Article VI Blog

We have already discussed over the weekend, the Mormon “slips” of Newt Gingrich and John King.  But that is just the tip of the iceberg, as Jay Nordlinger points out.  And like an iceberg, it appears to be something that while unseen can still sink the ship.

Over the weekend we were treated to three major left wing pieces discussing Romney’s religion and calling on him to discuss it “openly.”  There was Randall Balmer in The New Republic:

The essential question, from the perspective of many voters, concerns the very nature of Mormonism, an upstart religion born in western New York in 1830 and persecuted for much of the nineteenth century.

And Then Frank Bruni in the NYTimes:

Four years later, he still avoids the word, trumpeting his faithfulness without specifying the faith. What’s surprising is that no one around him — not reporters, not rivals — talks about it all that much, either.

And most notably, Frank Rich in The New Yorker:

That faith is key to the Romney mystery. Had the 2002 Winter Olympics not been held in Salt Lake City, and not been a major civic project of Mormon leaders there, it’s unlikely Romney would have gotten involved. (Whether his involvement actually prompted a turnaround of that initially troubled enterprise, as he claims, is a subject of debate.) But Romney is even less forthcoming about his religion than he is about his tax returns. When the Evangelical view of Mormonism as a non-Christian cult threatened his 2008 run, Romney delivered what his campaign hyped as a JFK-inspired speech on “Faith in America.” This otherwise forgotten oration was memorable only for the number of times it named Romney’s own faith: once.

Michael Walsh, standing on NRO’s Corner said of the Rich piece:

It’s a cold day in hell when I recommend anything my old chum Frank Rich writes, but this long piece in New York magazine entitled “Who in God’s Name Is Mitt Romney?” is most definitely worth a read — especially for the Republican leadership — if only as a preview of a coming leftist line of attack against the presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney: his Mormon heritage and faith.

There is clearly a storm brewing.  One is tempted to look at this and think that the general election is shaping up to be one of the ugliest in history.  I think that is true, but I also think there is more at stake.  In Florida we saw a willingness by Democrats to mess with the Republican primary process, blatantly.  Two more piece appeared over the weekend that are very worthy of note.  Jennifer Rubin:

Politico’s John Harris has a must-read column on the manufacture of outrage, a staple of modern campaigns, over Mitt Romney’s comments on the “very poor.”

[...]

And yet on this one, the right was arguably more guilty than the left in stoking hysteria. The arguments offered to justify the overreaction were decidedly unconvincing.

One must ask, “Why?”  And so we turn to Sean Trende doing the numbers at Real Clear Politics:

Regardless, we see that a large portion of the GOP fight can be explained very well using only demographic variables. This is what I believe Cost picked up on when he found that northern conservatives voted for Romney, while southern conservatives voted against him. In the north, the conservatives tend to be non-evangelical. In the south, they tend to be evangelical (in Florida, they’re split).

Why this is the case is open to interpretation. The simplest answer is anti-Mormon bias, but that seems a bit too easy. After all, the alternatives are a pair of Catholics. The other possibility — and this is a problem with regression — is that religion could be a stand-in for ideology, and that, regardless of self-identification, a self-described conservative evangelical Republican is significantly to the right of a self-described conservative who is non-evangelical.

There is a clear picture emerging – the tensions inside the Republican party are real and the borders are defined, at least in some large measure, by religion.  Now, of course, all primaries develop tensions inside a party, but religion adds a dimension to those tensions not normally seen.  I don’t want to go all left-wing, “religion is evil” here, but a religious component to a conflict more often than not serves to intensify the conflict.

What we are seeing in the Ballmer, Bruni, and Rich pieces, not to mention related pieces centering around the recently released book “The Real Romney” questioning Romney’s “authenticity,” is an effort on the part of Obama’s media allies to cleave the Republican party in two.  They don’t just want to win the presidency, I think they want to do away with us for good.  It appears to this observer that they believe the largely unspoken religious element of this primary cycle gives the typical primary tensions more force – force that with a small nudge could cleave the party permanently.  At the very least, they think they can force a large portion of the Republican base to sit this one out – and make it very hard for the Republicans to pull them back in.

Yes, there is still a primary battle to fight, but it is not too early to think about the general.  At this point, the best way to think about the general is to deal with the tensions in the primary.  In the lead up to Florida we wrote about the problems in lying to oneself.  Just because we are not talking about Romney’s faith, does not mean it is not at play.  To simply not talk about it is a form of self-deception.  We can ill afford such deception with a general election looming ahead that is likely to be as ugly as this one.

Mitt Romney is now very likely going to be the nominee.  It is time for those opposed to him for less than legitimate reasons to get over it.  We need to get the primary battle back on a footing that does not supply the REAL opposition so much ammunition.

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…to watch Monty Python’s Black Knight imitate Newt Gingrich.

With a Hat Tip to an emailer.

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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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I was hanging out with a friend a few months ago and we were discussing my difficulties in controlling my weight.  I mentioned that one of the things I do is eat “Lean Cuisine” and its other branded equivalents most weeknights.  My friend confessed that he found such ill-seasoned, portion-size-controlled frozen boxes so distasteful that he could not even try to choke them down.  I told him that I did not particularly care for them either, but that was not the point.

Simply put, some choices are a matter of simple preference, or taste, and some choices need more careful consideration.  My issue with weight control means that I cannot make my dining selection based on what I prefer, but rather I must make them based on what can allow me to sustain my weight both physically and psychologically.  Thus while I would greatly prefer an almost immeasurable array of things to one of those boxes for my evening meal, its ease of preparation (keeping me out of the kitchen which always leads to snacking) and controlled portions (meaning I can eat everything I see and not have overeaten in the process) makes it the meal of choice for me.

The Wall Street Journal recently wrote on the impending IPO of Facebook and carried on at great length about the marketing value of the “Like” button.  “Like” at Facebook is a simple thing – it is a statement of preference.  Increasingly the force of marketing tempts us to invest in our preferences rather than in what reason and circumstances say we should.  How many people are overextended on credit cards, not because they are out of work and used them to get by, but because they simply overbought?

Don’t get me wrong, following your taste or preference is harmless within certain constraints.  It’s a great way to decide what to watch on TV tonight, provided your tastes do not run to the obscene – in which case you have with television the same kind of issues I have with food.   But there are some decisions that simply demand we set our preferences aside, or at least deeply subordinate them, in favor of our reason and a sober assessment of circumstances.

Buying a house would be one example.  Before I can even begin to concern myself with things like style and floor plan, I must seriously look at costs and financing.  Once I have determined the price I can afford then I can use matters of taste to differentiate amongst the available houses in that range.  If my “dream house” costs more than I can afford it must stay a dream.

This same principle holds when it comes to our political decisions.  I was deeply struck a few days ago by a NRO piece by Wesley J. Smith:

When Pliny the Younger was a provincial governor in the Roman Empire, he wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan asking whether he should execute Christians who refused to burn incense in worship of the emperor. Pliny, in keeping with the customs of the empire, did not care about forcing Christians to believe that the emperor was a god. But in public they had to behave as if they did. Thus, the Christians were in the dock not so much because of their faith in a risen Christ as over their willful refusal to declare themselves part of the reigning social order.

I thought of Pliny when I read that the Obama administration, in creating specific rules to implement Obamacare, will require all employers (with a very narrow exemption discussed below) to offer their employees health insurance that provides FDA-approved contraception, female sterilization, and other “reproductive” services free of charge — even if the employer is a religious organization and doing so violates its doctrine. I also recalled the times that President Obama and other members of his administration have supported “freedom of worship.” However, as in Pliny’s time, “freedom of worship” is not the same thing as “freedom of religion.” The former means that one may believe whatever one wants and worship privately without interference, whereas the latter allows one freedom to live in the world at large consistent with one’s faith tenets, even if they are not endorsed by the state.

That distinction between religion and worship is an extraordinary observation.  Smith goes on about its political consequences and Roman Catholic concerns, but it is deeper than that still.  It is particularly pertinent to Evangelicals, and even Protestant Christianity generally.  Within these circles there is something called the “Worship Wars.”  Google the term and you will be amazed how much discussion there is about it.  Essentially the battle is between organ music dominant liturgical forms of worship and “modern” guitar music dominated “freer” forms of worship.  Much of the fight centers on matters of taste in music and other forms of religious expression.  But in the fight people often neglect that there are consequences that go far beyond simple matters of taste.

One of the outfalls of this “inside baseball” battle has been that many, many people have come to confuse “worship” with Church.  This is something I could go on about until well past the time your interest waned completely, but let’s focus on the fact that this confusion has deep political consequences.  Smith’s piece looks at some of the consequences on a policy level, but I want to examine it on a retail politics level.  Obama is flat out betting on the fact that most people are stuck in this confusion and cannot tell the difference between worship and religion – or more directly they simply think worship IS religion.

How else could Obama allow the abysmal ruling vis-a-vie forcing Catholic institutions to provide insurance that provides for medical services antithetical to church teaching and come out just a few days later and at the National Prayer Breakfast sound just like a preacher?  There are many, many theological, policy and hermeneutical nits to pick with the president’s prayer breakfast speech, but I just want to focus on the incredible chutzpah  (to borrow a term from yet another religious group) of such seemingly diametrically opposed actions.

But for those actions to be diametrically opposed, religion has to be a matter of more than taste.  Yet as the “worship wars” indicate, for thousands and thousands of Americans religion is little more than a matter of taste.

When I started thinking about this whole “taste and thought” thing I was going to write about it in response to all the people I have heard on talk radio and elsewhere in the last several weeks talking about how Gingrich resonated with them and expressed their feelings (a matter more or less of taste) and they simply did not care about the reality of the politics on the ground (a matter of thought.)  That still applies, but this has turned into something much more important.

I am deeply concerned that if people continue to view religion primarily as a matter of taste we are lost.  There are undoubtedly some that will tell me I am part of the problem having insisted these many years that Mormons deserve a place at the table.  Read Smith -  once we understand the difference between religion and worship then we can begin to truly understand what freedom of religion really is  and come to understand its necessity for the operation of our nation.

It is time for those of us of faith to engage our brains and subordinate our taste to our reason.  There is simply too much at stake.

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Obama said a long time ago that he was going to use “weird” as a meme in a general election run against Mitt Romney.  At the time everyone knew he meant “Mormon.”  But there have a been some interesting developments in the primary race that could change his mind.

Essentially, the Mormon issue has shown local appeal, but is not playing generally – and might even be backfiring with moderates and independents.  Gingrich misplayed it in Florida and got trounced.  Santorum’s surrogates played it and he had no traction at all.  (Note to Santorum – lose this guy and lose him publicly.  The plausible deniability is spent.)  Iowa was a virtual tie and the Evangelical vote split in Florida.  You can bet your bottom dollar the “not Romney” votes from there will either go Romney or stay home in the general – they will not go Obama.

People may indeed think Mormonism “weird,” but in a world where we are all a little weird, we don’t like being attacked for it.  Tone matters too.  Romney payed hardball in Florida but Gingrich was just flat out nasty.  A “vitriolic” and “spiteful” Obama might not be a good idea.

Which brings me to the Obama administration’s latest swipe at folks of faith:

The Obama Administration is standing by a decision to require all insurance plans to cover the use of contraceptives, but said Friday it would give some employers an additional year to comply.

The rule, which goes into effect August 1, 2012, requires all insurance plans to cover the cost of birth control. Many non-profits with religious affiliations, such as Catholic universities and hospitals, say that will force them to violate their basic tenets.

The Department of Health and Services announced Friday those employers would have until August 1, 2013, to meet the new requirement.

The push back from the Catholic church has been enormous – you can read about here, here and here.  Politically, this is a very shrewd move on Obama’s part, even if it is onerous.  The policy is based on his conviction that “most Americans” think the religious prohibitions against contraception and abortion are “weird.”  But as things are shaping up, that conclusion has to be called into question.  By making an announcement, any announcement, he has pushed the issue to the fore so he can test the waters before the general.  By making THIS announcement he has 1) appealed to his base by keeping the policy in place, 2) appealed to moderates with the “reasonable” delay, and 3) really punted the issue into the next administration – hoping inertia, or his victory in November, will prevent it from being changed.

Unfortunately, this is policy, not simply an effort to shape public perception of someone in an election cycle.  This matters.

And It Provides Mitt Romney With An Opportunity

Tuesday our friend Timothy Dalrymple suggested some “course corrections” to Governor Romney.  Given what an effective spokesperson against a religion test Dalrymple has been this cycle, Team Romney would do well to listen.

Point #1: It’s never, never “all about the economy.”

[...]

Point #2: Don’t give up on evangelicals. Some very public evangelicals have very publicly denounced you and your faith.  Your cherished religious community, the community in which you were raised by loving parents, in which you’ve raised your own children, the same community that you have served so tirelessly over decades, was slandered as a “cult” by an influential pastor.  You, ergo, were portrayed as a cult member.  Many evangelical leaders defended this choice of wording, and few have spoken out even against the more obvious efflorescences of anti-Mormon bigotry.  To make matters worse, an entire generation of conservative evangelical activists/leaders gathered in Texas to rally around some candidate other than you.  So it would be perfectly understandable if you felt that you had little incentive — or no stomach — for further engagement with evangelicals.

[...]

Of those evangelicals who oppose you, few do so passionately, and most are compelled not by prejudice but by misinformation about your record and your positions.  In other words, many evangelicals support you now, and many more are willing to support you if they can be convinced that your stances on abortion, the family and religious liberties are sincere and impassioned, and not simply assumed for political convenience.

[...]

Point #3: Own your faith.

This may be the most important point of all.  Your discipline is the stuff of legend.  And after your father’s campaign for the presidency ran off the rails when he referred to a “brainwashing” on the Vietnam issue, the exercise of an extraordinarily meticulous self-control has become a pervasive theme in your family.  But these things are largely responsible for the “Romneybot” moniker.  Your behavior seems a little too programmed, too scripted, and therefore artificial.  It makes it hard for many people to connect with you.  And although Richard Land meant it in a different (and incorrect) sense, I believe he was inadvertently onto something when he said you’re “not Mormon enough” for many evangelicals.

You love God.  You strive to follow God’s leading in your life.  Although we would differ on the metaphysics of Christ’s nature, in practice your personal relationship with Jesus Christ looks an awful lot like the one that evangelicals enjoy.  These are not things that northeasterners typically wear on their sleeves, and your campaign is understandably reluctant to shine a spotlight on your Mormonism.  Evangelicals would grow more uncomfortable with you if they thought you were going to be making an argument on behalf of Mormonism throughout your presidency.  So you should not engage in apologetics.  But they will grow more comfortable with you if they see the depth, the vitality, and the heartfelt authenticity of your relationship with God.  They will grow more comfortable if they better understand your pastoral experience (let’s call it what it is) as ward bishop and stake president.  You have rich experiences in missions and preaching and pastoral counseling, and in all these ways you connected with ordinary people, ordinary workers, in the struggles of everyday life.

This ruling by the Obama administration gives Romney the perfect opportunity to follow this advise – simply by getting in front of the issue.  This ruling by the Obama administration could be the force that heals the rift inside the Republican coalition.  Mitt Romney in front of this issue accomplishes two very important things – it pulls social conservatives into camp Romney and in so doing it neutralizes “weird.”  If that happens, Obama will have no choice but to get shrill and Gingrich just showed us how that will go.

Posted in Candidate Qualifications, Doctrinal Obedience, Political Strategy, Religious Bigotry, Religious Freedom, Understanding Religion | 7 Comments » |  Print this post |  Email This Post

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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