Article VI Blog

There is no surer sign of the Democrats’ increasingly tenuous grip on power than the fact that they are trying to spin Scott Brown’s (R) incredible victory for the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy’s death as problematic for Mitt Romney.  We first noted the spin on Politico early Monday morning.  In the wake of the election Investor’s Business Daily tried to point out how it was big for Romney, and yet the first comment on that post tried to show it as a downer for him.  Fortunately, other commenters quickly pointed out the error of that commenter’s ways.

Funny though . . . Romney was on the dais at Brown’s victory speech and Brown called him forward for thanks – the first call after his family.  Do you need other facts?  Calling this “spin” is actually being kind.  Romney played this just right – he was an enormous amount of help to the Brown campaign.  Cash from Free and Strong America was just the beginning – staff was loaned.  Let’s face it, there is no such thing as a Republican “machine” in a place like Massachusetts, but given that he came closer to beating Ted Kennedy than anybody and got elected governor there, Romney comes as close to having one as possible.  No Republican could have pulled this off without him.  But despite that, Romney stayed, as far as coverage was concerned “in the background.”  This was Scott Brown’s campaign, not Mitt Romney’s.

And that points out the huge difference between this administration and a possible Romney one.  This president enters the room and he insists that the spotlight shine on him.  When he went to Massachusetts to stump for Coakley, he sucked all the oxygen out of the room.   Romney did far more for Brown than Obama even thought of doing for Coakley, and yet he did it in a way that left the spotlight on Brown.  Service, not ego, was what mattered here.

And that seems to me the heart of where religion and politics intersect.  Good religion, regardless of theology, makes us better people – it makes us people of service and goodwill, not self-service and personal will.

Lowell adds . . .

Romney played this one very well.  Ed Carson at Investor’s Business Daily:

“Ex-Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney was . . . a key backer of the little-known state senator [Scott Brown] back when he was seen as a sacrificial lamb.

“While some are already touting Brown as a 2012 presidential contender, Romney could be the big beneficiary. He’s helped deliver the 41st GOP Senate vote, perhaps derailing Obamacare. Activists will remember that.”

I think so too.

John Updates The Next Morning…

Here from the local Massachusetts press is a recount of what went on in Brown’s suite as news of his victory spread.  Key ‘graphs for our thesis above:

He said he’s been “calling everybody I know, doing everything I can to make sure Scott Brown won. Finally we can tell Washington, ‘We want you to listen.”‘As 10 p.m. approached, and Brown prepared to go down to the crowded ballroom to give his victory speech, former presidential candidate and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney looked over his speech of introduction for Brown. “This is heroic,” he said of Brown’s win. “It wasn’t expected that he would have a victory this big.”

With everyone piling out of the room to head downstairs, Ayla smiled, sending an affectionate glance toward her dad as he consulted withRomney.

Romney did introduce Brown at the victory celebration.  A sure sign that he was key to the campaign.  And yet, no mention of that on TV coverage last night (Even Fox which is what I watched) and when Brown thanked Romney, he had to step from way back in the crowd to receive Brown’s handshake.  So far back I did not spot him until he came forward – unlike the unmistakable visage of Doug Flutie and other Massachusetts luminaries.

And it was former (perhaps to be again?) senior adviser to Romney’s presidential campaign, Kevin Madden that had an op-ed in the WSJ this AM:

Republicans could easily recline and leave Mr. Obama and the Democrats to self-destruct. Majority status and control of Congress is conceivably in reach just by reminding voters you can’t blame Republicans for Washington’s current appetite for excess, since Democrats are in control of this mess. It would be a safe maneuver because it’s true.

However, for Republicans the progression from malcontent to sustainable movement involves learning from President Obama’s mistakes. Unlike Mr. Obama, the party can go beyond ideals and process ideas that deliver an actual reformist agenda. The party can prove to a disaffected public that we stand for more than just winning elections but instead are dedicated to reforming a broken system and governing a nation with public support. A Republican Party that avoids the same shortsightedness and reflexive partisanship that has defined President Obama’s first year in office will be one truly deserving of majority status and deliver on the promise of a remade America currently eluding Mr. Obama.

That sounds like the map for 2010 and beyond to me!

And on a final sad note, this “tweet” passed through our little twitter monitor at right this morning:

OMG Romney is on stage with Brown lapping up the victory. This is a nightmare. The Mormon takeover.

We certainly hope you all are taking our advice and actively engaging in comment “policing.”  See “Online Activism” above.  You might want to set up a Twitter account.  After all tweets are just comments without context.

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Sarah Palin . . .

. . . signed with FOXNews last week at the same time “Game Change” showed us she thought her Veep nomination was “God’s will.”  What can we conclude?  She is not running – I repeat – she is not running – at least not for real.  People run for POTUS for a lot of reasons, and in the last decade we have seen a new one arise – running for media credibility.  It seems clear that both Palin and Huckabee, if they throw their hat in the ring, will be doing so simply to accumulate the kind of cred that delivers five-to-six figure speaking fees and TV time.

Media is rapidly becoming about niche marketing.  Develop an audience and hit its pockets over and over again.  That is what both Palin and the Huckster are up to.  You can make a lot of money that way.  But becoming president is still about broad appeal, and that is what Romney and Pawlenty are up to – maybe Thune?  (I still say that if Thune throws in it’s a “practice” round.)

What’s sad is the ridicule the behavior of someone like Palin of the Huckster sets the rest of us up for.

The Whole “Double Standard” Thing . . .

Everybody was talking about how the media was cutting Harry Reid a break over his racist comments in re: The One.  The comments are reported in “Game Change.”  Of all the comments, Cal Thomas hit the salient point for this blog: (HT: Jay Evensen)

Reid belongs to the Mormon church, which waited until 1978 to announce a “revelation” that black people were welcome in that denomination. That is mostly ignored by the media, though reporters kept bringing up Mitt Romney’s Mormon beliefs — even questioning what undergarments he wore — during the last presidential campaign.

Watch what happens here.  Not only is no one mentioning Reid’s faith – they are not pointing out the Mormon church’s troubled history with race.  But have no fear.  Reid is about to get his head handed to him when he stands for re-election this year.  He will then become a discredited political figure.

Once that is done, if Romney runs again, you can bet we will hear all about Reid, his racism, and his Mormon faith – as a cudgel to beat Romney.  Mark my words, the swami has spoken.

The Invisible Primary . . .

Frum is trying to cause trouble here, but he does not have to work very hard at it.  When it is all said and done, I think we are going to find a close correlation between the Tea Party people and the “don’t vote for a Mormon” people.  I heard one on Michael Medved Friday say he would rather have his “conscious right with God” than vote against “his principles.”  That is just a rephrasing of the “Damn the environment, bring on the apocalypse” mentality that many on the left accuse we religious folk of having.  We really can be our own worst enemy.

Is Romney a health care hypocrite?  Tough call.  Ask Lowell, the Mass. healthcare plan kept me in the purely-academic, not-supporting-Romney mode for a long time last cycle.  It is the only thing I do not like when I look at Romney.  That said, it is a far cry better than anything that has been considered by the Fed to date.

But this I will say, the word “hypocrite” carries with it religious overtones.  Don’t be surprised to see Romney’s faith and “healthcare hypocrisy” wrapped up into a nonsensical, but somewhat effective, ball sometime in the future.

And while we are in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney is now firmly in front of the Scott Brown parade and Barack Obama the Martha Coakley death march.  In both cases it’s a huge bet on a Senate race for president or presidential candidate.  For a president there is no up side – only the preservation of existing political capital, or not.  For a candidate, the upsides are tremendous, and the downside is to look like a loser in your home state.  But at this point the “loser” label has fled the race.  Should Brown lose, which is looking less and less likely, there will be moral loss and moral victory only.  Romney comes out of this smelling like a rose, regardless.

UPDATE: Politico says Romney is missing from the Brown campaign?  Maybe he failed to appear as predicted in the link above, but if my email is any measure Romney is doing everything he can to help Scott Brown.  Why just yesterday I got emails for support activities for Brown from the Romney operation BEFORE I got them from Brown’s campaign.  And of course there are the Romney TV appearances discussing Brown that are buried in the story.  Politico is shooting at Romney here — I wonder why?  Back to the original post.

Ya gotta love it.  We laugh, but on reflection, Huck’s comment that Romney “has no soul,” is so ugly that laughter is the only viable response.   To question someone’s essential humanity is, in the end, contemptible.  I can come up with a list of negative adjectives in re: the Huckster much longer than my arm, but he is a human being – a wrong one – but a human being nonetheless.  Shame on Huckabee.

Deep Thoughts . . .

Bias and ignorance are close kin.

Using freedom to deny it.  Interesting concept.

Finally . . .

We have added MLK’s “I Have A Dream” Speech to our video widget at left – apropos the day and the raison d’être for this blog.

Lowell adds . . .

Viewing Mike Huckabee’s comments in “Game Changer” charitably, I suppose he was using “soul” in the sense of “a moral compass,” or “integrity.” Still . . . it was a most unfortunate choice of words by a candidate who everyone knows was a Baptist preacher in a religion-charged campaign. The most telling aspect of the Huck-Romney rivalry as it now stands is that Huck is the only one still taking shots at the other guy.

As for Romney’s involvement in the Scott Brown campaign, here’s an analysis that finds Romney’s fingerprints everywhere:  “Largely overlooked in assessing Brown’s prospects [is] the hidden hand of Mitt Romney.”  Read the whole thing; it describes a lot of the political bridge-building Romney is doing.  I don’t see any other candidate doing anything comparable.

Romney and healthcare:  is he a hypocrite?  The answer is no, but understanding that  requires more than a superficial understanding of what Romney did in Massachusetts.  Here’s what you need to know:  Romney’s plan was for Massachusetts, not the USA.   He has always said that he would not be in favor of the Massachusetts system (including the “individual mandate” requiring everyone to have health insurance)  being imposed nationally.  That said, 96% of Massachusetts’ citizens have health insurance.  Not a bad feat; I wish California could come even close to that.

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Reactions to Brit Hume’s Tiger Woods comment continue unabated.  The best thing I have seen so far is Michael Gerson’s WaPo coulmn from Friday:

The root of the anger against Hume is his religious exclusivity — the belief, in Shuster’s words, that “my faith is the right one.” For this reason, according to Shales, Hume has “dissed about half a billion Buddhists on the planet.”

But this supposed defense of other religious traditions betrays an unfamiliarity with religion itself. Religious faiths — Christian, Buddhist, Zoroastrian — generally make claims about the nature of reality that conflict with the claims of other faiths. Attacking Christian religious exclusivity is to attack nearly every vital religious tradition. It is not a scandal to believers that others hold differing beliefs. It is only a scandal to those offended by all belief. Though I am not a Buddhist or a Muslim, I am not “dissed” when a Muslim or a Buddhist advocates his views in public.

[Emphasis added] This is absolutely right, and it is why, when a Buddhist is similarly attacked, as Christians, it is wise for us to rise to their defense.  And it also means we must be very careful in how we apply our religion in public.  Perhaps in a nation where religious adherence could be assumed, and attacks like this were not commonplace, discussions of Romney’s faith versus Giuliani’s or McCain’s might be worth having.  But that is not the nation we live in right now.  Such infighting in our current circumstance strengthens and emboldens those that think religion a blight and that it should be removed from the nation.

But even if we lived in that fictitious nation, we would need to exercise civility and decency in our discussions.  Which brings us to . . .

Romney’s Coming Out To Sell His Book . . .

. . . and the ugliness begins.  Check out the 12th comment on the Ben Smith post on the New Hampshire portion of Romney’s book tour.

Mormons aint common baby…Palin 2012

UGH!  I understand why Politico lets that stay there – to edit comments at a site like Politico is a legal minefield – but imagine that someone said the same thing, but substituted “blacks” for “Mormons” about Obama’s campaign stops.  There is also profanity, mild profanity but profanity nonetheless, in the comments.  Politico and sites like it have “report abuse” systems wherein readers can tell them of offensive comments, and they do not have to have large staffs to moderate comments.

We’d like to urge our readers to become “comment police” people.  Use these reporting systems at every opportunity.  We expect the highest standards of civility and reason from our readers.  This means that the correct answer to a prejudicial or biased comment is not name-calling or equally prejudicial comments.  Such is evident in the comment stream discussed here – we should rise above it.  Use the reporting system or answer reasonably.  Also, we must EQUALLY apply our policing skills.  The same comment stream that takes this shot at Romney’s faith takes a very ugly one at Palin’s.  If you call out one – you must call out both.

In 2008, comments were where the real bigotry festered and grew.  It is reasonable to try and ride herd on it.  There is little we can do with sites like “Huck’s Army.”  But there is much we can and should do at mainstream news sites. To help you with this effort we have set up a twitter account that is on autopilot.   It will tweet much of the raw news feed that we monitor here.  We, of course, use editorial discretion as we write here (or tweet at our normal spot), but this is going to be the raw stuff and lots of it.  You can mine it to find the kinds of comments we are talking about here since even most news outlets now allow comments on stories.  Please do try to be judicious- complaining about comments at “mormonssuck.org” is going to be a waste of time – concentrate on mainstream sites and publications.  Drop us an email and let us know if you are going to involve yourself in this effort and how it is going – and please include your email address in the body of the email so we can write you back.

UPDATE: I used the Politco “report abuse” system when I wrote this piece and between then and publication the comment I quote above has disappeared, along with the profanity and the one about Palin – so this works.   I am betting that the “edited” commenter took offense as there is now a long stream of anonymous “magic underwear” comments. – Go get them, they are all yours.

Back to the original post…

More on “The Invisible Primary”…

And speaking of Palin – Chris Good’s Friday “Invisible Primary” post says a mouthful, while trying to deny it, about Palin and running in 2012.  That post is about appearances at the upcoming CPAC and Southern Republican Leadership Conference.

Our friends at “Evangelicals For Mitt” were very active on Romney’s behalf at the 2006 SRLC – and that has resulted in some accusations being thrown their way.  They set the record straight here.  You may disagree with EFM’s choice of candidates, but they are above board and honest people.  To insinuate otherwise is malicious and uncalled for.

As he emerges into the public eye once again, Romney is polling very well, particularly with smart people.  See here and here. (HT:race42012)  This was true last time as well – the smart money was on Romney.  Can the smart people convince the general public this time around?  More importantly will it hinge on the religion question?  In the immortal words of Bette Davis, “It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

Romney has been doing a lot of media in the last week.  Race 4 2012 carries the video of his Greata Van Susteren appearance Friday night.  (We could not get our video widget to work on this one and linking directly to Fox, it’ll disappear too quickly.)  And Utah Policy corrects our assertion of late last week that no one in the MSM was asking Romney about religion this time around.  They did on Fox and Friends early last week – barely.  It is still nowhere near the din we saw last time.

Lowell adds . . .

John and I are in full agreement on the “blogactivism” idea. The only way — the only way! — The Question will ever fade into irrelevancy is if people of good will use sweet reason to persuade the overwhelming majority of conservative activists (and also quite a few liberals) that The Question deserves irrelevancy.

Having thought about this overnight, I can’t remember a single occasion when anyone has expressed political anti-Mormon bias to my face – or even in public when I was a witness.  No, that bigotry is the kind of sentiment people express in private or behind screen names on the internet.  Once it is challenged, it slinks back into the hole from which it emerged.

We need to be careful, however, to avoid “shouting down” opposing viewpoints – a tactic the Left perfected during the last decade.  When a bigoted comment appears, I  hope the response is not, “Shut up, you bigot!” (although in some rare cases that will be the appropriate response).  Instead, I hope we will demand that the attacker justify his statment in some principled manner.  For example:  “Why are you bringing up Romney’s religious beliefs?  How do they have anything to do with his ability to serve as president?  Why didn’t they disqualify him from being a governor?” and similar questions.  Even the “magic underwear” nonsense can be addressed this way: “How is that different from a candidate wearing a cross under his shirt,  or a Jewish candidate wearing a yarmulke or prayer shawl?”

The blogosphere is a potent force for good, for ennobling behavior, and for bringing out the best in public discourse.  John has come up with an excellent way for us to do all those things by tapping into the inherent decency of the American people.  Let the games begin!

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Romney In The News…

Mitt Romney has a book coming out and, in case you haven’t noticed, the PR campaign has begun.  In the end there is little “news” but a lot of discussion – he wont’ decide if he is running until after the mid-terms – his wife is, thankfully, healthy – his book tour includes Iowa.  That’s about it, but here are some links for your enjoyment as those facts get analyzed endlessly.

• Politics blog from The Atlantic
• NPR
• The Boston Herald
• more Boston Herald
• Taegan Goddard
• race42012

Interestingly, none of the “reporters” that are talking to Romney are asking about religion.  UTAHpolicy is wondering about it, but no one talking to him is talking about it.  Last time it was THE story – everyone talked about it, early and often.  What’s so different about this time?  I wonder if Bush’s very public Evangelicalism and Bush Derangement Syndrome is the difference?

Oh, and before we leave presidential politics altogether, if there is a “buzz” here, it’s like a mosquito on a super quiet night.  You can only hear it under special circumstances and its not worth listening to.  On the other hand….

Speaking Of Religion…

Is Glenn Beck succeeding where Mitt Romney failed?  Different men with very different missions and neither of those missions has anything, really, to do with Evangelical/Mormon ecumenism.  But then there has to be something to write about.

Religious persecution is alive and well.  On a public scale, Brit Hume is feeling it and on a more private scale, so are Mormon writers.    Even James Dobson and his former organization seem to be going a bit tribal.  On that later story, someday I intend to find out how much of a role Dobson’s apparent desire to endorse Romney, but his constituency’s push back on Mormonism, had to do with the split.  Splits of this magnitude are generally about a lot of things, but something brought this to a head and there was too much rumbling on The Question from that corner last time around.

And while we are talking tribalism, consider this rather glowing portrayal of RedState’s Erick Ericson.  Ericson has, of late, transmogrified into one of, if not the, leading voice of the “conservative purity movement” that threatens to tear the GOP apart worse than The Question ever did – although I think the two are deeply related.  That the St. Petersburg Times would write so glowingly of him is a sign that they have either swallowed the purity pill or, more likely, are lefties trying to split us up faster than we are splitting ourselves up.  Think about it.

Christians Throwing Barbs At Each Other…

In closing it is instructive to look at an argument among orthodox Christians that has been going on of late.  Marc Thiessen wrote a piece at The Corner last Saturday comparing those against torture to pacifists.  That got Andrew Sullivan all riled up and in his response to Sullivan, Thiessen looked at Sullivan’s depiction of Catholic teaching on Just War and some related issues.  That Sullivan would bend religion to his agenda is news so old that it’s hardly worth mentioning.

Where this gets interesting for us is that Theissen’s response to Sullivan got Joe Carter in a bit of a lather that resulted in a blogging exchange.  After one round, Carter responded in a post that begins this way:

At The Corner, Marc Thiessen responded to my contention that his defense of torture is more in line with the tradition of Zeus and Odin than of Moses and Christ. I’m not surprised that he would take offense at such a suggestion, but since he is a Catholic I presumed he would provide a rebuttal based on Christian ethics or on the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Instead, his response seems to have come directly from the Catechism of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The thing has gotten out of hand in so many ways that it is difficult to know where to start.  But let’s try with this – Thiessen and Sullivan are both Catholics and for them to discuss Catholic doctrine on the matter becomes reasonable – it is common ground – even if it has no real application to the determination of national policy which is about the politics of a nation of various beliefs.

For a Southern Baptist (Carter) to argue his perspective on the matter, based on religion, begins to create a divide, not common ground.  Thiessen’s response, based on more secular arguments, reflects a desire to find common ground and deal with the issue. But Carter in his response to the response seems more concerned with turning the Catholic Thiessen into a Southern Baptist than he does in deciding what is the best policy with regards to water boarding, and perhaps other special forms of interrogation.

This is a near perfect illustration of how the church/state divide came to be in our nation.  It is really little more than an attempt to find common ground to reach an agreement on an issue, any issue, of national import.  That divide, carried too far squelches the free practice of religion.  Ignore it and we end up looking more like the tribal wars of Afghanistan than a republican democracy.  In the end “God said so” arguments cannot carry the day unless we all worship the same God in the same way with the same understanding.  Not gonna happen.

So, there is a time and a place for invoking religious argument and a time and a place for setting it aside and finding some other basis for the discussion that will get us to a resolution – because if we are going to be a functioning democracy, we have to be able to reach a resolution.   That sometimes means the nation will go in directions that violate our personal most deeply held convictions.

We need to learn to live with that, and in the name of simple civility and decency (Christian values if ever I heard them), do so without resort to name-calling or eternal damnation, either directly or by implication.  Otherwise, let the civil war begin.

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C.S. Lewis is a figure admired by orthodox and Mormon Christians alike.  One of his most widely read and influential works is “The Screwtape Letters” - a book I happen to be going through with two groups right now.  This past weekend I came across a passage in that book that I thought worthy of discussion in this space, but before I get there, some set-up.

The book consists of a series of letters written by a senior tempter to his junior, and nephew, as the latter attempts to steer his “patient” into eternity in the nether regions.  They did not originally appear in book form but rather were serialized, letter by letter, in a newspaper in England during World War II.  Needless to say the war, which certainly means politics, is a large presence in the “discussions.”

The passage of interest here comes in the seventh chapter, or letter, in the book.  From my perspective as an Evangelical it hits right at the heart of much that has gone wrong in Evangelical political involvement in the last few years.  I am, however, wondering about the Mormon reaction.  The Mormon view of America and its exceptionalism is rooted very differently than the traditional Christian view.  That said, the passage in question:

Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the “cause”, in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war-effort or of Pacifism. The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours—and the more “religious” (on those terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful down here.

Of course, many Evangelicals over-react to the ideas here and withdraw from the political altogether, but that is an issue for a different time.  The point as I see it is one of balance – of properly melding and prioritizing religious and political concerns, specifically making religion the tool of politics.

Thoughts?

Quick post-script from Lowell: I am late to the party here, but our LDS commenters have done a good job of laying out the views of Mormon Christianity on this issue.  I can think of some Mormons I have known who have crossed the line Lewis describes, but those folks were not acting in harmony with the church’s teachings, in my opinion.

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…and yet, the new year brings so much of it.  If only Americans had an actual memory, so many people would have so few readers.

But who are we to buck the trend?  Let’s dive in.

Bernie Quigley at The Hill looks at the GOP future and measures all by the Tea Party movement.  First of all there is not a Tea Party movement – there are a bunch of tea party movements and if they are going to drive the GOP bus they have got a lot of organizing to do!  They have little in common save for a distaste of what is currently happening.  That mean much fury and noise, little governing action.  I look for the GOP to find a way to tame this beast, not follow it.  We need their energy, but libertarianism lies at its heart and that is not a smart formula for the nation any more than extreme liberalism.

At Forbes, Dan Gerstein thinks Jon Huntsman will return from China and throw his hat in the 2012 ring.  Bunk and nonsense.  If Hunstman wanted a run at the presidency in 2012 he would have never taken the China Ambassador post to begin with – despite his affinity for that nation.  Since this is the season for pure speculation, let me add mine.  Huntsman took the China post in part because he saw the Mormon issue in Romney’s ‘08 run and wants nothing to do with it.  He is content to let Romney take the heat, and he’ll run when the fire is burned out.

Carl Cannon at Politics Daily declares “winners and losers.” In winners he says:

11. Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty: They didn’t do anything spectacular in 2009, but they didn’t do anything calamitous, either.

There is actual political wisdom in that.  About all that can be accomplished at this point of the game is disqualifying yourself.  Romney is playing his book tour smart too.

And speaking of political wisdom, this piece is about endorsements.  Read it, there is a great deal of insight how politics is really done and how endorsements help, and do not.

Mormon stuff…

Gallup released a Christmas time poll on how many American self-identify as “Christians.“  Now, I have to believe Mormons are so self-identifying.  Where are the protests from the usual subjects?  How come Gallup is not buried in protest mail?  How come people are not “concerned” that Mormons are using the poll to advance their errant beliefs amongst the American public?  Oh, I know it is probably out there buried deep in the bowels of the Internet – but you don’t see a lick of press on it.  The point I am really trying to make here is that somehow when it comes to the presidency, religion gets out of perspective as compared to where it sits in our lives when related to any other essentially secular topic.  Sometimes we are a very weird nation.

Speaking of Gallup polls, Glenn Beck is among the “most admired” Republicans and Mitt Romney is not.   That, dear friends, is a “Mormon issue” that Team Romney needs to confront now and hard.  In many senses it ties back into the Tea Party thing, but more, “Mormon” will be used to tie Beck and Romney into a big indistinguishable ball – and no reasonable candidate wants that.  Also makes me wonder if LDS officialdom wants to make a public statement about “media figures” like it did about politicians in re: Idaho.

Remember the Conan O’Brien thing of a few weeks back?  Lowell said:

The Conan O’Brien bit is not very funny, I suspect, to most people.  I didn’t find it offensive, just not funny.  Heaven knows there are funny things about Mormons and Mormon culture, but that skit missed them.

This commentator sounded a remarkably similar note:

Popular culture is a notoriously poor guide to understanding Mormonism as religion or a culture;…

But then said:

Conan and company got it just right in the end, though.

Her piece ends with the one word sentence, “What?”  I agree.

Finally…

Haley Barbour says it all:

“People are crazy if they think we win by getting more pure. We win by getting big.”

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