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Romney, the Veepstakes, Evangelicals and Mormons: The Salvation of McCain's Campaign or the Death of it?
By Lowell Brown
For most political junkies, especially the LDS variety, John's McCain's impending selection of a running mate remains one of the hottest topics of these hot summer days. Here are a few of the observations we've made about that subject this week at Article VI Blog.
Give me that old-time religion . . .
Depending on which pundit's views you accept, choosing Romney as a running mate will either save McCain's candidacy or sink it. Here, of course, we focus on The Question and how that plays into the veepstakes. Does it matter that Romney's a Mormon? Should McCain care? Do Evangelical voters really care? What's the reality out there?
Charles Lewis, writing in the National Post's blog, doesn't take a position on those questions and doesn't add anything new; but he frames a now very old issue well:
Mitt Romney's failure to capture the Republican nomination for president was blamed partly on concerns about his Mormon faith. Now that John McCain is reportedly considering the former Massachusetts governor as his running mate there are renewed warnings that American evangelicals will never support a Mormon.
Lewis notes what we (along with Hugh Hewitt ) have been saying for months now:
Mormons and evangelicals should make natural allies: they tend to be anti-abortion, pro-family, anti same-sex marriage and generally conservative on a raft of issues. Mormons are generally credited with being industrious and patriotic, and they literally built a shining city on the hill in Utah , in what had been barren desert.
So what's the problem? Lewis thinks it's Mormonism's fundamental newness:
Religions that are new make people nervous. A lot of people felt the same way about Christianity 1,900 years ago and even today there are debates about some of the fundamental elements of the faith.
A thousand years from now, if it survives, Mormonism may be seen like any other religion. In the meantime, it will be subject to the same suspicions that older religions suffered when they were young.
Do we really have to wait a thousand years? After all, Luther founded his church just under 500 years ago. Then again, we've never had a Lutheran president, as far as I know. Nixon was a Quaker, and that faith is only 100 years older than Mormonism.
Just kidding. Inexplicably, after all that Lewis decries the situation he seemingly tried to justify:
As for Mitt Romney's chances of becoming Mr. McCain's running mate, the Arizona senator may have a better candidate in mind. But it should not be because he is pandering to irrational religious fears.
Come again?
Or maybe religion is only an issue for the head of the ticket . . .
Unlike Lewis, Mark Joseph doesn't see a religion problem when the candidate in question is only the vice presidential selection:
Mitt might be a pain to have to deal with, but he does bring Michigan and maybe Massachusetts, as well as a boatload of Mormon money, and though Evangelicals don't want him for president, they might be OK with Veep, figuring they can refuse to let him pass Go in eight years.
What is striking about both Lewis' and Joseph's analysis is their simple acceptance of religious bigotry as a fact of life. I cannot deny the realism of that approach, but it grates just the same.
What is missing from both the Joseph and Lewis analyses is any new information. Lewis refers only to very old polling data, and Joseph simply speculates. I don't know how Evangelical voters will respond to McCain choosing Romney, but if people actually stay home in large numbers on election day simply because of the veep candidate's Mormon religion, then I will weep for my country.
If Romney gets the veep nod, will the Democrats use the “Mormon issue?”
Jay Cost thinks McCain should pick Romney right away, and listed the pros and cons of a Romney veep selection. One of the cons relates to The Question:
Romney will alienate evangelicals . Maybe, but my feeling is that evangelical voters are going to vote. Again, turnout will be high if the election is close. So if they vote, who will they vote for? Barack Obama? Bob Barr? Ralph Nader? No, no, and no. Evangelicals are usually Republicans, which means we should expect them to vote Republican. Plus, Obama would never touch the "Mormon issue," not even with a ten-foot poll. That will minimize its salience.
Not much there but gut feeling, but interesting nonetheless.
What really intrigues me about Cost's piece is his confidence that Obama will not raise the Mormon issue. Of course the candidate himself will stay far away from that, but what about his supporters? I think it is foolish to assume that the Jacob Weisbergs of the world won't use the "issue" somehow.
But Weisberg's just a pundit. What's more interesting to me is the likelihood that political dynamiters like Garry South, who's already tried to inject religious bigotry into the race here (more about Mr. South in this post). Other Democrat consultants have analyzed the issue and are ready to provide data and analysis.
On the religious right, we have people like Gary Glenn, an ardent Romney foe and Huckabee backer. Huck's people have no reason to see Romney and McCain succeed. Nothing is stopping them from doing their part to get some hard-core Evangelicals to stay home on election day.
Will they stay home? I don't think so. But who cares what I think? I'm not even a real pundit.
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