Mitt Romney – Page 10

The Mormon Question

The point, as I have said before, is that anti-Mormonism is widespread and every demographic participates in it to some significant extent. It is unmistakable that the strongest concentrations of opposition are found among evangelicals (53% opposed) and, of course, those who think that a candidate’s faith is “very important” (59% opposed), but the concentrations in every other group are also very high.

Matt comments here. Mormonism is a total non-issue for me. But overt sectarianism isn’t. In that sense, I’m more sympathetic to Romney than to the Christianist base of his party. For the Hewitt brigades, it really is petard and hoist time.

The Weakness Of Romney

Huckabee’s surge in Iowa suggests to me that Republican Christianists prefer a genuine representative rather than a fake one:

But almost half of Huckabee’s supporters (48 percent) said they would definitely vote for him in January and only a quarter said there was a good chance that they would change their minds before the caucuses. In contrast, just 29 percent of Romney’s backers said they would definitely vote for him, while 42 percent said there was a good chance that they could vote for someone else at the caucuses.

Huckabee also represents the most authentic heir to Bush: a soft-headed, spend-like-Jesus big government liberal, with a strange weak spot for torture and permanent occupation of the Middle East. The tragedy is, it seems to me, that Romney is a very capable executive, a pretty decent guy, and an obvious potential president – except that he sold his soul to the Christianist right. In the end, that kind of expediency comes back to exact its own revenge. If he fails in Iowa, what momentum he has could crater.

A Very Mormon Romney Ad

Yes, its message is universal, but it feels awfully like an LDS commercial to me.

Did He Push-Poll Himself?

Mad props to NRO for pushing the Mitt push-poll story forward. Not-so-mad-props for not calling TargetPoint polling company first. Romney’s team splutters here. It’s a strange story. If someone did this for Romney, it’s pretty embarrassing.

The Base vs Romney

Maybe Hewitt should have thought of this before injecting theology into politics years ago:

"I have voted for the Republican candidate in every presidential election to date (I’m currently 41 years of age), but will not vote for Romney if he is the nominee. Mormons embrace the blasphemous notion that each of them (if deemed worthy enough) can, one day, become god of his own planet…As an evangelical Christian, I would have no trouble voting for a Catholic or a Jewish candidate, and would even consider voting for an atheist, but can and will never vote for someone whose ambitions include becoming god," – Mike Butz, emailing Fox News.

Amy King: "You’d better believe that I refuse to vote for a man without the personal character to withdraw from a racist, sexist organization, and I’m very nervous about turning over the most powerful office in the world to a man who thinks he’s going to become a god and collect trophy wives in the Celestial Kingdom."

I think theoconservatism is busy refuting itself. It seems to me a shame that a largely competent, decent, Rockefeller Republican like Mitt Romney should be a victim of the party the Christianists have constructed. Compared with Giuliani, he is a blast of adulthood.

(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)

RomneyCare Update

This is something he should surely campaign on:

More than 80 percent of Bay Staters who were uninsured before the law took effect now have insurance, and while the deadline to obtain insurance (or risk a fine) is technically tomorrow, it’s effectively the end of the year, so that number will probably rise higher (and, keep in mind, this is before the penalty even kicks in, which could prod even more people to comply).

Will he have to wait till the spring to do so? I can barely believe it, but watching Giuliani makes me more sympathetic to a Romney candidacy. Or a McCain candidacy. Or a Thompson candidacy.