Wednesday, Romney discussed his leadership roles in the Mormon church and how it helped him understand working-class problems:
Sprung is unsurprised:
In Mitt Romney, Community Organizer, I noted that Romney, in his capacities as the Mormon equivalent of parish priest and a bishop, actually engaged quite deeply in the lives of his fellow Mormons. I suggested that he really has to invoke this experience to counter the perception that he's lived his life in a superrich bubble. … I expect to hear more in this vein.
A reader has a much different take on Romney's religious background:
Has anyone ever thought that part of his "problem" speaking with all of us "99 percenters" isn't just because of his financial background? What isolates him and makes him so tone deaf to us isn't just that he lives "a life of financial privilege." It's that this mirrors how he was brought up in the core part of his life: the Mormon church.
He hasn't been a mere "parishioner" for a long time. He was raised to be a ward bishop and then stake president. This is someone who systemically has ALWAYS been a "decider" on the inside of a non-democratic structure, someone who only knows how to give orders to his flock. For his whole adult life.
In his positions at Bain and the church he has been the one dispensing solutions. It's all very omnidirectional – all output, no input. As we have seen in the Catholic church, mid-to-upper level people in the power structure ARE insulated and isolated from the rest. But, more to the point, they aren't looking for, desiring, even expecting to hear input – what their flock tells them. The important thing is the output – what they tell their flock.
The Dish 