This will be short and sweet as we continue to come back from vacation mode, but a commenter sent along this story from the Washington Times.

Prominent evangelical leaders are warning Sen. John McCain against picking former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as his running mate, saying their troops will abandon the Republican ticket on Election Day if that happens.

They say Mr. Romney lacks trust on issues such as outlawing abortion and opposing same-sex marriage and because he is a Mormon. (Emphasis added.)

That said there are a couple of key things to note. The first is the very next sentence in the piece:

Opposition is particularly powerful among those who supported former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in the Republican presidential primaries earlier this year.

Well, what does that tell you? The other is, of course, the names of the “prominent evangelical leaders” involved. They include:

• Tim LaHaye
• Rob McCoy

Who? These are names you would know only if you are deep into Evangelicalism. They are names that are religious leaders, but not political ones. The piece then goes on to look at comments, out of context, by people like Phyllis Schafly and David Barton. It weaves their public comments with those of others to paint a picture of opposition where only inquiry and concern exists. This latter group wants assurances on specific issues, but it is other people that have a problem with Romney specifically on those issues.

Clearly this is a piece designed to revive The Question as opposed to report on it. You are not seeing this story in major outlets, which should be a clue. Yesterday, I said briefly:

What a Romney Veep nod would do is marginalize the radically conservative and bigoted Evangelical minority permanently.

Say hello to those to whom I was referring. I am wondering if the Washington Times is not amongst that crowd.

Late addition: The reliably Romney-hating Boston Globe is more than willing to pass on this little bit of bashing, marking the story making the “big time.” (Well, if you can consider a NYTimes-owned newspaper as “big time.”) Please note they pass this on with attribution of the source, and without adding anything new. Tells me they are more interested in bashing Romney and Evangelicals than in actual reporting.
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Now here’s something: Orson Scott Card asks McCain not to name Romney his running mate. Why? Here are the crucial ‘graphs from OSC’s open letter to Senator McCain:

What Mitt Romney would do, as your vice presidential candidate, is weaken you in areas that you absolutely must carry: The South and the Bible Belt.

You cannot afford to underestimate the number of people who will never vote for a ticket that includes a Mormon.

Even if the number is as low as ten percent of the Evangelical Christian voting base — an optimistic estimate — that saps your strength where you need to rack up large majorities.

When you consider that in the South, the black vote will — understandably! — be energized and turn out in record numbers, the last thing you need is for the Evangelical Christian vote to be unenthusiastic, with large numbers of them sitting it out.

Can you afford to run the risk of losing a single southern state? Because that is the risk that Romney as your Vice President would expose you to.

It’s going to take time — years! — for Romney, through his own efforts, to overcome the unjustified but genuine bias against Mormons. In four years or eight years he might be perfectly viable in these regions.

But right now, at this precise moment, he is not. No Mormon would be. . . .

[E]ven though I am every bit as much a Mormon as Mitt Romney, and I resent the slanders that have led Evangelical Christians to hate us, I must beg you not to make the mistake of appointing him as your running mate.

(Emphasis added.) OSC is a keen observer of national politics and has lived in North Carolina for many years, so his views deserve respect and attention. Our regular reader and commenter coltakashi, who pointed us to OSC’s post, observes:

If [Card] is correct, I am amazed that a lot of people in the South would think that a Mormon who is a father of 5 sons and many grandchildren, and married to the same woman for over 35 years, is a greater danger to Evangelical Christians than a man whose “Christianity” has no problem with gay marriage and abortion and whose pastor for 20 years has . . . said “God d–n America.”

Well, Coltakashi, you read this blog and so you know we agree with you. Truthfully, however, I just don’t know if Orson Scott Card is right or not. I hope he is wrong; I fear he is right.

You cannot afford to underestimate the number of people who will never vote for a ticket that includes a Mormon.

There was a time when I was very skeptical of such claims. I remain skeptical, but less so.

For example, there really are no hard polling data supporting OSC’s assertion, but . . . but . . . are polls worth anything in this context? Do people answer questions about The Question honestly? Outside the sanctity of the voting booth, will likely voters really admit, unashamedly, that they would never vote for a Mormon?

Yes, in the primaries Romney actually did well among Evangelical voters. But what about that chunk of Evangelicals in places like South Carolina who went overwhelmingly for Huckabee? We suggested here that the pro-Huck Evangelical vote was based on identity — the “he’s one of us” phenomenon.

But did all those pro-Huck voters make their choice on that basis? Lurking among that slice of the Evangelical vote, is there a sizable group who will be “unenthusiastic, with large numbers of them sitting it out,” as OSC claims?

I hope not. But who can really know? I would feel more comfortable if I felt assured that the James Dobsons and Al Mohlers of the world would exercise some leadership, like making a passionate case for Evangelicals voting for Romney the Mormon.

So far that has not happened. Dobson seemed very favorably disposed to Romney, but afraid of his constituency’s reaction to any endorsement or even any encouragement to vote for a Mormon. Mohler seemed to have a genuine conscience-based reluctance to vote for a Mormon, for fear of “mainstreaming” a religion he feels is false. Result: Mike Huckabee’s remarkable success as “the Evangelical candidate,” in splitting the social conservative vote, and eventually in assuring John McCain’s nomination.

It’s going to take time — years! — for Romney, through his own efforts, to overcome the unjustified but genuine bias against Mormons.

I disagree with OSC here, at least in part. It is not any candidate’s job to overcome religious bias. Card’s point that it will take time to overcome anti-Mormon electoral bias is spot-on, however. I suppose having a Mormon veep candidate would help.

I end with another question: How will anti-Mormon voters really vote in a race involving a Mormon vice presidential nominee? Will they vote at all? And is the group of voters who actually care about a candidate’s religion big enough to make a difference? The fact is, no one really knows.

John (back but grossly jet-lagged) comments: Absent Huckabee, The Question is a problem only for a minority of Evangelicals. Most Evangelicals did not side with Huck because of the Question, just because he was “one of them.” No such forces at play in the general. What a Romney Veep nod would do is marginalize the radically conservative and bigoted Evangelical minority permanently. Not such a bad thing in my book.

News Media Consistency Watch

The Pew Forum excerpts this Wall Street Journal piece (Journal link may require subscription), which examines in depth Bobby Jindal’s conversion from Hinduism to Catholicism. The conclusion:

“I’ve always thought that each of us as an individual should make our own decisions,” said Mr. Jindal. “I think it is unfortunate that so often in modern society we tend to try to group people by stereotypes and hyphenated identifications.” That’s a lesson he may soon be taking to a wider audience.

Well. That seems reasonable to me, but I do wonder:

• What will the more extreme elements of creedal christianity — the ones who find Romney insufficiently Christian — think of Jindal’s Hindu upbringing and conversion to Catholicism, rather than an Evangelical faith? In Louisiana it’s very safe for a politician to be a Catholic convert. What about Iowa and South Carolina?
• Will opponents use Jindal’s religious background against him, as in photos of Jindal as a boy in Hindu traditional dress? Will someone like Mike Huckabee innocently ask a New York Times reporter, “But isn’t Bobby’s real name Piyush?”
• Should Jindal need to discuss his religious conversion and current beliefs at all? (I vote no.)

It has been a strange year for religion and presidential politics.
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John is on a cruise, and I am headed out on vacation myself within the next hour.  So for today’s post I’ve chosen one of John’s finest and most important past efforts.  As I read this this morning, I ask myself:  Has John’s message been accepted yet?

_________________________________________

A Letter To Some of My Fellow Evangelicals

Posted by John Schroeder on April 17th, 2007      

In talking to my evangelical friends, both personally and in some emails I receive about this blog, there are some themes or statements that come up again and again. I thought I would address a few of them.

How can I, in good conscience, vote for someone whose beliefs are very different than mine?

Why would your conscience be troubled? You are voting for someone to do the job of president, not pastor. You are voting for the individual, not his beliefs. Can he do the job? Will he do the job in a way that aligns with my principles and values? Those are the questions that matter. When hiring someone for my business, those are the question I ask. Of course, I would prefer someone that believes as I do, but often I find candidates much better qualified for the job with other, or more frequently simply without, beliefs. I frankly would be foolish to hire a lesser qualified candidate to operate a soil sampling drill rig simply because the best candidate was a Jehovah’s Witness instead of a Presbyterian.

People’s beliefs really matter in their lives, and Mormons believe so differently.

Indeed Mormon belief is quite different, but how precisely does that matter? It is my opinion that Mormon belief is grossly misunderstood. It is not orthodox by any stretch of the imagination, but it is not so far off as the common perception might suggest. Consider the Godhead, to use the LDS term. Mormons are decidedly non-Trinitarian, fair enough. But does that make a difference in how a Mormon would govern? I don’t think so. Are our values based on our Trinitarian views? - No. Our values are largely based on the Judaic law, which is in turn based on monotheism, but not Trinitarianism. Some try to paint Mormons as polytheists, and the strictest possible interpretation of their theology of the godhead would indicate they are, but I have read enough Mormon theologians to know they do not carry their views of the godhead that far. Ask any Mormon if they are polytheistic and they will deny it vociferously. At best we can accuse them of having lousy logic in their theological formulations, but in practice and life they are little different than us. Please remember they hold the same scripture we do, plus “The Lord your God is ONE God” is scripture for Mormons just as much as it is for us. The additional scripture of Mormonism does not to the best of my knowledge contradict a word of the Bible - they interpret it very differently, but that is not a critical matter in this instance.

So, my question to you - specifically what is it that Mormons believe, as cited by Mormons, not anti-Mormon activists, that will affect how they govern? My researches of the last year and 100 years of Utah history says that they govern just like we do.

If you are still concerned, consider:

How do you feel when atheists say you should not vote for X because he is a Christian? This is America; our freedom to practice our faith is highly dependent on the freedom to have religious diversity in all areas of society, including government. If we, even in the privacy of the voting booth, exclude someone of another faith, then we are giving permission to allow others to exclude us. And we are increasingly in the minority in this nation . . . .

Technorati Tags: Mormons, belief, difference, Evangelicals, Mitt Romney

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It was Iowa — better said, a lot of Iowa Republican primary voters — who propelled Mike Huckabee into prominence and punctured the tire on Mitt Romney’s campaign bus.  The latest news about the Iowa GOP is that they’ve denied their senior senator, Charles Grassley, a voting seat among its delegation the to the Republican National Convention.

Is there any earthly reason to allow such a demographic to have such tremendous influence over who the Republican presidential nominee is?

In the encouraging news department, a Google News search for “Mitt Romney” with the words “vice president” and “Mormon” produced nothing notable. That’s good, even if it leaves us with little to write about. Believe me, John and I would be happy if this blog became unnecessary.

Meanwhile, veep speculation runs rampant. We’re biased, of course, but it sure does seem to be trending Romney’s way. That’s what the L.A. Times Opinion LA blog thinks, as well as NPR’s Ron Elving:

[R]ight now pressure is building again for McCain to set aside his personal distaste for Romney and put him on the ticket. The campaign has put out the story that the obvious animosity between the two men in the primaries has been set aside. No one will ever sense true chemistry in this relationship, but it’s possible McCain could make the same judgement call that Sen. Bob Dole made in 1996.

Dole had endured considerable abuse from former Rep. Jack Kemp of New York when they both served in Congress, and it was clear that the Kansan had little use for the former pro quarterback. But if Kemp could help win the White House, Dole was willing to make the personal sacrifice and put him on the ticket.

It was a sign of some desperation on Dole’s part, and in the end it did not get him elected. But Romney is a more mature and serious politician than Kemp ever was, and he may be a better antidote to McCain’s specific problems than Kemp was for Dole’s.

With his most recent moves, Romney has shown he is willing to forget past wounds and make sacrifices of a material kind that few can dream of making. He has done what he can do.

Will McCain feel the need to do as much?

We’ll see. And the gang at MSNBC says McCain might announce his VP pick while Obama’s overseas. That would be interesting.

And on that note, we wish you a fine day!
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Now, about that Evangelical defection to Obama . . .

Mollie at GetReligion details and dissects “a new Pew study that indicates that Obama is getting slightly fewer — that’s right — fewer white evangelical supporters than John Kerry was at the same time four years ago.”

Wait a minute. I thought the whole center-right coalition was falling apart, led by the defection of Evangelicial Christians? I thought efforts like Obama’s faith-based initiative outreach to Evangelicals were changing the dynamic of the race?

Then again, maybe not. Mark Hemingway at NRO thinks the story line “is a classic example of the media trying to force a campaign narrative, regardless of whether it is true.” Golly, where have we seen that before?

More on this here and here. And Blake Dvorak’s analysis is more compelling than anything you’ll probably see in the Washington Post or New York Times.

The Climb-Down Begins

Looks like James Dobson is having second thoughts:

“I never thought I would hear myself saying this,” Dobson said in a radio broadcast to air Monday. “… While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might.”

Dobson should think about avoiding sweeping predictions about the future, as in his statement that he’d never vote for McCain, or “I don’t believe that conservative Christians in large numbers will vote for a Mormon, but that remains to be seen, I guess.”

VeepWatch note

David Broder says what many (including me) are wondering:

McCain relies on his instincts for the big decisions, and I can’t tell whether he has really abandoned his initial thumbs-down judgment about Romney. He clearly needs help from someone to compete with Obama on the economy. Greenspan and Buffett aren’t going to do it for him.

Yup.
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First, watch this JibJab cartoon, if you haven’t already. If you’re like me, you’ll laugh out loud and find your mood unexpectedly improved.

Now: Pickings are a little slim these days, it being the dog days of summer and all. (I’m in Washington today, and “dog days” certainly describes the weather.) But there is still a little going on:

Jonathan Martin reports, in one of those anecdotal pieces we dislike so much, that “the reason McCain is garnering less enthusiasm than President Bush [is that] talking about his personal faith is not something he’s comfortable with.”

(Emphasis added.) A plague on all their houses. First, on Martin’s house: His story is based on another story, which is in turn based on yet another set of “person in the street” interviews. Note to journalists: Those anecdotal interviews tell us nothing. Nada. Zilch. They reflect your laziness. They do make good reads, however.

Second, consider this “person in the street” view, as reported by Martin:

SIOUX CENTER, Iowa (AP) — Stirring her morning coffee, lifelong Republican Grace Droog voiced her doubts — and those of many evangelical voters — about what she isn’t hearing from John McCain in this year’s presidential election.

“I look for something about his faith,” she said. “It’s very important, it’s what our nation was founded on.”

Her pal Joan Rens nodded; she, too, wants McCain to talk about his religious beliefs. “I wish he would so we would know how he stands on his religious views and where his faith lies,” she said.

This makes me want to scream. Are you as tired of this approach to voting as I am? Is that all it takes — a candidate must talk about his religious beliefs a lot, even if it’s the social justice religio-babble of an Obama? Please.

(I was just kidding about the plague, by the way.)

And . . . why, pray tell, is Iowa supposed to be such a bellweather for voter sentiment?

For a more forward-looking approach, here’s an interesting e-mailer to K-Lo at NRO:

Evangelicals are going through a massive political identity crisis right now and should not, absolutely should not, be courted according to some outdated pre-2004 model. We are too disjointed right now for our collective views to be a determining factor, especially as doing so would alienate other voting groups.

Read the whole thing, and enjoy your weekend!
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