The debates fed a narrative that was becoming pervasive in the press: Edwards was running on bold ideas (universal health care, a new war on poverty); Hillary was the mistress of the nitty-gritty; and Obama was a lightweight, all sizzle and no steak. This is what the media did—it put every candidate in a neat little box and slapped a pithy label on it. Obama understood. But for the past three years, as the press fawned over him, the box he was stuffed into bore a succession of tags that were flattering and advantageous. New. Fresh. Inspiring. Post-racial. He’d never had a negative run of press on the national level, and therefore never developed the kind of thick protective hide that repelled the media’s slings and arrows.

[Emphasis added.]  There is little question,  as we discussed in our review of campaign ‘08, that the box Romney was most stuffed into was labeled “Mormon.”  As Romney has begun, with his book tour, to reemerge publicly, some in the press are continuing with that narrative, as we saw in yesterday’s review of the coverage.   Due to Mike Huckabee’s deliberate attempts to box in Evangelicals, being stuffed in the “Mormon” box harmed Romney significantly in ‘08.

Questions:

• Will the press be able to put Romney in that box this time, or will it be so “old news” that to use it is a sign of poor reporting?
• What strategies, if any, can Romney employ to break out of the box?
• Should Romney ignore the box – pretend it is not there?
• Assume neither Huckabee nor Palin are in, will the box be harmful?  Assume one or both are in?
• Should the CJCLDS take steps to reduce the potential harm the box might cause?  What would those steps be?

We are interested in our readers’ input here.  Comments on this blog are subject to moderation, which means they may not get up for a while as your moderators have limited time to check.  This post should appear on our Facebook fan page within 24 hours (although at this moment the Facebook servers seems to be a bit behind) and there comment is immediate and unmoderated, though limited by size.  Either place, let us know what you think.  Answer these questions and any others that may come up in the course of the discussion.

Lowell adds . . .

Since John posed the questions, I guess I can try to answer them.  (It would be bad form for John to answer himself.)  Here goes:

• Will the press be able to put Romney in that box this time, or will it be so “old news” that to use it is a sign of poor reporting?

I think they will because for so many of the liberal members of the MSM, Romney’s religion is important because he is conservative.  They do not manifest any concern over any liberal politician’s religion.  Example:  Harry Reid, Romney’s fellow Mormon.

• What strategies, if any, can Romney employ to break out of the box?

His only hope is to continue to respond patiently that his religion doesn’t matter to the American people, which he has been doing for years now.  I certainly do not think any overt effort, like The Speech, will be necessary.  I think such a step would attract attention to, and legitimize the issue.

• Should Romney ignore the box – pretend it is not there?

See comments above.

• Assume neither Huckabee nor Palin are in, will the box be harmful?  Assume one or both are in?

If neither is in, then I think the issue is almost neutralized.  If one of them is in, it will be present, if for not other reason than that “The Question” is like catnip to the MSM and the blogosphere if there is an Evangelical-Mormon divide they can write about.

• Should the CJCLDS take steps to reduce the potential harm the box might cause?  What would those steps be?

Hard to imagine what the Church could do without making things worse for everyone.  But that’s just my opinion, and I the Church never consults me. (Very wise of them.)

And, in the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s what I have to say about that.”

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

…funny how a book tour does that.  We’ll start with a sampling of the headlines:

• Mitt Romney Makes No Apologies – Greta Van Susteren interview
• Interview: Romney grilled on health, policy and private life – Fox Utah coverage of the Cavuto interview.  Special note, Ann Romney tackles “the Mormon Question” and she is a converted Episcopalian.
• Mitt Romney Says He Will Make 2012 Presidential Decision At Year’s End – FOXNews – and relatedly – Romney Ties Decision on Presidential Bid to Outcome of November Elections
• Mitt Romney Offers Ideas And ‘No Apology’ – NPR audio and transcript
• Romney in the Wilderness, Waiting – Robert Costa at NRO
• Romney: GOP’s 2012 nominee must be Reaganesque – The Washington Times
• Mitt Romney: Rejecter of Populism – The Atlantic

You just have to love this letter-to-the-editor out of Des Moines:

Had Republicans set aside their problem with Mitt Romney’s religion, I have no doubt we would now have a president leading our nation with honesty and integrity, who actually understands fiscal responsibility and who has a track record of fixing institutions that are broken.

And some coverage just won’t help.  Consider this from The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room on comment by Orrin Hatch:

Hatch endorsed Romney, a fellow Mormon, for the Republican nomination for president in 2008, though Romney eventually lost the GOP primary to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Why the “fellow Mormon” crack?  Do we read such things about Episcopalians or Presbyterians or Catholics?  Clearly the press, at least some of the press, is not through playing with this particular toy . . .

and “Flip-Flop/Inauthentic” is still out there . . .

Mitt Romney is still trying to be what he isn’t – Jay Bookman, Atlanta Journal Constitution

Mitt Romney, version 2012 – The Boston Globe (hey, there’s a surprise!)

Compared To Other Possibles . . .

. . . Romney looks pretty good though.  Palin is shopping a reality TV show.  That’s new, and inadvisable, ground for a presidential possible, but then we have contended all along, she’s not running.  In London they think she came out ahead in last Tuesday’s late night wars, but conclude with this stunner:

Neither candidate has yet said whether they will stand. Romney told Fox News: “I’m not going to make that decision until I have to . . . and it’ll be after November.”

He was given a boost from the blogging sphere by claims that the Tonight Show manipulated Palin’s performance by adding laughter tracks to cover up audience groans and silence. “I can recount many portions where there was little or no laughter or response,” wrote Michael Stinson, who was at the recording.

“But at the later broadcast they are smoothed over with applause and laughter that were not there at the taping.”

And poor Tim Pawlenty, he has gone from losing traction to spinning on ice.

Meanwhile the assault on religion generally continues . . .

. . . although it is getting “grayer.”  There was this story out of Tennessee covered by a couple of different Catholic bloggers on a tract put out by a Baptist church proclaiming Catholics not be “Christian” and calling Eucharist wafers “death cookies.”  Just a couple of comments.  Thankfully this is not political debate – it’s religious, and religions differ.  But this is just ugly.  Talk about places where Catholic doctrine is wrong, argue, but “death cookies” is just over the edge!

Which brings me to this interesting piece from a blog featuring religion conversations between Mormons and more conventional forms of Christianity:

A common characterization of the difference between Mormonism and Evangelicalism is the idea that Evangelicals emphasize orthodoxy (right belief) and Mormons emphasize orthopraxy (right action).  If you ask an Evangelical and a Mormon “what is more important a correct understanding of God or the proper mode for baptism?”  you will most likely get different answers from each.

Catholics, like Mormons, emphasize orthopraxy and it is funny how the conversation seems to get really ugly along that othropraxy/orthodoxy line.  Of course when all you have is the intellectual ascent of orthodoxy, it is very hard to do much but argue.

Which brings me to this interesting piece of health care reform:

Now I do not object to those whose opposition to even indirect funding of abortion is unrelated to matters of faith.  If they feel strongly about abortion as a public policy issue, fine.  I can live with that.  More important, so could James Madison.  (Although I absolutely have nothing but contempt for those who argue that all life is precious while supporting war and capital punishment — and opposing free health care for every child in America out of concern for “life”).

But if the issue is one of personal faith (i.e., the particular religion a Member of Congress adheres to), legislators must not consider it in the making or unmaking of policy.  Frankly, I apply the same logic to Jewish Members and Israel.  Their belief — if some actually hold the belief — that God gave the land to the Jews should be utterly irrelevant to US policymaking.

The views of the various religious orthodoxies on any of the so-called social issues like abortion or marriage should be confined to their respective house of worship and their homes, not the houses of Congress.

Interesting statements.  Policy is based on the will of the people and if the majority of the people have a particular religious view, or multiple religious views arrive at the same policy conclusion forming a majority, then it seems to me that religious view should prevail and become policy.  Also, his argument is somewhat self-defeating.  If you cannot form a policy based on religion, you cannot reasonable reject one based on religion either.

But there is an interesting hypothetical in all this – what is an elected official to do if his personal religious views are at odds with his constituency, or the law?  It seems to me that unlike most politicians, Mitt Romney had to face this very dilemma when it comes to same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.  I think he made the right choice – follow the law.

Speaking of Interesting . . .

I found this really interesting about freedom.

And this is interesting as well.  A leading Evangelical blogger is quoting one of the preeminent Calvinistic preachers trying to sum up that preachers views on political action.  Quoth the preacher (John Piper):

My main job is not to unite believers and unbelievers behind worthwhile causes.  Somebody should do this.  But that is not my job.  Some of you ought to be doing that with a deep sense of Christian calling.  My job is to glorify Jesus Christ by calling his people to be distinctively Christian in the way they live their lives.

[Emphasis added.]  So many preachers use politics as a lever to gain converts or at least proclaim their viewpoint, never understanding that such is politically self-defeating.  It is great to see a preacher that understands the inter-relationship between the two.

Lowell adds . . .

The blog post about Mormons, Orthopraxy and orthodoxy caught my eye.  Not surprisingly, I think most Mormons would find it an oversimplification at best, flat-out wrong at worst.  But that is how religious discussions go.  There is just so much nuance and it is so hard to convey.  For the record, we believe that the foundational principles of the Gospel are faith in Jesus Christ and repentance.  Not much orthopraxy there.  We believe that the first “ordinances” (a term unique to Mormons, I think) are baptism by immersion and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.  So practices (ordinances) follow belief and are animated by it.  But I’ll stop there.  This little discussion is an excellent reason why such “inside baseball” aspect of faith are not appropriate for evaluating candidates.  Indeed, I daresay that my theological cousins among Evangelicals who promote the idea that such nuances are in fact important.  Not pointing fingers, just trying to analyze the problem.  By the way, if you ask two Mormons “what is more important a correct understanding of God or the proper mode for baptism?”  you will still probably get different answers from each.

I am still waiting, by the way, for the MSM to report that Chuck Schumer has been endorsed by one of his “fellow Jews.”

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

I think the best summary of all the media was, unsurprisingly, by Kathryn Jean Lopez.

If you had any doubts about who he is, you’re seeing the real thing now. Watching Mitt Romney on the No Apology

And if a social issue hits his desk — based on his Massachusetts record — he’s going to do what he can to preserve families and life. (And that, by the way, makes a huge difference. We don’t, for instance, have such a person in the White House right now. And it can have a chilling effect: in executive orders, in the courts, on staffing, in health care, etc.) tour thus far, he’s talking about what he wants to talk about, what moves him: being a Mr. Fix-It businessman — on the economy, on diplomacy, on health care. He wants to do this because he believes America is great and should and can continue to be. He appreciates — in a firsthand and in a practical, sociological way — that families are the building block of a great country, and he sees how good policies help them. And that’s what he wants to talk about.

[...]

That, I believe, is the No Apology big picture: This is Mitt Romney.

She accuses him of making “dorky” jokes, and she’s right.  Here’s some video.  Even “The Hill” got into the dorky joke act.  Can’t be too dorky if they keep getting repeated this way.

And speaking of video, it is boutiful with all this media.  The Hannity interview, courtesy “ComMITTed to Romney”, was one of my favs.  But that same interview was used to “prove” flip-flopping by some lefties.  Romney is answering two different questions, not flip-flopping in the mash-up.  I don’t think I need to break it down for you, but if I do, leave a comment, we’ll be happy to ’splain.

On the right, the big issue confronting Romney is Palin, populism, and the tea party movement.  There were some interesting takes from the Economist and Allahpundit.  Which takes us back to K-Lo’s comments.  Romney is Romney, which means populism is not what he is about – smart, capable and pragmatic is.  What happens in the next few years is going to be based on which direction the nation, and Republicans go, not Mitt Romney.

But Sadly, The Mormon Thing Seems To Be Coming Back With Him

Says David Brody, who is pimping an appearance by ROmney at his media outlet:

Mitt Romney, who is clearly positioning himself for a 2012 run at the White House starts his book tour this week.

The book is called “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness.”

Despite the rumor, it is not called “Mitt Romney Goes Rogue”. That’s Palin territory. And it is not called, “I’m a Mormon. Deal With It.”

I think Brody is trying to be funny there, but he is missing the mark pretty badly.  Joel Campbell at Mormon Times points out a couple of other examples where Romney can’t escape the issue.  Campbell opens his comments by linking to the USAToday piece that Lowell commented on last week.  That seems to be happening with Campbell now and then – picking something up that we have commented on and expanding it slightly.  (Just thought we’d remind our loyal readers who is in the lead here.)

But the most egregious Mormon shot came, again unsurprisingly, from Newsweek.  (Serious readers of this blog will remember that in our comprehensive review of ‘08 we named Newsweek as the most egregious example of beating the Mormon drum in the MSM.)  The photo essay by Newsweek seems to go out of its way to drive home a single message – “Romney is Mormon.”

Mormons do not talk about Evangelicals like myself this way, I really do wonder why Evangelicals are compelled to do so?

But the most interesting development on this front is from a small post on an Evangelical discussion blog I routinely haunt.  Remember that somewhat controversial “Christ and the constitution” painting – well, some obvious leftie thought it needed “improvement.”  The original painting is indicative of the newly emerging issue between Mormons and Evangelicals, but this “parody” should emphasize that we have far more in common than we do differences.

And Speaking Of Those Commonalities…

JFK’s now famous Houston speech was considered a centerpiece for religious tolerance when he ran in 1960.  This week, Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput delivered a speech at Houston Baptist University criticizing and refining the Kennedy approach to religion and governance. (HT: Hugh Hewitt)  The criticism:

Fifty years ago this fall, in September 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for president, spoke to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.  He had one purpose.  He needed to convince 300 uneasy Protestant ministers, and the country at large, that a Catholic like himself could serve loyally as our nation’s chief executive.  Kennedy convinced the country, if not the ministers, and went on to be elected.  And his speech left a lasting mark on American politics.  It was sincere, compelling, articulate – and wrong.  Not wrong about the patriotism of Catholics, but wrong about American history and very wrong about the role of religious faith in our nation’s life.  And he wasn’t merely “wrong.”  His Houston remarks profoundly undermined the place not just of Catholics, but of all religious believers, in America’s public life and political conversation.  Today, half a century later, we’re paying for the damage.

[...]

For his audience of Protestant ministers, Kennedy’s stress on personal conscience may have sounded familiar and reassuring.  But what Kennedy actually did, according to Jesuit scholar Mark Massa, was something quite alien and new.  He “‘secularize[d]’ the American presidency in order to win it.”  In other words,  “[P]recisely because Kennedy was not an adherent of that mainstream Protestant religiosity that had created and buttressed the ‘plausibility structures’ of [American] political culture at least since Lincoln, he had to ‘privatize’ presidential religious belief – including and especially his own – in order to win that office.”⁶

In Massa’s view, the kind of secularity pushed by the Houston speech “represented a near total privatization of religious belief – so much a privatization that religious observers from both sides of the Catholic/Protestant fence commented on its remarkable atheistic implications for public life and discourse.”  And the irony — again as told by Massa — is that some of the same people who worried publicly about Kennedy’s Catholic faith got a result very different from the one they expected.  In effect, “the raising of the [Catholic] issue itself went a considerable way toward ‘secularizing’ the American public square by privatizing personal belief.  The very effort to ‘safeguard’ the [essentially Protestant] religious aura of the presidency . . . contributed in significant ways to its secularization.”

But t comes with a warning:

The vocation of Christians in American public life does not have a Baptist or Catholic or Greek Orthodox or any other brand-specific label.  John 14:6 – “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me” – which is so key to the identity of Houston Baptist University, burns just as hot in this heart, and the heart of every Catholic who truly understands his faith.  Our job is to love God, preach Jesus Christ, serve and defend God’s people, and sanctify the world as his agents.  To do that work, we need to be one.  Not “one” in pious words or good intentions, but really one, perfectly one, in mind and heart and action, as Christ intended.  This is what Jesus meant when he said, “I do not pray for these only, but also those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (Jn17:20-21).

We live in a country that was once – despite its sins and flaws — deeply shaped by Christian faith.  It can be so again.  But we will do that together, or we won’t do it at all.  We need to remember the words of St. Hilary from so long ago: Unum sunt, qui invicem sunt. “They are one, who are wholly for each other.”⁹ May God grant us the grace to love each other, support each other and live wholly for each other in Jesus Christ – so that we might work together in renewing the nation that has served human freedom so well.

Read the whole thing.

There Were Several Trial Balloons This Week…

Somebody, and I am pretty sure it is not Mitch Daniels, is trying to get Mitch Daniels to run.  He got a big mention from Mona Charen,  Ross Douthat mentioned him twice, even Ed Morrisey got into it.  This is too much to be idle speculation.  Someone is running a whisper campaign and trying to test the waters – maybe leverage Daniels into something.  My opinion, if someone is not interested in the job- let them be – the demands are simply too great for someone not to jump in wholeheartedly.

There is also talk of Jeb Bush.  I like Jeb, but he and Romney are pretty friendly and unlikely to go head-to-head.  Further, the leftie opposition to the name Bush needs a few ore years to loose its edge before Je would have a prayer.

Religion Under Fire…

This is kind of weird, but the bottom line is this – religious people are typically not so smart, and Roney is smart, which means, a) he is not that religious, and b) the religious people that pretty well control the right won’t vote for him.  Yep – it may be the most high-handed insult ever thrown my way.

Maggie Gallagher points out that thing really are getting out of hand:

New legislation now being proposed in the Massachusetts state legislature to ban circumcision of any male children, including Jewish children, comes very close to saying, “Yes, it should be a crime.” Circumcision of infant males has been a requirement of Jewish faith and identity since the time of Abraham.

Meanwhile, just a year ago this week, two very powerful state legislators in Connecticut proposed a bill that would have had the government take over the finances of the Catholic Church. (It took a rally drawing thousands of folks to the state capitol to persuade them to withdraw the measure.)

And in the UK, things are even worse:

Traditionalist bishops and peers fear that vicars could be taken to court and accused of discrimination if they turn down requests to hold civil partnerships on religious premises.

Their concerns have been raised following a landmark vote by peers that will allow the ceremonies for same-sex couples to be held in places of worship for the first time.

Which takes us back to Chaput’s speech.  If we do not unite, across religious boundaries, religion will simply be legislated out of existence.  My religion, your religion, their religion.  That’s where we stand.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

A little background – Romney’s religion will not overtly be a problem from the right side of the aisle in 2012.  Huckabee was too harshly chastised after he tried in Iowa last time for that to ever happen again.  As an overt issue on the right it was abandoned by New Hampshire.  Of course, on the left, all religion is an overt issue, but we are here concentrating on the primaries and specifically on Evangelicals.

However, chastising a prejudice does not necessarily eliminate it – it just forces it underground and into diferent guises.  Last time the “Mormons lie” meme fed the “flip-flop” charge which made Romney “inauthentic.”  We see the inauthenticity thing discussed a lot even now.  In the last week, a new discussion has arisen that could also develop as a guise for anti-Mormon sentiment amongst Evangelicals.

It starts with the a piece by Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru in NRO last week on American Exceptionalism.

What do we, as American conservatives, want to conserve? The answer is simple: the pillars of American exceptionalism. Our country has always been exceptional. It is freer, more individualistic, more democratic, and more open and dynamic than any other nation on earth. These qualities are the bequest of our Founding and of our cultural heritage. They have always marked America as special, with a unique role and mission in the world: as a model of ordered liberty and self-government and as an exemplar of freedom and a vindicator of it, through persuasion when possible and force of arms when absolutely necessary.

[...]

To find the roots of American exceptionalism, you have to start at the beginning — or even before the beginning. They go back to our mother country. Historian Alan Macfarlane argues that England never had a peasantry in the way that other European countries did, or as extensive an established church, or as powerful a monarchy. English society thus had a more individualistic cast than the rest of Europe, which was centralized, hierarchical, and feudal by comparison.

It was, to simplify, the most individualistic elements of En­glish society — basically, dissenting low-church Protestants — who came to the eastern seaboard of North America. And the most liberal fringe of English political thought, the anti-court “country” Whigs and republican theorists such as James Harrington, came to predominate here. All of this made Amer­ica an outlier compared with England, which was an outlier compared with Europe. The U.S. was the spawn of English liberalism, fated to carry it out to its logical conclusion and become the most liberal polity ever known to man.

America was blessedly unencumbered by an ancien régime. Compared with Europe, it had no church hierarchy, no aristocracy, no entrenched economic interests, no ingrained distaste for commercial activity. It almost entirely lacked the hallmarks of a traditional post-feudal agrarian society. It was as close as you could get to John Locke’s state of nature. It was ruled from England, but lightly; Edmund Burke famously described English rule here as “salutary neglect.” Even before the Rev­olution, America was the freest country on earth.

These endowments made it possible for the Americans to have a revolution with an extraordinary element of continuity. Tocqueville may have been exaggerating when he said that Americans were able to enjoy the benefits of a revolution without really having one, but he wasn’t far off the mark. The remnants of old Europe that did exist here — state-supported churches, primogeniture, etc. — were quickly wiped out. Amer­icans took inherited English liberties, extended them, and made them into a creed open to all.

Exact renderings of the creed differ, but the basic outlines are clear enough. The late Seymour Martin Lipset defined it as liberty, equality (of opportunity and respect), individualism, populism, and laissez-faire economics. The creed combines with other aspects of the American character — especially our religiousness and our willingness to defend ourselves by force — to form the core of American exceptionalism.

Good stuff this, so why is it problematic?  Well, first of all, I have to guess (we do not have pre-publication copies) that Mitt Romney’s soon to be released book, No Apology: The Case For American Greatness, is going to – with a title like that – in some way address similar ideas.  Secondly, our nation holds a very special place in Mormon thought, philosophy, and even theology.  Finally, since Lowry and Ponnuru’s piece, a number of leading Evangelical bloggers have been pointing out that American Exceptionalism is not a “Christian” ideal.

Matt Anderson objects to them “borrowing” religious language:

I am occasionally asked by folks how to help young evangelicals understand and sympathize with conservative political ideology.

Here’s a hint:

Don’t steal religious language to make the case for American exceptionalism, as Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru unfortunately do.

Ponnuru and Lowry’s piece is a tremendous example of the sort of one-eyed shut conservatism that has disenchanted many of my peers.  Their’s is a defense of the American creed, which they describe as a blend of “liberty, equality (of opportunity and respect), individualism, populism, and laissez-faire economics.”

Samuel Goldman finds them imprecise:

But the most serious problem is conceptual. Lowry and Ponnuru don’t distinguish between two ideas, one of which can be called American exceptionalism, the other American exclusivism.

Doug Wilson finds the idea idolatrous:

American exceptionalism is objectionable because it is a false religion, a false faith. It is a smooth and attractive idol, and probably the idol most likely to ensnare conservative evangelicals.

Boy there is a lot of semantics going on here – and a lot of semantic territoriality.  That is troubling, we are so busy arguing words and their meanings, and who gets to decide their meanings, that we are losing the central idea.  This is very reflective of the common debate, theologically, between Evangelicals and Mormons.  Given that, one has to wonder if this debate will not continue in force when Romney’s book is in general release in a couple of weeks.

It is important in these types of situations to focus on the central ideas on which we can all agree, so that is what I am going to do here.  First of all, everyone understands that we can hold our nation in front of our God and that such is idolatrous.  The Mormons I know, even with their deep faith in the special place America has in history as ordained by God, know that America is NOT God.  Any person of faith must guard against idolatry of all sorts, and this sort is no exception.

So what are the essential ideas that we can focus on and can agree upon?  Well, first of all, it cannot be denied that the Unites States of America is the most successful nation-state in history.  We have grown faster and larger than any other.  It cannot be denied that while imperfect, we have done more good for our citizenry and the world than any prior nation-state.  It is also inarguable that the varied religious nature of our citizenry is, to some extent, responsible for that latter fact.

It also cannot be denied that religion, and especially Christianity, has flourished in American like no place else on earth – and like no other religion in history – as matter of choice and free practice.

For Evangelicals, and those like us, who believe that God acts in history, we must conclude that God, to some extent, has ordained this special place in history that America has obtained.  This is a matter of reason.  It is fair for Evangelicals to say that American Exceptionalism is not biblical (and here the different canons of Orthodox and Mormon Christians is very important), but to say it is ungodly is to deny history and that God acts in it.  We can no more deny the exceptional nature of this nation than we can deny that the earth rotates around the sun (but then we did try to do that for a while as well.)

So argue the precise formulations of the statements if you will, but let us not lose focus on what really matters.  America is unique in history.  It will not last forever, but it is destined to have influence far beyond its existence.  Only Israel and the Roman Empire can claim the kind of historical significance that the United States is likely to claim when it is all said and done.  That uniqueness is worthy of our defense, and it is defending it that should unite us.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

The Huckster was typically petulant about his non-appearance at CPAC last weekend.   Of course, such a  “rift” among Republicans is cause for a story from the press.  Which leads me to this bit by James Lewis at “American Thinker:”

See a pattern? If they can’t win honestly, the Left is happy to split the conservative vote by hook or by crook. They do it all the time.

Which leads me to wonder whose side the Huckster is on anyway?  And while we are discussing Huck it seems that he was in Iowa this week, and according to the Des Moines Register, “shows no signs of running for president.“  The picture at left here is what appeared with the piece.  It put me in mind of the oft-repeated quote from Haley Barbour at CPAC last weekend, “If you see me lose 40 pounds, you’ll know I’m running for president….”

I’d say the Register is dead nuts on with that one.

The Book Tour Begins . . .

Actually not.  The tour for No Apology does not officially kick off until 3/13 in SLC, but the pre-release copies are out and the discussion is getting hot and heavy.  Not to mention, Romney is on Letterman next week.  The discussion of the week concerned Romney’s assertion in the book that the White House is “calling shots” at GM.   I thought this NRO “Planet Gore” post took care of that pretty readily.

One more thing before we leave Romney:  Was the rapper/plane incident pivotal?  My thought is that if you are the kind of person that thinks TMZ is “news” then maybe, but if you are someone that actually pays attention to things like issues, probably not.

The Others . . .

Thoughts on Mitch Daniels.  Interesting – good stuff, but I’m telling you, if Daniels runs this time it will be with a gun to his head.  Not a winning formula.

Palin continues to poll.

Read this and remember.  Marc Ambinder, while very smart, is a leftie with a vested interest in stirring the Republican pot.

Our best sources tell us Thune is in, so this is more than “buzz.”

Religion and Politics . . .

There was a conference between Catholics and Mormons this week at BYU.  Here’s the Deseret News coverage and the audio and video is here.

“In recent years, Catholics and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have stood more frequently side by side in the public square to defend human life and dignity,” Cardinal Francis George told nearly 12,000 students, faculty and community members gathered Tuesday at BYU.

“I’m personally grateful that after 180 years of living mostly apart from one another, Catholics and Latter-day Saints have begun to see each other as trustworthy partners in defense of shared moral principles.”

You know, Evangelicals might find themselves on the outside looking in when it comes to political activism when solid alliances like this get built.

According to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, secularism is not all it’s cracked up to be.

American foreign policy is handicapped by a narrow, ill-informed and “uncompromising Western secularism” that feeds religious extremism, threatens traditional cultures and fails to encourage religious groups that promote peace and human rights, according to a two-year study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The council’s 32-member task force, which included former government officials and scholars representing all major faiths, delivered its report to the White House on Tuesday. The report warns of a serious “capabilities gap” and recommends that President Obama make religion “an integral part of our foreign policy.”

And note that religion generally, NOT religion specifically, is what matters.  Because tying religion and politics too tightly is not good for religion either.  It is interesting that in the UK, conservatives are suspicious of religious influence.  (HT: Ross Douthat)

That also seems to be a concern among younger Evangelicals in this country.  My friend Matt Anderson thinks the problem is the appropriation of religious language for discussing American exceptionalism.  I think such a mixture of language is unavoidable.  It’s where the whole problem we look at on this blog arises.  For the average American politics, patriotism, and religion are matters to a great extent of faith.  Most people, through lack of interest or capability simply do not understand how the nation works, anymore than they understand how church works. They approach both in much the same fashion.  That language would bleed from one to the other is almost unavoidable.

The difference lies in the fact that church really is an institution of faith, while government is an institution of immense practicality.  As long as we have to convince people to vote one way or the other, we will borrow the tools of religion which is also in the convincing business.   The question is how to motivate people to learn more how their government works.  But then that’s a problem the church has as well.

Lowell adds . . .

Mike Huckabee’s weight is not something we bring up to poke fun. It’s simply an indication that he probably isn’t running in 2012, unless we see a rapid and dramatic weight loss. In addition to the photo John posts above, take a look at the video clip here. That’s a far different Huck than the one we saw jogging with reporters back in 2007.

As for interfaith alliances, it will be interesting to see if Mormons and Evangelicals can openly join forces on matters of joint interest the way Mormons and Catholics are doing that. A lot of progress in that direction was made in California’s Prop 8 election, but the uneasiness remains. That’s a subject for another post, I think. Maybe for a book!

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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

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

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

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

John Chimes in…

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

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

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

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

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

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

First of all, Romney was introduced, quite successfully, by Scott Brown.    Some of the punditry/”journalism” crowd are trying to use Brown to make trouble for Romney, but if Brown is that disloyal this soon after getting into the Senate, he would suffer from levels of hubris that make Obama look like a piker, and I do not read Brown that way.

With his book tour coming on the heels of this appearance Romney appears poised to take maximum advantage of the momentum gained.

Jennifer Rubin quotes Ben Smith in a way that puts just the right read on it, even if Smith (or his headline writers anyway) are putting a less accurate spin on it.  Quoting Smith:

Mitt Romney has gone from being an overeager suitor to being a favored son of the Conservative Political Action Conference since he ended his presidential campaign here in 2008 . . .

Romney has matured as a presidential possible.  But there are a lot of people out there, including Smith, talking about “the New Mitt,” both on the left and within Romney supporters.  There is nothing “new” about Mitt or what he is doing.  Yes, he is maturing, yes he is better learning how to handle the overwhelming scrutiny that his current position brings upon him, yes he is learning better how to manage message – but nothing, really, has changed.  It is an odd phenomenon amongst the punditry, and the electorate for that matter, to assume a candidate has changed, when they are, in fact, just figuring the guy out.  What we are seeing here is the Romney I have known since I met him – smart, capable, genuinely conservative.

The other interesting comment came from, of all places, E.J. Dionne:

And I am starting to think that Sarah Palin is Mitt Romney’s other best friend.

[...]

Third, I am absolutely convinced that Palin will not run for president, but that it’s in her interest not to say so until the very last moment. Attention is what she needs for all her other enterprises, and being a possible candidate for as long as possible will get her lots of attention. Romney wants her out there as long as possible as his blocking back. This will make it harder and harder for the alternative to him to emerge.

Allapundit agrees with Dionne’s analysis, amplifying:

There’s some sense to that. Like it or not, the prefab narrative for the 2012 primaries is Palin vs. anti-Palin, partly because the media wants/needs a moderate opposite their Grim Reaper of “true conservatism” and partly because everyone likes a simplistic binary “hero vs. villain” storyline. Huckabee’s too much like her to qualify as anti-Palin — he’s rural, Christian, and all that other supposedly bad stuff — but Mitt, as a wealthy northeastern child of privilege, fits the role to a T. And of course he’s almost certainly running, so all that’s left to lock in the storyline is for Sarahcuda herself to declare her candidacy.

What is amazing from all of this, is the lack of religion talk.  When this stuff was happening last cycle, these kinds of things simply could not be written without the seemingly mandatory, “BUT . . . the Mormon thing,” being inserted into the discussions somewhere.  By this point last cycle we had been treated to any number of stories asking, if not answering The Question.  But the issue barely gets a rise anymore.  Given the further circumstances that emerged from the airplane incident last week, one would have expected all sorts of religiously based mischief at Romney’s expense.  And yet, with the exception of one virtually unnotable attempt and one extremely lame one, it is simply NOT being discussed.

So why the lack of religious chatter?  One big reason is that from the perspective of the punditry it’s an old worn out toy.  But there is another, perhaps bigger, reason.

From my part of this blog, it began with a thesis – that if Evangelicals insisted on “playing the religion card” when it concerns Romney, they would set themselves apart into some sort of Evangelical ghetto of political non-relevance.  It would seem that the current situation bears out that thesis.  There is no religious discussion in re: Romney because at the moment, Evangelical voters, those that would oppose Romney on religious grounds, just don’t matter that much.

Consider, the presumed spokesman of the gang, Mike Huckabee, is reduced to television stunts. and throwing tantrums.  And George Will’s penetrating analysis of the other possible for that role, Sarah Palin, points out that such behavior is never a route to actual power.

It is a long time between now and 2012.  Things will change a lot, and coalitions can regroup, but I frankly do not think Evangelicals have it in them to get back to a point where they truly matter before 2012.  I do not think Romney will win in Iowa – the anti-Mormon strain there is simply too virulent, thanks to the Huckster.  But the issue will likely begin and end there, and the rest of the nation will not care that much what happened in Iowa.

The religious battle this time will be with the left almost exclusively, and it will be very different.  It will be against Mormons as representative of all religious people.  The key question is will Evangelicals and other Christians have it in them to rise to the defense of Romney and Mormons from those attacks.  They’d better, because they will be next.

Other Possibles Did Appear At CPAC . . .

Tim Pawlenty . . .

. . . seems to be trying very hard, but falling very flat.  His CPAC speech was derided by Jennifer Rubin at Contentions and Andrew Stuttaford at The Corner.  Even his “Minnesota Home Boys” at Powerline were unimpressed.  TPaw has time to regroup, but he better get busy or his possible candidacy is over before it actually gets started.

Haley Barbour . . .

. . . is trying to stir the pot a little.  Frankly, I just do not see it.  Barbour is a consummate insider and an amazing fundraiser, but he has virtually no profile outside of the south and people in a position to know tell me that there is a lot of oppo ammo against him sitting in closets awaiting the appropriate time for use.

Rick Santorum . . .

. . . just is not getting any traction.

Ron Paul . . .

. . . won the straw poll, but this far in advance, who cares?

Finally . . .

This would be a mistake.

I just attended a forum that got my attention with “Is it time for a Catholic Tea Party?” (The idea is outlined in a column here.)

Deal Hudson, President of Catholic Advocate, was the main speaker- he feels that Catholics have let Evangelicals take the lead on life and gay marriage issues, and Catholics need to step up, donate money, vote for the right candidates, take the body shots, etc.

What we need to AVOID is religiously labeled movements of any sort.  We need to learn to work together.  A “Worshiping Tea Party” maybe, but all that would happen if you start dividing things up by denominational/theological lines is we end up infighting.  And as we saw above, that is a recipe for irrelevancy.

Lowell adds . . .

This business of “the new Mitt” seems to be the punditry looking for an angle.  Like some nations, they want to fight the last war, this one about Romney the chameleon.  All Romney is doing is to change his focus – to the economy.  Every single GOP candidate is doing that.  To do otherwise would be crazy.

As for Governor Palin, if you missed Dorothy Rabinowitz’s analysis, read it right away.  She refers to the

unsavory echoes of [Palin's] regular references to “the real America” as opposed to those shadowy “elites,” now charged with threats to the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of all real Americans. . . . she [does not] seem to have any idea of how that low soap-box oratory—embracing one kind of American as the real kind, those builders in the towns and cities across America—rings in the ear today. It is not new. . . .

Mrs. Palin regularly invokes the name of the most revered of her heroes, Ronald Reagan—among the sunniest stars ever to mount the political stage, and a leader who spoke to all of America. He did not appeal to the aggrieved. Nor did he see in the oratory of grievance, or talk of real Americans and those who were not, a political platform.

Mrs. Palin would do well to look to his model . . . .  At a time when Republican hopes are in the ascendancy, as now (and even when they are not), it’s impossible to imagine the Sarah Palin known to the world today as their leader.

The contrast with Romney’s message and tone is striking.  I remember hearing him speak to a fund-raiser crowd gathered in the yard of a very fine home.  “Democrats,” he said, “think no one should have a house like this.  I think everyone should have a house like this!”  The Governor seems to be about promoting opportunity and possibility – the American Dream – as opposed to complaining about elites.

Mike Huckabee’s comments about CPAC are interesting:

“CPAC has becoming increasingly more libertarian and less Republican over the last years, one of the reasons I didn’t go this year.”

Golly, I always thought the GOP had a strong libertarian strain.  You know, the three legs to the Republican stool – foreign policy conservatives, fiscal policy conservatives, social policy conservatives.  Sounds like Huck thinks the only one that really means anything is social policy.  I hope he enjoys his small-tent conservativism.

But enough about that. John and I love to make predictions, and here’s my first one for 2012 – borrowing from John’s comment about anti-religion and anti-Mormon attacks from the left:

The left will hit Romney hard on same-sex marriage not only because of his own opposition to it in Massachusetts, but also because of his church’s activity on the issue.  It’s just to easy a target for them to pass up.  That will be a tricky strategy, because same-sex marriage is not a popular idea at this point.  But his position on the issue, together with his Mormon faith, can be used to make Romney look scary to independent voters.  So no candidate will use the issue overtly against him.  Instead, the candidates’ surrogates and MSM commentators (excuse my redundancy) will do their level best to use Romney’s position on same-sex marriage to depict him as a knuckle-dragging neo-fascist.

Mark my words. You read it here first.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

. . . the man who first stepped on the national and international stage by rescuing the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics from themselves is starting to look more and more like he will run for President in 2012 – coincidentally, just as the Winter Olympics get underway; and, he has a book coming out.  Here are some clues:

• People continue to take shots at him – like those we discussed last time;
• He’s hiring great staff, as reported by NRO – Ben Smith – Race42012;
• He is showing up in the usual places, and
• He is showing a great deal of grace under fire.  (This incident caused Nancy French to make what may be the funniest comment of this or any other political campaign.)

By the time such clues were showing up last cycle we were hearing ALL about the whole Mormon thing.  Not so much this time.  Does that mean the issue is dead?  Not likely.  It does mean it will have to be played much more shrewdly, or desperately, than last time.  We will continue to here it overtly from the usual places, but in the end they do not matter so much.  Some might try to take shots at Mormonism without naming names, since by now everyone knows Romney is one.

Where the real danger lies is that it may have transmogrified.  We saw the beginning of such transmogrification in the “authentic” thing last time and that does seem to be hanging about to some  extent, but I’m not sure the change is yet over.

Also, as the left continues to sink deeper and deeper into irrelevancy, look for them to get VERY shrill about this.  They will likely guise it as all religion, but they will work very hard to split the party over religion.  I mean sometimes even “true Christians” get into it.

Meanwhile, In The “Opposition” Camps . . .

A certain Minnesota governor seems to be making a couple of serious missteps.

Some are having their motives questioned.

Some are engaging in silly speculation.

Hugh Hewitt thinks the most startling political news of the week is a set-up.   The object of Hugh’s analysis denies it, but then politicians are often known to do things like that.  What’s for sure is that the Dems are in trouble.

A “Fun Fact” For Your Next Party . . .

I almost said “Cocktail Party,” but then remembered most of our readers are Mormon and have probably never been to one of those.  Anyway, this ought to raise a few hairs on the back of the neck of some Palin true believers.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Speaking of which – Where’s our copy?  I have one on order, will get it the day of actual release, but….  Sigh, just a humble blogger.

It starts with a discussion of the electoral map at Utah Policy.   The analysis which they present is by someone else and it is based on Palin as the presumptive and defines a strategy on how to beat her.  Wrong approach, the only two reliably in the running at this point are Romney and Pawlenty.  Both could choose not to run, but Palin has to choose to run – big difference.

The other thing about the analysis is a discussion of Iowa.  Romney needs to stay very clear of Iowa.  Even if he has a shot at winning it, which he does in many possible opponent scenarios – his participation there this time will give the press too much fodder to raise The Question again.  Iowa is a no-win scenario, even if he wins.

Romney’s appeal is in it’s breadth.  As noted in statistics like these presented by Race42012.  Romney polls well among Christian Conservatives.  Not as well as Christian identity possibilities like Palin and Huckabee, but well.  He polls far better than anyone else among other Republican groups.  That it what he needs to play on.  Which also means he cannot, as some would try to contend, regionalize his campaign.  Yes, Huckabee owns the South right now, but it’s way too early.  The story of his commutations lasted a single news cycle – wait until the ad makers get a hold of it in a campaign.

The astute reader may ask, “If he cannot regionalize, how can he skip Iowa?”  Well, there is skipping and there is skipping.  He should not stay off the ballot ala McCain and Giuliani last time, rather he should simply put in a token effort, as if to punch the Iowa ticket, but de-emphasize its importance.  The idea is to create the image that win, lose, or draw Iowa just does not matter that much – which in reality, it does not.

But The Real ‘Meme’ Out Of the Book Pre-release…

…seems to be that “Mitt is reinventing himself…again.”  That hurts as it seems purposefully designed to play on the “flip-flop” (”inauthentic”?) charge that resonated strongly last time – based , at least in part, on the religion issue as we have documented endlessly here.   Here it is from Taegan Goddard and here the LATimes.  Goddard is quoting the “Boston Phoenix” – a newspaper devoted to the gay lifestyle that has had Romney in its sights since he opposed the imposition of same sex marriage by the Massachusetts Supreme Court when he was governor.  Nah, there is no agenda here at all.

Charles Mitchell at EFM had a great response, and he cites Ben Smith as the source of the meme – but Smith is again citing the “Phoenix.”   David French at EFM had a fantastic rebuttal:

Good leaders respond to objectively existing national conditions. It’s not all positioning and spin and “moves” to this or that part of the political spectrum.

I could not agree more.  In the first place, Romney did not necessarily play himself that far right last time – the press did, and they did so intentionally to stir up the Mormon issue.  But any smart leader is going to deal with the problems facing the nation now, and social issues are in serious second place at the moment.  If we do not arrest the fiscal slide we are currently on, there will be no reasonable semblance of a nation upon which to have the social debates upon.  It’s not hard to do that math.

There is a difference between “re-invention” and shifting emphasis.  Anybody who has ever run anything bigger than a breadbox knows that to run it different things will attract your attention at different times.  If I run a factory, at times I emphasize productivity, because I want to improve margins.  But, if parts start coming back for quality reasons, you can bet I am going to start paying less attention to production and more to QC.

But Speaking of David French…

Please read this.  I certainly do not have the service-at-arms angle, but I understand completely, agree completely, and add a hearty AMEN!

And While We Are Getting A Little Sentimental…

…just a little.  I understand the pain many people feel about Prop 8.  But the law is the law, and that is what it is up to the court to decide – THE LAW.  And frankly, I object strongly into turning our courts into some sort of therapeutic exercise.  Dispassion in the law, not passion, is what insures equal treatment under it.

Finally…

This is an interesting church/state issue. I mostly find it sad that downtown churches of other faiths have grow so weak that they no longer can be effective players in re-development.  The Mormons have to be doing something well.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

The “Tea Party”

Last week, Lowell and I had a minor disagreement about the Tea Party movement.  Given that there was a convention of the movement this past weekend, there has been much analysis and efforts to define it.  See, the problem is it’s not well-organized; it’s a bunch of organizations with a lot of different things in mind.  National Journal profiles some of the “leading” groups.  The Christian Science Monitor tries to profile it and says this is how it started:

CNBC editor Rick Santelli’s on-air “rant” last February about a proposed mortgage bailout is widely considered to be the “big bang” moment for the birth of the movement.

Interesting thesis, and it probably is right for one branch of the movement, but this thing is too diverse to have a single “big bang” moment.  Zogby does some numbers, and Chris Good theorizes that it will “fail” – being subsumed by the Republican party.  This later is an interesting choice of words – the history of the United States is that we are a definitively two-party state, third party movements always fail in the sense that they do not last.  But, if they are indeed subsumed by one of the two parties, and in that process move that party towards their ideals – can they truly be said to have “failed?”  I, for one, do not think so.  [Lowell slips this in: Good point!]

But let’s get the heart of the disagreement between Lowell and me:  Is there a religious element to the movement?  There certainly is not an overt one, but I do think there is an undercurrent.  Let’s consider two pieces.  One from the Financial Times, looking at Republicans and the South:

The south is the spiritual and – along with the mountain states of the west – electoral base of the Republican party.  And yet, as the party ­struggles back into national relevance with recent gubernatorial triumphs in both New Jersey and Virginia and a genuinely shocking upset last month with the victory by Scott Brown in the race for Ted Kennedy’s former seat in ­Massachusetts, the south has become as much a curse as a blessing.  If the “Grand Ol’ Party” wants to win nationally in 2010, it must attract ­voters who do not identify with southern values.  And if it wants to harness, as it did in Massachusetts, the power of the anti-Washington “tea party” ­protests – the grassroots movement that emerged in 2009 in opposition to Obama’s tax and spending plans – it may have to distance itself from the southern establishment.  The great paradox of recovery, then, is that it now seems that the fastest way for the Republican party to return to its broader base of the late 1990s and early 2000s is at the expense of its most loyal and ardent followers.

[Emphasis added.]  Note the reference to “spiritual.”  There are other references in the piece to the Bible Belt and its importance to Republicans.  As I said before, the issue lies in the word “authentic.”  The Republicans lost so broadly last time because they were no longer “authentically” conservative.  Romney lost last time for similar reasons, and those concerns were given great force, as we have documented endlessly here, by the ugly “Mormons lie” meme, the roots of which lie in theology.

More importantly, this blog post contends that Sarah Palin is the only uniting figure in the entire Tea Party Movement.  The heart of Palin’s appeal, for most everyone I talk to, is the “authenticity” she demonstrated in carrying her Down Syndrome son to term and raising him.  They can rely on her to be a “real” Christian.

Speaking of Palin, she is leaving the door open to a run.  And she does not appear to want to do so for a third party:

Asked whether she sees herself as a member of the tea party movement or a member of the Republican Party, Mrs. Palin said, “I think the two are, and should be even more so, merging.”

“Because the tea party movement is quite reflective of what the GOP, the planks in the platform, are supposed to be about — limited government and more freedom, more respect for equality. That’s what the tea party movement is about. So I think that the two are much entwined,” she said.

Actually, I’d call that hedging her bets.  In many senses the Tea Party movement is her base.  The other thing, aside from Trig, that gave her “authenticity” last time was how far she was from the mainstream of the party.  Lowell said when this discussion started that the movement was similar to the “Perotistas” of the Bush/Clinton election – which is a good analogy.  Palin is going to find herself with a problem if she actually does try to run.  More in a moment – back to the movement and religion.

It is fair to say that the Tea Party movement as a whole is not going to dip into the religious wars we saw last time.  You are not going to see leading religious figures arguing about genuine faith in the movement, at least not until the movements death throes.  But there is little doubt in my mind that religious impulses lie in the emotional mix of a large section of the Tea Party people.

Someone could come along and play on that impulse, and religion could come front-and-center again.

The future for the movement is, from my perspective fractured.  It’s single defining characteristic is dissatisfaction and such people can only ever agree to disagree, thus they will never be able to organize sufficiently to stand alone.  Those interested in changing things will indeed be “subsumed” into the GOP because that is how they will get things done.  Those interested solely in being dissatisfied will begin to grow dissatisfied with each other and they will fracture into a million pieces.  Some of those pieces will be overtly religious and they could get really ugly in 2012.  But it will be rhetorical ugliness only, their very nature will render them ineffective.

This is where Palin’s problems will arise, if she decides to run.  The fractures will be such that she will not have enough support in the Republican party to prevail in the primaries, and there will not be enough of a party outside of it to succeed in the general.  From our perspective, the question is which direction will the religiously motivated amongst the movement go?  My guess is the third party route.  Wonder if the Huckster will try and get in front of that parade?

But then political predictions are worse than Super Bowl picks, so take it for what its worth.

Lowell adds . . .

I still see the tea partiers as mostly libertarian in outlook. Their primary message is about economic liberty.  A quick visit to the Tea Party Nation web site seems to confirm my sense of them.  The links there to “strategic partner” sites includes only a couple of faith-based organizations.

Still, I think John is right that most religious conservatives tend to identify with tea partiers.  There’s little doubt that religious folk who are also politically conservative are generally liberty-oriented as well, even if the liberty they care about relates to government staying out of religion or out of parents’ ability to raise their families in accordance with their beliefs.  All in I think the tea party movement is going to strengthen the GOP, not weaken it (assuming the organized GOP and indvidual Republican politicians are not stupid in their dealings with the movement).

As John suggests, one positive result from the tea partiers’ infusion of vigor and fire into the Republicans will be the balancing of the “Religious Right’s” influence.  Putting it another way, the party does not do well when one of the three legs of the GOP “stool” (family values, economic liberty/small government, and strong foreign policy) is longer than the other two.   I think we had that problem with the family values leg in 2006 and 2008.  In 2009-10, we saw the economic liberty forces come roaring back, and as a result we got two Republican governors in New Jersey and Virginia and a Republican senator in the seat Ted Kennedy held.

Finally, in relation to this blog’s mission, I think religious concerns will fall behind, or at least even with, economic liberty in 2010 and 2012.  That’s a good thing.  If we’ve learned anything in 222 years under the Constitution, the country does better when the “public religion” Lincoln talked about is at the forefront of our politics, rather than more sectarian views.  Here’s an interesting First Things summary of Lincoln’s views and their impact:

It is to Lincoln that we owe our modern–day Thanksgiving, and the fact that it is celebrated by Americans of every religion and no religion also bears traces of Lincoln’s attitude. Owing, perhaps, to his own theological skepticism, he steered clear of sectarian squabbles, refused to countenance nativist anti–Catholicism, and changed “Christian” to “religious” in the chaplaincy program to accommodate Jewish chaplains.

In Lincoln’s mind, public religion and nationalism were bound up together. From his “Young Man’s Lyceum Address” in 1838 . . . to his presidential speeches, Lincoln made clear that he wanted national unity “under God” and reverence for law as “the political religion of the nation.” Whatever else this mix of sanctity and politics produced, for generations after his death it had the effect of uniting a diverse people in the belief that they were all, somehow, participating in a great eschatological drama.

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.

©2010 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.