Article VI Blog

USA today ran a long article today on Romney’s efforts to position himself for 2012.  It’s a fairly thorough piece, but these two paragraphs (not surprisingly) caught our eye:

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.

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Mitt Romney’s life as a presidential candidate seems to revolve around the various CPAC conferences, and the one that was conducted this past weekend was no exception.  He seems to have wowed the crowd – which is typical for him at CPAC.  Race42012 has the video, and the transcript is here – it is typically good Mitt.  There were, needless to say, massive amounts of commentary in the wake of not only Romney but the other possibles that appeared.  We will forgo most of it, but there are a few interesting bits.

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.

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Let’s see . . .

. . . 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.

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…Mostly Because Romney’s Book is in Pre-release

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.

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James Dobson, now divorced from Focus on The Family, has endorsed a candidate.  There is no a big stretch here, but it is the kind of leadership that Dobson failed to show in ‘08.  We have wondered if his departure from FOTF was in part motivated by the political restraints that organization forced upon him.  This could get interesting . . .

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.

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Before we get too deep into things, you can go to this “YouTube” and hear Mitt Romney read the introduction to his forthcoming book. (HT: Race 4 2012)  The comments at the “hat tip” are fascinating.  The first one says a great deal:

While there has been a plethora of books by former candidates (Huckabee, Palin, Obama), each has been about themselves. In many cases (especially in Huckabee’s case), it was a way to settle perceived slights.

However, here is real leadership. Romney is looking beyond the mark into what is best for this nation.

There is some interesting media thought there.  The personal actually “sells” in this day and age.  Our current president is the king of “I” – people do not always know how to relate to the kind of service and leadership that Romney demonstrates here.  My impression is that the nation is quickly returning to more solid underpinnings as we learn the lessons the hard way, but it will be an interesting contrast as we move forward.

As an example of his service mentality, Romney is going to raise money for John Thune’s 2010 Senate run.   Thune is quickly joining Pawlenty as the other serious alternative to Romney for the GOP presidential nomination in ‘12 – and yet Romney is going to help him.  The man is obviously far more interested in getting done what needs to be done than advancing his own possible candidacy.

And before we get to Mormons, we need to look briefly at Evangelicals.  Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh, who should be in one of the most secure seats in the nation, finds himself being challenged in the next election.  His opponent:

Coats was a key behind-the-scenes force in convincing John McCain to take Sarah Palin seriously as a vice presidential candidate. He was a member of “The Family,” a close-knit group of rigorously evangelical Christians who run, among things, the now well-known C Street rooming house in Washington, D.C. He also lobbied on behalf of Roache Diagnostics during the health battle reform battle.

It will be interesting to keep an eye on this campaign in the ‘10 cycle and see how the religious angle plays.  It could tell us a lot about religion, Romney and ‘12.

And this is unbecoming.  I am no fan of Obama or his agenda, but the seriousness of his faith is between him and his God.  Technically, this is about his Office on Faith, but the headline and lead are a little too attention grabbing.

Utah . . .

. . . is  still in the running for the 2012 GOP convention.  Says Jay Evenson of the Deseret News:

Maybe Mitt Romney will be the nominee in 2012. If so, does he want to deliver an acceptance speech in a venue that would draw more attention to his Mormon faith than his leadership abilities? The Salt Lake area is gorgeous and has much to offer, but it offers absolutely nothing politically for the GOP, which already owns this state.

It has got to be hard to be Romney right now.  He has done so much for the SLC area with the Olympics and these conventions bring big money into an area, but he must at least want to lobby against this because Evenson is absolutely right – from Romney’s perspective, the convention should be anywhere but Utah.

Mormons . . .

Elder M. Russell Ballard spoke at BYU-Idaho last weekend.  Seems like that is the selected venue for Mormon Elders to go to make bold statements.   I am not sure this time went as well as last time.  Quoth Ballard:

“You remember Mr. (Mike) Huckabee (who was also vying to be the Republican candidate for president), who among other things said that Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil were brothers?” Ballard asked students. “Remember that? It went all over the media.”

“Well they are!” Ballard exclaimed to a laughing student body.

“But they (the media and nonmembers) don’t understand that, because they don’t have the (LDS gospel) restoration. They don’t understand the spiritual relationship that … we are all sons and daughters of God, and that Lucifer was one of those and (that) he chose to use his agency in an unrighteous way.”

Declaring the Mormon belief is fine, but tying it to Huckabee makes it a problem for Romney – particularly that way.

There is a school of thought, one I basically agree with, that Romney should not worry about being called “Christian” – he should just acknowledge that the LDS faith is quite different from traditional Christianity and move on from there.  I know how difficult that is given the Mormon conviction that it is Christianity restored, but politically, it’s a loser discussion.  For Elder Ballard to point out that Mormons believe very differently from others is a proper move in that direction.  But to do so while acknowledging one particular Mormon belief – even with the proper explanation – that most traditional Christians would find very troubling does not help at all.

In this internet age, even this obscure story from a local paper gets picked up and spread widely.  Mormons are free to believe whatever they want, but they need to work on media management if they want one of their own to occupy the highest office in the land.  After all, W, or his pastor, did not spend any time explaining how the media does not really know what they believe.  They just let it go, even though they were grossly misrepresented in the press any number of times.  Do the job, worship in church, allow your worship to make you a better person and do your job better and leave it at that.  Anything else is picking a fight – in this case a fight that Mormons can only lose.

Lowell adds . . .

I don’t have too much to add, except to note that Mormon belief about Satan’s origins is not that different from the commonly-held Christian notion that Satan (Lucifer) is a “fallen angel.” But that gets into religious doctrine and we do not want to go there – and neither should the news media or any political candidate.

By the way, I heard today that Marco Rubio is outpolling Charlie Crist in Florida in the race for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination there.  It is not hard at all to imagine Mr. Rubio as the next senator from Florida.  Let me be the first to predict the 2012 GOP ticket:  Romney-Rubio!  Isn’t speculation fun?

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