American Scene - Mitt the Mormon: Since the Bush family blessing -- or the Rove imprimatur, if you will -- will likely prove crucial in the GOP presidential stakes of 2008, it might be significant than John Ellis, "Bush family cousin," has anointed Mitt Romney as "the GOP's best hope in 2008." Or, more likely, it might not. (Mickey Kaus thinks Ellis just has Massachusetts on the brain. Fair enough, but who can blame him?)
Still, it set me wondering -- could Romney actually be a viable candidate? A number of intelligent people I know seem to think so (though many of them are New England Republicans, like Ellis, and may be indulging in a bit of wishful thinking). There is the fairly obvious difficulty that Romney is pro-choice, at least officially -- but there's also widespread sentiment that unlike the countless GOPers who are nominally pro-life but effectively unconcerned about abortion, Romney is nominally pro-choice but actually leans pro-life, and that he's just splitting the difference in order to win in the Bay State. After all, he is a Mormon . . .
But therein lies the rub. Is America ready for a Latter-Day Saint as President? Sure, nobody persecutes the Mormons anymore, and they're a pretty crucial part of the Republican base (going 80-90% GOP in election after election, making them a surer bet than any voting bloc save African-Americans). But the Republican Party is largely the party of Southern evangelicals and conservative Catholics, and both groups regard the Mormons with a raised eyebrow at best, an active hostility at worst. For a lot of people in the Republican base, the Latter-Day Saints aren't even Christians -- they're considered a heresy, or even a cult. There's a reason there isn't an "Evangelicals and Mormons Together" just yet.
So the Republican primaries would be tough on Romney, and he would be a ripe target for an enterprising Rove wannabe with a taste for dirty campaigns. A few flyers about polygamy in South Carolinian mailboxes, or some push-poll telephone calls about the weirdness of the Book of Mormon in the Catholic Midwest . . . well, you get the idea. And things wouldn't get any easier in the general election, when the media would suddenly discover all sorts of juicy details about Joseph Smith's faith that are just crying out for a Time cover story, or a 60 Minutes special. If you think that journalists have had a field day with George W. Bush's fairly banal brand of evangelical Christianity, well, you ain't seen nuthin' yet. And with the press busy stirring up the Democrats' anti-fundamentalist base, there would be a grand opportunity for a Dem presidential candidate who was willing to tack right a bit on social issues (Mark Warner, perhaps?) and thereby pick up support from evangelical and Catholic voters who find the notion of a President who wears sacred underwear a little unnerving.
Of course, Romney survived Mormon-bashing during his gubernatorial campaign -- but as the Democrats learned with John Kerry, passing muster in Massachusetts doesn't necessarily put you on the fast track to national office. So for now, at least, count me unconvinced about Mitt in '08. |
