Mitt Romney’s Faith Is His Cross To Bear
It has been 50 years since Americans elected the first Roman Catholic president, yet religion will loom large as Mitt Romney announced his run for the 2012 Republican nomination today.
There is an old saying that Americans are suspicious of any religion other than their own, and Romney has the additional handicap of being a Mormon, a widely misunderstood denomination outside of the American spiritual mainstream that some religions consider to be a cult despite, perhaps ironically, it’s deep commitment to family values.
How outside?
While nearly half of Republican voters have identified themselves as evangelicals in recent primary exit polls and they make up a highly influential part of the GOP base, a mere 20 percent have indicated support for Romney, who at this point would seem to be the only candidate with even a slim chance of beating President Obama.
It should be understand that evangelicals don’t necessarily not support Romney because of his faith. He is a notorious flip-flopper and will have to do more than assemble a crack campaign team and raise buckets of money, both of which he has done, to survive the Republican primaries.
But it nevertheless is a shame — and shaming — that while the Constitution stipulates that there be no religious test for public office and it is my belief that a candidate’s private beliefs should be off-limits, Romney will be dogged by his every day from here on out
6 Responses to “Mitt Romney’s Faith Is His Cross To Bear”
I look forward to Romney’s flip flop magnum opus, converting to evangelical christianity on FOX news.
I think his being a relatively moderate conservative will be a bigger cross. The LDS thing won’t help, but the ultra right-wing conservatives seem to give more latitude to such things than they do to idealogical issues. If Romney doesn’t think we should bomb every Planned Parenthood and mosque, and I don’t think he does, he’s going to be a hard sell. If he doesn’t want to dismantle Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and I don’t think he does, how will he get the nom?
Lets be honest here. There is no way, NO FRIGGIN WAY, Romney gets the nomination with the Tea Party essentially calling the shots in the GOP primary. He is hands down the best candidate, but Tea Party folks want only their rabid, non-RINO, brand of right wing candidate. Everyone here knows it.
Pawlenty is too mousy to get the nod, and as much as I hate to say it, Sarah Palin has the best shot at this point. She’s going to get clobbered in the general but hey, at least the Tea Party will have spoken.
@roro
I have to strongly disagree with you that the moderate conservative thing is going to be the bigger cross. With the evangelical base of the GOP, the Mormon issue is going to be far worse than the moderate conservative Romney view. Romney’s Mormonism is viewed by the GOP base as roughly akin to Al Smith’s Catholicism.
American evangelicals had evolved on Roman Catholicism by the time Kennedy came to the fore, when compared to the 1920s and before. In maybe 30 years, American evangelicals will have evolved to a point where we can elect a Mormon President, but until then, the GOP will not elect a Mormon for President. The base would sooner elect Lincoln Chafee than a Mormon.
I agree with Shaun that Romney’s religion is a major cross for him, in fact, probably the largest. This is wrong, and I hope for an America where that no longer is true.
PJBFan — You may very well be right. We’ll just have to see how it plays out. Now that he’s announced, we’ll be able to watch it unfold and see how all of our prognostications get proven or disproven or become irrelevant. Then, in 2012, one of us will be able to stand up in victory yelling “haha I knew it!”.
Don’t be so sure… With the right kind of marketing, you can sell anything in this country, and we have no shortage ignorant racist rednecks who would rather vote for anyone other than a negro…