrote about it the most, and he certainly was the one that wrote about it from “inside sources,” but the honor for the very first piece on the subject belongs to Terry Eastland at the Weekly Standard in June of ‘05.   Eastland’s piece was straightforward political reporting, examining a real issue of consequence to a potential run.  It did not try to fan the flames, just point out that there was an issue.

But the next piece that appeared was Amy Sullivan in Washington Monthly in September of ‘05.  By the time this blog came into being, this piece was water under the bridge so we never examined it in close detail, but Sullivan, a self-described Evangelical liberal, clearly set the mold for the “win-win” left-leaning treatment of the subject that was to come.  Sullivan had an axe to grind with her conservative Christian siblings and was more than wiling to use Romney as the whetting stone.

In point of fact, her treatment of the subject in the piece, and in her subsequent several years of TV panel appearances, belie one of the more important political sub-texts of the campaign.  Mike Huckabee’s populist stance represents the middle ground in the current Evangelical political spectrum – socially conservative, fiscally liberal, and confused on national defense.  There have always been left-leaning Evangelicals, but they have always been relatively quiet.  As press coverage of conservative Evangelicals has risen to the point that the words “conservative” and “evangelical” seemed synonymous, they have grown less and less quiet.  Some say they are responsible for the election of Obama – he does have the numbers in that regard.

Nonetheless, Romney presented these left-leaning Evangelicals with a golden opportunity to paint the right-wing Evangelical siblings in the public eye as  country redneck bumpkins they have always thought them to be.   Rereading Sullivan’s piece, that is the real subtext.  Romney found himself caught in a serious case of Evangelical infighting.

This piece by Sullivan set the mold for much of the reporting that was to come, the “win-win” for lefties.  As such it is worthy of mention here.

Andrew Sullivan – It is virtually impossible to put your finger on a single piece by Andrew Sullivan that is the piece.  Apparently shaping his entire life around that fact that he is gay, Sullivan simply despises religious people in general (unless they unquestioningly accept homosexual practices), but saves a special animus, even before Prop 8, for Mormons, and for Mitt Romney in particular.  And yet he has not strayed from the now tried and true win-win formulation for the left writing about Romney.

It continues even to this day.  Consider this post he wrote in the wake of the recent Values Voters summit:

Alas, the only thing less credible than Mitt Romney as a Christianist is Mitt Romney as a populist.

Note how in that single sentence he manages to slam conservative Christians with the use of his by now patented “Christianist” term, separate Mitt Romney from the general herd of conservative religious folk, and go on to describe Romney as not credible.  The “not credible” charge even resonates with the “Mormons lie” meme that we alluded to in the last post in this series and that we will examine in detail in the next.

Although witty, there is a bile that drips from virtually every word Sullivan writes on the subject that is extremely effective in shaping public opinion, even if it says nothing of substance.  Sullivan’s distaste for conservatives Christians, inclusive of Mormons and Romney, is apparent – but there is no actual engagement in the realm of ideas.   That is sad because Sullivan first rose to wide public notice as a leftie who supported the anti-terrorism actions by the Bush 43 administration.  Sullivan is clearly a very smart man, but when people differ with him on matters concerning his sexual orientation and practice – especially gay marriage– his reason seems simply to leave the building.  Utter contempt takes its place.

If he stopped there, Sullivan’s rhetoric would be understandable, even personally sympathetic – albeit still wrong – but he doesn’t.  By insisting on singling out Mormons and Romney in the fashion he does – not to mention that incredibly ugly term “Christianist” – he descends into the very bigotry he postures so to  oppose.  This clear bigotry, as it became more and more shrill during campaign ‘08, has reduced Sullivan’s importance as a commentator.  But he remains a significant and widely read blogger, although increasingly to a niche market.

Jacob Weisberg – Far and away the most bigoted, nastiest religious attack to come from the left side of the aisle was Jacob Weisberg’s December 2006 Slate piece.  This was the piece that included the now infamous phrase, “the founding whoppers of Mormonism.”  This piece went on to become one we cited again and again and again on the blog as pure, unthinking, left-leaning bigotry, but as I reviewed our comments at the time, we went awfully easy on it.  But then there was not much meat there to argue with.

Weisberg’s “reasoning” was: 1) It’s acceptable to discriminate based on religion because religion is irrational; and 2) Mormonism is especially irrational because it is so young; therefore, 3) discriminating against Romney based on his faith is not only acceptable, but necessary.

Once again, we see the “win-win” strategy that went on to define so many of these attacks from the left.  Pit the religious conservatives against each other (Mormonism is especially irrational) and at the same time show that religious people in general should not really be seriously considered (all religion is irrational).

This piece was so blatant in its anti-religious fervor and so up-front in its anti-Mormon bigotry that it is amazing that Jacob Weisberg still works for Slate.   Imagine in this racially charged electoral period if he had written, “Well, some discrimination on race is acceptable, there are real genetic differences in the races, and discrimination towards blacks is particularly reasonable because we all know they have extra muscles.”  How long would he keep his job after something like that? Less than a minute would be my bet.

Some day this piece will be preserved in a museum, like some of the op-eds in southern newspapers that appeared during the Civil Rights movement.  People will read it and shake their heads in amazement that anyone actually thought that way, let alone said it out loud.

Ken Woodward – There is not much to say about Woodward’s April 2007 New York Times piece “The Presidency’s Mormon Moment,” that we have not already said.    In the piece Woodward attempted to describe why Americans might be uncomfortable with a Mormon president.  All he really succeeded in doing was angering a bunch of Mormons and other Christians that like them, spreading ignorance rather than helping to end it, and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was lazy.  (Lowell called him “clueless.”)

Few of the pieces we will examine here got a more thorough examination at the time of publication than this one, primarily because Woodward consented to a near hour long interview on The Hugh Hewitt Show the next day.  (Sadly, the transcript is no longer available for linking – but it is quoted extensively in our post.)  Essentially he did two things.  One, he addressed what he referred to as “common perceptions” about Mormons.  Not facts – he took people’s prejudices and misconceptions at face value and then proceeded to try to justify them.  The other thing he did was not bother to do any actual journalism.  Woodward more or less came out of retirement on the religion beat for the NYTimes to write the piece.  It was clear he did not a bit of original or new research for it.  He just sat down and started typing one day until he could hand in some copy and get paid.

While certainly not the most prejudiced piece written in the course of events (see Jacob Weisberg on the left or Joel Belz on the right for that honor), this piece was by far the least journalistic, even as an op-ed.  The saddest thing about this particular piece was that it appeared in the New York Times, the nation’s purported “paper of record.”  That Woodward attempted to cash in an easy buck in retirement is understandable, that the editorial board of this once great newspaper let it out is unconscionable.  Given the ever-dwindling importance of the daily metropolitan newspaper, it is difficult to say if this piece had much impact or not.  It certainly had the widest circulation of any of the pieces we discuss in this post, which in some ways makes it the most offensive.

We could go on about this piece for hours, but why?  Just follow the links.  It was like shooting fish in a barrel then and still is.  Shame on Woodward and the NYTimes.

Damon Linker – In January of ‘07, The New Republic published a piece by Damon Linker called “Taking Mormonism Seriously – The Big Test.“  The piece required a subscription to access initially and now the link appears to be dead altogether, so we have linked to our discussion of it.  The piece was huge news at the time it appeared – the guns had, by that time, been loaded and cocked to respond to something on precisely those lines – but as the campaign proceeded, this piece and argument appeared to fade into the woodwork.  In retrospect, it was a blunt instrument attempting to do surgery – a scalpel was needed.

In essence it examined Mormon belief and then attempted to say, “If you really believe this stuff, then . . . .”  The piece suffered from two enormous problems.  One was it ignored the political realities of the United States, and two it confused religious adherence with religious fanaticism.  The piece assumed that a president could somehow run roughshod over all action of the US government, as if we had no checks and balances.  The fact of the matter is, if the nation did mess up tremendously and elect a president with a nutcase agenda, there is Congress to balance the scales.  Further, while the president of the CJCLDS is considered a prophet, adherents to that faith are very different than fanatical Muslims following the edicts of a crazy Imam.  And even Imams generally only have a few fanatic followers.  There are fanatical Mormons, as there are fanatics of every faith, but then Romney had an established record as governor of Massachusetts.  I doubt we were in for any surprises.

Linker’s piece, in part, drew a great deal of reaction because it used an argument expected from the right.  We all, including people like me of the right, expected a theological attack to occur, but we expected more from the hinterlands of the far right of the Religious Right than we did from a source like this.  But we had the ammo and we were ready to use it.  But then it is also possible that by jumping on this piece so hard, those on the right became wise to the fact that such a blunt attack would not be helpful.

Despite a very different approach to the topic, this still fit the win-win mold of all the journalistic coverage from the left.  If these accusation could be made to successfully stick to Mormons, they could to anyone that claimed their religion really mattered to them.  Though more of a slippery slope approach to the win-win than the triangulation of other left side approaches, this piece stood to harm Evangelicals and the Religious Right in general just as much as any other piece from the left that attacked Romney on the basis of his religion.

Gary South -In April of ‘07 the then-fledgling Politico published a piece by self-described “Democratic Strategist” Gary South.  He claims a fundamentalist Pentecostal background in the course of the piece.  He goes to great length to establish his Christian bona fides.

This piece got little attention from the wider community watching this issue because frankly, South brought a rock to a knife fight.  He was so blatant in his attempts to drive a wedge between Romney, Mormons and other Christians that it made even the fanatical Religious Right types nervous.

His argument was essentially that because the CJCLDS believes themselves to be be the church restored, and therefore find all the rest of Christianity inferior, that Romney would be view all other faiths as illegitimate for participation in the public square.

Frankly, the argument itself made me buy into South’s claims of being a fundamentalist Pentecostal because I have had way too many fundamentalist Pentecostals tell me that I was going to hell as an Evangelical Presbyterian.  There is a great deal of the pot calling the kettle black in this one.  Perhaps that is why it got very little attention, it was an attempt at murder-suicide.  Regardless, it stands out as one of the uglier pieces written through the entire course of the discussion and campaign and is therefore worthy of note here.

Al Sharpton – The final entry in our list of left-leaning attack dogs is a man who makes a living by crying “VICTIM!”  In May of 2007, the Rev. Al Sharpton was debating Christopher Hitchens on the validity of faith when, as reported in the New York Times, and recorded on YouTube, he said:

“As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don’t worry, that’s a temporary situation.”

Lovely, just lovely.  Said Hugh Hewitt at the time, “If Al had declared that a Buddhist, Hindu or Muslim candidate would be defeated by those ‘who really believe in God,’ how great would the outcry be?”  We pointed out that there was a clear case of double standard in the press coverage because Sharpton largely got a pass.

This incident also proved to be a win-win for the liberals – the attack on Mormons obvious and the attack on orthodox Christians evident in how utterly bigoted Sharpton looks.  Which also points out another important lesson.  He who spends his life guarding against bigotry can become the most bigoted.

As Christians of all stripes grow increasingly worried about the voice of religion in the public square, this last important lesson may be the one to hold onto tightest.  As we fight for our voice, we cannot do so at the exclusion of others that should share in the freedom we demand, or else we come off exactly like Sharpton.  But that is the subject for another post in this series – in fact the very next one.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.