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.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

With a Hat Tip to an emailer.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

The consensus seems to be that Romney did not hurt himself in last night’s debate, Gingrich did and Santorum won.  If you’re a Romney supporter, that’s an A-/ B+.

The most interesting reaction was from Kimberly Strassel at the WSJ:

It won’t be because Mr. Romney has become a better or more effective candidate. Primaries exist to help with that process, to let contenders read signals from the political landscape, to adapt, become stronger. Successful politicians absorb the signals and change up. Not Mr. Romney. If politics were evolution, the governor would still be swimming in the primordial soup.

That much was clear this week. The first signal was Mr. Gingrich’s resounding victory in South Carolina. If Mr. Romney were listening, he’d have understood that vote was as much against him as it was for Mr. Gingrich. It took but one punchy Gingrich debate performance to have voters abandoning the front-runner in droves.

South Carolina voters also clearly explained why. Exit polls showed that Mr. Romney’s two (and only) messages—that he is the best suited to turn around the economy and to defeat Barack Obama—aren’t working for the majority of voters. Mr. Gingrich beat Mr. Romney on both issues. The electorate explained that they first and foremost want a candidate willing to passionately promote conservative ideals.

Even I will confess to sometimes wanting to hear Romney want to “passionately promote conservative ideals.”  However, I also know why he doesn’t.  For one, George W. Bush’s “No New Taxes” pledge.  Any president is going to have to make some decisions that are unpopular with the base – nature of the job.  But I don’t think Romney is so concerned about angering the base.  A man of his character would be more concerned about breaking his word.   If he made such broad sweeping statements, he would feel honor bound to abide by them.  The people of very high integrity that I know operate on the principle of “under-promise and over-perform.”  That’s pretty rare in this world, but a treasure when found.

But there is another aspect to Ms. Strassel’s criticism that I find interesting.  From Dan Gilgoff @ CNN:

In a recent conference call with conservatives across the country, Mitt Romney expounded upon subjects he usually doesn’t talk much about: Jesus and eternity.

Asked on the call how his faith had shaped his success as a businessman and his political career, the presidential candidate spoke about “a conviction that life is eternal, that your family is your greatest prize, that ultimately what we accomplish in life is of little significance compared to the interests of the savior Jesus Christ and his purposes.”

“It puts everything into perspective and the perspective is that there are things more important than the here and now,” Romney continued on the Wednesday call, which was organized by the Faith and Freedom Coalition and included thousands of participants.

His answer may sound to some like boilerplate Christian thinking, but Romney was expressing core Mormon beliefs in a way he almost never does on the campaign trail.

When Romney does go “big idea,” it triggers a whole raft of Mormon talk.  “Does he really believe that or is that one of those things Mormons try and make you think they believe?”  “Do Mormons really have big ideas?”  “Are there verses in the Book of Mormon about that?”  It goes on and on and on.  In chat rooms, in local papers, in conversations across the nation these question and much worse go on throughout the nation.

USAToday put it quite well in this headline:

Many Americans uninformed, but still wary of Mormon beliefs

Suspicion of Mormonism is different than bigotry or opposition.  Suspicion of Mormonism means that everything Romney does has to be checked, rechecked, doubled checked – then checked again, because well…. No candidate, no person, can stand up to that kind of scrutiny unscathed.  Not because they are bad or mistaken, but simply because they are human.

But people need to remember it will be a different world come the general election.  The stark contracts between parties, and their respective candidates, will give Romney much more room to state broad principles.  In a primary, the debate is over shades of grey – you are looking for the candidate with just the right amount of “greyness.”  In the general election things will be quite black-and-white.

In the primary as it now stands, we have a black-and-white choice as well.  As we have chronicled here all week, we have a choice between a man of immense character and one who struggles mightily (and often loses the struggle) to maintain his character.  But even that immense gulf is a shade of grey in comparison to what comes in the general election.

There is a time and a place to speak broadly.  It is not yet that time.  It is yet another measure of character to know that time and to stay within its boundaries.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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.
 

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Yet the punditry and press, and most importantly the Democrats want to make you think this is a disaster.  Well, let us keep in mind that the line between the press and the Democrats is a thin one – of course, they want a “disaster” for the Republicans, because it strengthens their guy.  As far as the punditry goes, there are some deviations from the expected narrative, most notably in that it is Newt Gingrich that won in SC.  Why did Newt win?  Well, I think my analysis of Saturday holds, not to mention the fact that he is the closest thing to an Evangelical still standing.

It can never be forgotten that Newt engineered the great electoral turn around of 1994.  The man knows how to campaign; governance and temperance are the issue.  Personally, I am not too worried about Newt, he can hurt himself just as fast as he can help himself – and in all probability will.  Look, Newt played hardball here.  His debate exchange with Juan Williams rang the racism bell as Mike Huckabee’s “question” to the NYTimes reporter rang the Mormon bell in Iowa last time.  South Carolina may not be quite as redneck as it used to be, but as this election proved, Iowa is not quite as anti-Mormon as people may have thought, and yet, in 2008 the right bell at the right time can move the needle quite a bit.  The issue of racism is settled in this nation – it’s just flat out wrong. People are going to wake up to what Newt did in SC and it’s going to leave a mark.

There are smoke signals that the Mormon issue was at play.  We received reports from some making GOTV calls that they were getting a lot of Mormon pushback.  There are stats like this:

Exit polls show that 43 percent of voters who said that the candidates’ religious beliefs mattered “a great deal” went for Gingrich. Only 9 percent went for Romney — a lower percentage than he netted overall, where he is running in second. In contrast, of voters who said the religious beliefs of candidates didn’t matter to them at all, Romney won 42 percent.

And stories like these kept popping up during the voting day in SC:

Outside Tommy’s Ham House here this morning–where Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich scheduled back-to-back visits–a boisterous crowd of young, fresh-faced supporters was waving Romney signs and chanting, “MITT! MITT! MITT!”

But this wasn’t a grassroots youth movement rooted at the University of South Carolina. No, many of the students cheering on the candidate told BuzzFeed they were actually BYU students and young Mormons from D.C. and Virginia who traveled to the Palmetto State to give their coreligionist’s presidential effort a much-needed jolt of energy.

Don’t kid yourself – they were ringing the Mormon bell with stories like that, building the image of  vast religious conspiracy designed to play on the fears of the fence sitting Evangelical.  And speaking of stories that popped up during the voting day trying to ring bells, what about this one:

As someone who watched him first against Ted Kennedy, and then, later, during his run for governor, I am really rather stunned at what a singularly appalling liar Mitt Romney has become. It is bone-deep with him now.

If that sentence, from a leftie, is not designed to put fear into the hearts of Evangelicals that have a trust problem with Mormons, I do not know what is.  The PJMedia Tatler said:

Believe it or not (and I didn’t think it possible), Mormonism was one reason Romney lost South Carolina.  Exit polls show that most South Carolina voters wanted a candidate that shared similar religious views.  Romney lost big among those voters.  Note, I am not describing what ought to be, but rather what the data show is happening.

Oh, I think so too, quite a bit.  There were undoubtedly the usual whispers and mailings that happen in SC.  The Mormon issue was never really tested in SC last time as it was in Iowa.  Romney was no longer dominant by the time we got there and so it never really had to be tested.

I honestly think that we, and those that agree with us, have been successful at delegitimizing the Mormon issue – no one on the right side of the aisle dare mention it openly.  Robert Jeffress tried and was sent to the waste bin of politics.  In point of fact, I think Jeffress may have doomed Perry even before he got started.  We will never admit our bigotries, and at this juncture we will go to great lengths to hide them.  That includes voting for someone like Newt Gingrich with all the baggage he carries.

And the baggage may be more enormous than some suspect.  Consider this bit of analysis from the left:

Those willing to make excuses for Gingrich’s cheating on his second wife, Marianne, with his current wife, Callista (he also cheated on wife No. 1 with Marianne, who later became wife No. 2) are quick to say that the Christian faith requires forgiveness. And that is absolute right. But when has Gingrich apologized to President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore for his routine missives declaring both of them morally corrupt? When has Gingrich ever said publicly that while he was ripping other to shreds, he was doing the same to his marriage vows to forsake all others?

[...]

Gingrich is correct in stating that many of the folks in the audience understand personal pain. But when Newt himself, and his party, has shown little concern in the past about such pain when it has affected someone in the other party, their pleas for understanding looks like shameful pandering.

So to the Republican Party, your high-minded and sanctimonious positions about others not having morals and values should end. If you are willing to accept Newt Gingrich with all of his failings, then you had better open your arms for a whole lot of other sinners who have also sought God’s redemption.

But again, despite some that think Romney’s troubles are serious politics, I think he is right where he planned to be.  The only competition standing are a lunatic libertarian; a wonderful person who suffered from anti-Catholic bias in SC as much as Romney suffered anti-Mormon bias; and someone who is barely a Catholic, whom we can count on to self-destruct at some point in the future – and might even be baited into self-destruction.

And then there is this:

The South Carolina electorate didn’t vote for a person or a platform; they voted for a personality — the fiery, combative, MSM-hating Newt. They want the GOP nominee to charge at the president, throw around the term Alinksyite, push back at John King and Juan Williams, and shout out the absurdity of Barack Obama as president and the destructiveness of his combination of epic incompetence and awful ideology.

I suspect that the GOP as a whole has a lot of this pent-up anger at the Manhattan-Beltway media elites, and they too have been cool to cool hand Mitt as a result.

But if, having been indulged, that passion for a political fistfight ebbs and the desire to win grows, Romney will be a much, much better nominee for having blown a round on points and too timid by far a strategy.

Anger is not a sustainable political force a lesson that Rick Santorum may yet have to learn:

Rev. O’Neal Dozier, the conservative pastor of Pompano Beach’s Worldwide Christian Center, told the Palm Beach Post Sunday that Mitt Romney cannot win the presidency because Americans won’t vote for a Mormon president.

Following his third place finish in South Carolina, Rick Santorum made his first Florida campaign stop at Dozier’s church, where he gave a faith-based sermon. Dozier has been an outspoken critic of homosexuality and radical Islam. In November, former presidential candidate Herman Cain decided minutes before a speech not to have Dozier deliver his invocation, as was originally planned.

“You can look at the June Gallup poll that shows the people have already spoken – 22 percent of the electorate will not vote for a Mormon,” Dozier said. “The American people will not vote for a Mormon to be president of the United States.”

Dozier, who is black, said a Republican will need at least 10 percent of the black vote to win the presidency.

“Blacks are not going to vote for anyone of the Mormon faith,” Dozier said. “The book of Mormon says the Negro skin is cursed.”

[...]

Dozier’s comments came after Santorum had left a Coral Springs rally to attend a private fundraiser at the Coral Ridge Country Club. Santorum was not available to comment.

Santorum keeps flirting with anti-Mormon sentiment in a plausibly deniable fashion.  That can become a weapon to be used against him just as easily as Gingrich’s intemperance will likely undermine him.

Romney needs to capture the passion that underlies the anger present in the party, and he undoubtedly will.

It’s going to be another very interesting 10 days.

Addendum after publication: This post was written before the new polling for Florida, showing Gingrich with a lead was released, so it is a bit behind, but in light of that you have to think about what Jim Geraghty said this morning in his newsletter:

With Newt as the nominee, the Republican message to swing voters is, “Vote for the guy you detest to replace the president whom you still like but who has disappointed you.” That’s not an impossible sales pitch, but it is an extraordinarily difficult one.

Lowell adds . . .

Here are some points I received from a friend.  Call them “Things We Wish More People Knew About Mittt Romney:”

• “Mitt’s point – made too late in SC and too quietly to be appreciated in Florida – that he gave away his father’s money and none of his own wealth is from an inheritance….”
• “That he refused SEVEN CONSECUTIVE YEARS of salary – essentially donating his incredibly valuable time and executive talents to the Salt Lake Olympic Committee and the state of Massachusetts….”
• “The contrast is stark: In a decade when Newt Gingrich was taking and taking money from special public interests and endangering the national economy to do so, Mitt was foregoing compensation to balance budgets and rescue a state and an Olympics.”

I don’t know why the Romney campaign isn’t getting these point out, or why the news media are not interested in them.  E-mail your friends about this, blog about it, Twitter about it; call in to talk radio shows with the information.  People should know these things.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.