longtimer
05-19-2007, 10:21 PM
How many time do we dismiss something before we find out for ourselves if what we have heard is true or not?
The question is about preconceived notions.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/672kwvro.asp
In 2008, Will It Be Mormon in America?
From the June 6, 2005 issue: Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney ponders a presidential bid.
by Terry Eastland
06/06/2005, Volume 010, Issue 36
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YOU REMEMBER, OR PERHAPS you don't, Sen. Orrin Hatch's 2000 presidential campaign. The senator talks about it in soft inflections, recalling this event and that debate. But especially he talks about what motivated him to run. Hatch, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, cites polling data from 1999 suggesting that 17 percent of Americans wouldn't vote for a Mormon for president under any circumstances. "One reason I ran was to knock down the prejudicial wall that exists" against Mormons, he says. "I wanted to make it easier for the next candidate of my faith."
That next candidate just might be Mitt Romney, the Republican governor of Massachusetts.
It may seem too early to be talking about 2008. But George W. Bush can't run again, and, in a break from the usual pattern, the vice president, Richard Cheney, probably won't be a candidate. So the field looks wide open. And Romney is among those being mentioned in the press and GOP circles for 2008. He'd be a legitimate candidate, regardless of who else might run.
But would his religion hurt him? Would he run into a prejudicial wall? Maybe, though there are reasons to think otherwise. The country could be looking at its first Mormon president--or, as Romney would prefer to put it, a president who happens to be a Mormon.
WILLARD MITT ROMNEY is a native of Michigan, the son of the late George Romney, CEO of American Motors, a three-term governor of Michigan in the 1960s, Nixon's secretary of
Housing and Urban Development, and, briefly in 1968, a presidential candidate. Mitt Romney went to Brigham Young University (he was valedictorian in the College of the Humanities) before collecting business and law degrees from Harvard. Staying in Boston, he worked for a consulting firm for three years, then founded a venture capital company. Romney acquired a reputation for fixing troubled companies, so it wasn't surprising that in 1990 his own company, which he'd left and which was sinking into debt, asked him to come back and save it.
But Romney's most remarkable intervention--the one that placed him on a national stage--came with the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Salt Lake City. In 1999 the event already was $379 million in debt, and there were allegations of bribery involving top officials. Romney was asked to head up the games. Under his leadership, they turned into a spectacular success, clearing a profit of $100 million. Romney himself contributed $1 million, and donated his three years of pay ($275,000 per annum) to charity.
"He was absolutely spectacular," says Rocky Anderson, the Democratic mayor of Salt Lake City. "He was a strong leader, extremely competent. He walked into an utter disaster, and slashed spending without cutting corners on what was necessary to put on an absolutely extraordinary Olympics. . . . With his unique management skills we came out in the black--which no one ever dreamed."
The first public office Romney sought was a legislative one, in 1994, when he challenged Senator Ted Kennedy. Romney said he ran for the sake of the two-party system, and of course he lost, though the margin was, as Kennedy victories go, narrow at 58 to 41 percent. Given his executive personality, Romney would have been miscast as a senator, but he scored points with Republicans for taking one for the team in the nation's most Democratic state. Eight years later, right after the 2002 Winter Olympics concluded, Romney ran for governor and won by 50 to 45 percent, with third parties splitting the remainder.
Page 2 of 2 < Back
As governor, Romney has scored another turnaround, conservative in both ends and means. Told during the campaign that he would inherit a deficit of between $500 million and $1.5 billion, Romney discovered upon taking office a $650 million deficit in fiscal 2003 and an anticipated one of $3 billion in fiscal 2004. Romney balanced the 2003 budget, and he finished 2004 with a $700 million surplus. A reviving economy helped, but Romney didn't tax or borrow, and he reduced spending through government consolidation and reform.
Romney hasn't been able to turn around the infamous decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirming same-sex marriage. But he sharply criticized the ruling when it was handed down, and he continues to push for a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Romney currently is in a fight with the statehouse over legislation he opposes that would authorize the cloning of human embryos for experimentation and research.
Romney is a youthful 58. He and his wife Ann met in high school in Michigan and have been married since 1969. They raised five boys, all now married, and have eight grandchildren. Romney gives a good speech. He can be genuinely funny, and at his own expense. He looks like someone who could be president of the United States. He is also ambitious.
In 2004 supporters of Romney formed the Commonwealth Political Action Committee, which has contributed $218,000 to 225 GOP candidates and party organizations in 17 states. In recent months he has
spoken to Republican audiences in Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, and South Carolina. "Mitt is testing the waters," says his friend and political consultant Michael Murphy. And the waters in South Carolina are feeling just fine, to judge by what Rick Beltran, chairman of the Spartanburg County GOP, told me. Beltran says the speech Romney gave in Spartanburg on Presidents' Day impressed the audience of about 400, which was made up mostly of "hard R's, the kind of people he'd need to attract to become president."
Romney would have to stand for reelection in 2006 if he were to stay on as governor. He says he'll decide this fall whether to run again. "There are factors that I will consider before making a final decision," he told me during an interview in his office in Boston. Some of those "factors" have to do with a presidential bid. If Romney ran for a second term, and the state's voters denied it, he'd be an implausible presidential candidate. On the other hand, if he won he'd quickly find himself faced, if he still wanted to run for president, with whether he should resign.
Romney says he's been told "the demands of running for national office today are such that the two years prior to the general election you are basically running full time. There are probably some states where the people would say, 'Hey, we are going to elect you as governor and we don't care if you do something else full-time for two years.' But Massachusetts isn't one of those states, New York isn't, Michigan isn't, Ohio isn't." (Texas is one, where George W. Bush ran for reelection in 1998 having told voters he might run for president in 2000.) Romney also has noticed that some rumored 2008 candidates wouldn't be constrained by obligations of office--Bill Frist, who's giving up his Senate seat in 2006, and Rudy Giuliani, who has been the former mayor of New York City for over three years now. "If we look back in history," says Romney, "Ronald Reagan wasn't a sitting governor" when he ran for president, "Howard Dean wasn't a sitting governor. They had finished their responsibilities and were able to focus on the race." Romney also happened to criticize John Kerry for not resigning as senator while he ran for president. "My guess," says Romney, "is that if I were to try that, someone would notice what I'd said before."
Early primary states include Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, and Arizona. And Romney has advantages in three: New Hampshire, where Boston news is effectively local news, so he already is well known to the state's Republican voters; Michigan, where Romney grew up and his father is remembered fondly; and Arizona, where Mormons, who are almost certainly inclined to look favorably on a Romney candidacy, comprise 6 percent of the population. Romney also knows that a viable presidential candidate must have adequate funds. He has a demonstrated ability to raise money--having done so for the Olympics. But he also has his own fortune--not inherited, but made. Says Murphy, "He'd be an electable Forbes."
Murphy has a theory of presidential elections. "First the party," he says, "and then the country look for the right guy at the right time." The party, via the primaries, will look for a conservative, most definitely. But beyond that it's hard to say what the party will be looking for, because precise issues are not yet in sight. In his speeches to Republican activists, Romney plays off the extremely Democratic state he governs to highlight his conservative credentials. Thus, in Spartanburg, he said, "Being the only red dot in Massachusetts is a little difficult, and sometimes high stress." And: "Being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts is a bit like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention." And: "We are not Taxachusetts anymore."
But Romney has also found a way to talk beyond the present moment and toward the unknown political landscape of 2008 by describing challenges to our national security, to the economy, and to the culture. The specific issues he addresses within each category can change with events, but the categories themselves are general enough to last. And making one of them "national security" is smart, for it enables Romney to address matters beyond a governor's jurisdiction--and that must be the top priority of any president. Romney, who spent $300 million protecting 10 Olympic venues for 17 days during the 2002 Winter Games, and who serves on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, believes that "we need much better intelligence, . . . a far more comprehensive and extensive intelligence capability." He is also concerned about "the long-term military threats that we may face as the Asian world emerges economically."
Romney's political experience is limited--two campaigns and two-plus years as governor. But he has a record on economic and social issues that should appeal to conservatives. And his service as a governor might work in his favor with voters generally--it often has for governors who run for president. There is this wild card, too: If the economy is in the tank, or government in some genuine crisis, Romney will plausibly be able to represent himself as the man who could turn things around. In sum, Romney would make an appealing candidate. He just might be "the right guy at the right time." Even though he is a Mormon.
THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS teaches a religion that is uniquely American. The church was founded in 1830 in upstate New York by Joseph Smith, who claimed to be a prophet of God. A key part of the church's scripture is the Book of Mormon, which provides an account of events in ancient America that the church says was written by prophets of old. Mormons believe that our government was divinely inspired, that the Garden of Eden was located in Missouri, and that Missouri is where Christ will come again.
Nonetheless, Mormons found it rough going in America, even when they tried to settle in Missouri. Unable to find a place where they could live in peace, secure in the free exercise of their religion, they decided to leave the country after Joseph Smith was murdered in 1844. And so, in 1846, they began their difficult exodus west to the Great Salt Lake Basin, helping to settle the Mountain West. They called their gathering place Zion, and there they established cohesive communities under the ultimate authority of church leaders headquartered in Salt Lake City. Not incidentally, Miles Park Romney, Mitt Romney's great-great-grandfather, was one of the early Mormon pioneers.
Today, Zion is no longer deemed to be in Utah and nearby states, but everywhere the church is. As Elder Henry Eyring, one of the church's 12 apostles, told me during an interview in his headquarters office, "Zion is where you are. You'll have the protection you need wherever you are." In the United States and around the world, the church's membership is now above 11 million. As the Mormon diaspora has developed, the church, write Richard and Joan Ostling in their recent book, Mormon America, has become "a denomination like any other, accepting the life of a normal group functioning within the ordinary boundaries of the secular world." Yet to judge by the aforementioned survey results from 1999, which were consistent with poll results from 1967, and also by what Hatch says about his own experience as a candidate in 2000, a Mormon running for president may find his religion a handicap.
Apparently some people so dislike Mormonism, or find it so odd, that they wouldn't vote for a Mormon. You can speculate about why that is. Maybe it's the hierarchical character of the church--it's administered top-down from Salt Lake City by the men who comprise the General Authorities, the First Presidency (encompassing the president and his first counselor and second counselor), and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Or maybe it's the church's secrecy. The General Authorities disclose little about the operations or finances of the nation's richest religion per capita. And Mormon temples, where weddings and other ceremonies, including proxy baptisms, are performed, are closed to non-Mormons. Then there's polygamy, introduced by Joseph Smith (who had 49 wives) and practiced until, a century ago, the church finally realized that the federal government would not tolerate it. And there's church and state: Some people fear that, deep down, Mormons want to gain control of the government and turn the United States into their kingdom of God.
Some of those objections might fade if voters got to know a Mormon of compelling political credentials, and came to feel comfortable with him. Other objections might have to be answered directly. In regard to polygamy, for example, it would be unfair to hang that history around the neck of Romney, the husband of one and only one wife since their marriage 36 years ago.
As for church and state, Mormons don't seem especially threatening to the prevailing order. The church doesn't endorse candidates. It stays out of partisan matters, refusing even to let individual churches or their membership lists be used for partisan purposes. It does encourage citizens to vote: Before elections the church urges members to consider the issues and candidates, "and then vote for the people that best represent their ideas of good government," according to a spokesman. Like most churches, it participates in law cases raising religious liberty issues, often partnering with religious bodies of diverse beliefs. Here, in a friend-of-the court capacity, the church seeks to protect its ability to proselytize and to hire church officials and employees. The church rarely joins an Establishment-Clause case. It stays out of public aid cases as a matter of church doctrine, since it doesn't accept government funds to assist with any of its operations. It didn't participate in last year's Pledge of Allegiance case in which "under God" was at issue, or in the Ten Commandments cases heard by the Supreme Court in the current term.
The church does occasionally speak out on what it calls "matters of principle." In the 1970s and early 1980s, it helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. More recently it has affirmed the traditional definition of marriage and contributed to referendum drives banning same-sex unions. The church seems to distinguish ballot-measures from elections for office, seeing only the latter as partisan. In any case, the church's efforts in these respects have a common theme--protection of the traditional family. It is a defensive posture.
Again, if Romney runs, voters will be confronted not with Mormonism in general but with a particular Mormon. Romney grew up in the church and, as is typical, was baptized at age 8, joined the priesthood at 12, and became an elder when he was 18. In his early 20s, he served as a missionary in France. "Most of each day," he recalls, "was spent responding to: 'You are American, aren't you? Well, get out of Vietnam!'" Romney has served as a Sunday school teacher. He also tithes, as Mormons are expected to, and gives generously to those with special needs.
Romney hasn't felt compelled to regard the church's guidance to its members as sufficient in matters of public policy. He emphasizes his independence in assessing issues. He points out that he doesn't drink, consistent with what his church advises, yet he signed a bill permitting liquor sales on Sunday because "there is nothing wrong with drinking alcohol if you do it properly and responsibly." He notes, too, that he doesn't smoke, again as his church counsels, but that it was public-health arguments that caused him to approve a ban on smoking in public places.
On a more momentous issue, abortion, Romney told voters when he ran for the Senate in 1994 that he was personally opposed to abortion but that abortion should be "safe and legal in this country," and that "we should sustain and support" Roe v. Wade because it had been law for 20 years. When Romney ran for governor in 2002, he maintained his position on Roe, but also indicated that he didn't want to be known as "pro-choice." He promised voters that he would honor a "moratorium," meaning he would not try to move state abortion law in one direction or the other, and he's kept his word. Romney speaks of the moratorium as an act of deference to "an overwhelmingly pro-choice state" and not as reflecting any commitment he might still have to a pro-abortion rights position. "I recognize the right for a state to choose its own course," he says. Romney describes himself as "pro-life," but his own moratorium has prevented him from moving abortion policy in that direction, were he inclined to do so. On abortion, Romney's church is in favor of life but permissive of abortion in cases of incest or rape or when the mother's life or health is threatened (that last a very roomy loophole). Suffice to say, Romney has not seen fit to advance his church's policy.
The question is about preconceived notions.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/672kwvro.asp
In 2008, Will It Be Mormon in America?
From the June 6, 2005 issue: Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney ponders a presidential bid.
by Terry Eastland
06/06/2005, Volume 010, Issue 36
Increase Font Size
| Printer-Friendly
| Email a Friend
| Respond to this article
YOU REMEMBER, OR PERHAPS you don't, Sen. Orrin Hatch's 2000 presidential campaign. The senator talks about it in soft inflections, recalling this event and that debate. But especially he talks about what motivated him to run. Hatch, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, cites polling data from 1999 suggesting that 17 percent of Americans wouldn't vote for a Mormon for president under any circumstances. "One reason I ran was to knock down the prejudicial wall that exists" against Mormons, he says. "I wanted to make it easier for the next candidate of my faith."
That next candidate just might be Mitt Romney, the Republican governor of Massachusetts.
It may seem too early to be talking about 2008. But George W. Bush can't run again, and, in a break from the usual pattern, the vice president, Richard Cheney, probably won't be a candidate. So the field looks wide open. And Romney is among those being mentioned in the press and GOP circles for 2008. He'd be a legitimate candidate, regardless of who else might run.
But would his religion hurt him? Would he run into a prejudicial wall? Maybe, though there are reasons to think otherwise. The country could be looking at its first Mormon president--or, as Romney would prefer to put it, a president who happens to be a Mormon.
WILLARD MITT ROMNEY is a native of Michigan, the son of the late George Romney, CEO of American Motors, a three-term governor of Michigan in the 1960s, Nixon's secretary of
Housing and Urban Development, and, briefly in 1968, a presidential candidate. Mitt Romney went to Brigham Young University (he was valedictorian in the College of the Humanities) before collecting business and law degrees from Harvard. Staying in Boston, he worked for a consulting firm for three years, then founded a venture capital company. Romney acquired a reputation for fixing troubled companies, so it wasn't surprising that in 1990 his own company, which he'd left and which was sinking into debt, asked him to come back and save it.
But Romney's most remarkable intervention--the one that placed him on a national stage--came with the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Salt Lake City. In 1999 the event already was $379 million in debt, and there were allegations of bribery involving top officials. Romney was asked to head up the games. Under his leadership, they turned into a spectacular success, clearing a profit of $100 million. Romney himself contributed $1 million, and donated his three years of pay ($275,000 per annum) to charity.
"He was absolutely spectacular," says Rocky Anderson, the Democratic mayor of Salt Lake City. "He was a strong leader, extremely competent. He walked into an utter disaster, and slashed spending without cutting corners on what was necessary to put on an absolutely extraordinary Olympics. . . . With his unique management skills we came out in the black--which no one ever dreamed."
The first public office Romney sought was a legislative one, in 1994, when he challenged Senator Ted Kennedy. Romney said he ran for the sake of the two-party system, and of course he lost, though the margin was, as Kennedy victories go, narrow at 58 to 41 percent. Given his executive personality, Romney would have been miscast as a senator, but he scored points with Republicans for taking one for the team in the nation's most Democratic state. Eight years later, right after the 2002 Winter Olympics concluded, Romney ran for governor and won by 50 to 45 percent, with third parties splitting the remainder.
Page 2 of 2 < Back
As governor, Romney has scored another turnaround, conservative in both ends and means. Told during the campaign that he would inherit a deficit of between $500 million and $1.5 billion, Romney discovered upon taking office a $650 million deficit in fiscal 2003 and an anticipated one of $3 billion in fiscal 2004. Romney balanced the 2003 budget, and he finished 2004 with a $700 million surplus. A reviving economy helped, but Romney didn't tax or borrow, and he reduced spending through government consolidation and reform.
Romney hasn't been able to turn around the infamous decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirming same-sex marriage. But he sharply criticized the ruling when it was handed down, and he continues to push for a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Romney currently is in a fight with the statehouse over legislation he opposes that would authorize the cloning of human embryos for experimentation and research.
Romney is a youthful 58. He and his wife Ann met in high school in Michigan and have been married since 1969. They raised five boys, all now married, and have eight grandchildren. Romney gives a good speech. He can be genuinely funny, and at his own expense. He looks like someone who could be president of the United States. He is also ambitious.
In 2004 supporters of Romney formed the Commonwealth Political Action Committee, which has contributed $218,000 to 225 GOP candidates and party organizations in 17 states. In recent months he has
spoken to Republican audiences in Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, and South Carolina. "Mitt is testing the waters," says his friend and political consultant Michael Murphy. And the waters in South Carolina are feeling just fine, to judge by what Rick Beltran, chairman of the Spartanburg County GOP, told me. Beltran says the speech Romney gave in Spartanburg on Presidents' Day impressed the audience of about 400, which was made up mostly of "hard R's, the kind of people he'd need to attract to become president."
Romney would have to stand for reelection in 2006 if he were to stay on as governor. He says he'll decide this fall whether to run again. "There are factors that I will consider before making a final decision," he told me during an interview in his office in Boston. Some of those "factors" have to do with a presidential bid. If Romney ran for a second term, and the state's voters denied it, he'd be an implausible presidential candidate. On the other hand, if he won he'd quickly find himself faced, if he still wanted to run for president, with whether he should resign.
Romney says he's been told "the demands of running for national office today are such that the two years prior to the general election you are basically running full time. There are probably some states where the people would say, 'Hey, we are going to elect you as governor and we don't care if you do something else full-time for two years.' But Massachusetts isn't one of those states, New York isn't, Michigan isn't, Ohio isn't." (Texas is one, where George W. Bush ran for reelection in 1998 having told voters he might run for president in 2000.) Romney also has noticed that some rumored 2008 candidates wouldn't be constrained by obligations of office--Bill Frist, who's giving up his Senate seat in 2006, and Rudy Giuliani, who has been the former mayor of New York City for over three years now. "If we look back in history," says Romney, "Ronald Reagan wasn't a sitting governor" when he ran for president, "Howard Dean wasn't a sitting governor. They had finished their responsibilities and were able to focus on the race." Romney also happened to criticize John Kerry for not resigning as senator while he ran for president. "My guess," says Romney, "is that if I were to try that, someone would notice what I'd said before."
Early primary states include Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, and Arizona. And Romney has advantages in three: New Hampshire, where Boston news is effectively local news, so he already is well known to the state's Republican voters; Michigan, where Romney grew up and his father is remembered fondly; and Arizona, where Mormons, who are almost certainly inclined to look favorably on a Romney candidacy, comprise 6 percent of the population. Romney also knows that a viable presidential candidate must have adequate funds. He has a demonstrated ability to raise money--having done so for the Olympics. But he also has his own fortune--not inherited, but made. Says Murphy, "He'd be an electable Forbes."
Murphy has a theory of presidential elections. "First the party," he says, "and then the country look for the right guy at the right time." The party, via the primaries, will look for a conservative, most definitely. But beyond that it's hard to say what the party will be looking for, because precise issues are not yet in sight. In his speeches to Republican activists, Romney plays off the extremely Democratic state he governs to highlight his conservative credentials. Thus, in Spartanburg, he said, "Being the only red dot in Massachusetts is a little difficult, and sometimes high stress." And: "Being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts is a bit like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention." And: "We are not Taxachusetts anymore."
But Romney has also found a way to talk beyond the present moment and toward the unknown political landscape of 2008 by describing challenges to our national security, to the economy, and to the culture. The specific issues he addresses within each category can change with events, but the categories themselves are general enough to last. And making one of them "national security" is smart, for it enables Romney to address matters beyond a governor's jurisdiction--and that must be the top priority of any president. Romney, who spent $300 million protecting 10 Olympic venues for 17 days during the 2002 Winter Games, and who serves on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, believes that "we need much better intelligence, . . . a far more comprehensive and extensive intelligence capability." He is also concerned about "the long-term military threats that we may face as the Asian world emerges economically."
Romney's political experience is limited--two campaigns and two-plus years as governor. But he has a record on economic and social issues that should appeal to conservatives. And his service as a governor might work in his favor with voters generally--it often has for governors who run for president. There is this wild card, too: If the economy is in the tank, or government in some genuine crisis, Romney will plausibly be able to represent himself as the man who could turn things around. In sum, Romney would make an appealing candidate. He just might be "the right guy at the right time." Even though he is a Mormon.
THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS teaches a religion that is uniquely American. The church was founded in 1830 in upstate New York by Joseph Smith, who claimed to be a prophet of God. A key part of the church's scripture is the Book of Mormon, which provides an account of events in ancient America that the church says was written by prophets of old. Mormons believe that our government was divinely inspired, that the Garden of Eden was located in Missouri, and that Missouri is where Christ will come again.
Nonetheless, Mormons found it rough going in America, even when they tried to settle in Missouri. Unable to find a place where they could live in peace, secure in the free exercise of their religion, they decided to leave the country after Joseph Smith was murdered in 1844. And so, in 1846, they began their difficult exodus west to the Great Salt Lake Basin, helping to settle the Mountain West. They called their gathering place Zion, and there they established cohesive communities under the ultimate authority of church leaders headquartered in Salt Lake City. Not incidentally, Miles Park Romney, Mitt Romney's great-great-grandfather, was one of the early Mormon pioneers.
Today, Zion is no longer deemed to be in Utah and nearby states, but everywhere the church is. As Elder Henry Eyring, one of the church's 12 apostles, told me during an interview in his headquarters office, "Zion is where you are. You'll have the protection you need wherever you are." In the United States and around the world, the church's membership is now above 11 million. As the Mormon diaspora has developed, the church, write Richard and Joan Ostling in their recent book, Mormon America, has become "a denomination like any other, accepting the life of a normal group functioning within the ordinary boundaries of the secular world." Yet to judge by the aforementioned survey results from 1999, which were consistent with poll results from 1967, and also by what Hatch says about his own experience as a candidate in 2000, a Mormon running for president may find his religion a handicap.
Apparently some people so dislike Mormonism, or find it so odd, that they wouldn't vote for a Mormon. You can speculate about why that is. Maybe it's the hierarchical character of the church--it's administered top-down from Salt Lake City by the men who comprise the General Authorities, the First Presidency (encompassing the president and his first counselor and second counselor), and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Or maybe it's the church's secrecy. The General Authorities disclose little about the operations or finances of the nation's richest religion per capita. And Mormon temples, where weddings and other ceremonies, including proxy baptisms, are performed, are closed to non-Mormons. Then there's polygamy, introduced by Joseph Smith (who had 49 wives) and practiced until, a century ago, the church finally realized that the federal government would not tolerate it. And there's church and state: Some people fear that, deep down, Mormons want to gain control of the government and turn the United States into their kingdom of God.
Some of those objections might fade if voters got to know a Mormon of compelling political credentials, and came to feel comfortable with him. Other objections might have to be answered directly. In regard to polygamy, for example, it would be unfair to hang that history around the neck of Romney, the husband of one and only one wife since their marriage 36 years ago.
As for church and state, Mormons don't seem especially threatening to the prevailing order. The church doesn't endorse candidates. It stays out of partisan matters, refusing even to let individual churches or their membership lists be used for partisan purposes. It does encourage citizens to vote: Before elections the church urges members to consider the issues and candidates, "and then vote for the people that best represent their ideas of good government," according to a spokesman. Like most churches, it participates in law cases raising religious liberty issues, often partnering with religious bodies of diverse beliefs. Here, in a friend-of-the court capacity, the church seeks to protect its ability to proselytize and to hire church officials and employees. The church rarely joins an Establishment-Clause case. It stays out of public aid cases as a matter of church doctrine, since it doesn't accept government funds to assist with any of its operations. It didn't participate in last year's Pledge of Allegiance case in which "under God" was at issue, or in the Ten Commandments cases heard by the Supreme Court in the current term.
The church does occasionally speak out on what it calls "matters of principle." In the 1970s and early 1980s, it helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. More recently it has affirmed the traditional definition of marriage and contributed to referendum drives banning same-sex unions. The church seems to distinguish ballot-measures from elections for office, seeing only the latter as partisan. In any case, the church's efforts in these respects have a common theme--protection of the traditional family. It is a defensive posture.
Again, if Romney runs, voters will be confronted not with Mormonism in general but with a particular Mormon. Romney grew up in the church and, as is typical, was baptized at age 8, joined the priesthood at 12, and became an elder when he was 18. In his early 20s, he served as a missionary in France. "Most of each day," he recalls, "was spent responding to: 'You are American, aren't you? Well, get out of Vietnam!'" Romney has served as a Sunday school teacher. He also tithes, as Mormons are expected to, and gives generously to those with special needs.
Romney hasn't felt compelled to regard the church's guidance to its members as sufficient in matters of public policy. He emphasizes his independence in assessing issues. He points out that he doesn't drink, consistent with what his church advises, yet he signed a bill permitting liquor sales on Sunday because "there is nothing wrong with drinking alcohol if you do it properly and responsibly." He notes, too, that he doesn't smoke, again as his church counsels, but that it was public-health arguments that caused him to approve a ban on smoking in public places.
On a more momentous issue, abortion, Romney told voters when he ran for the Senate in 1994 that he was personally opposed to abortion but that abortion should be "safe and legal in this country," and that "we should sustain and support" Roe v. Wade because it had been law for 20 years. When Romney ran for governor in 2002, he maintained his position on Roe, but also indicated that he didn't want to be known as "pro-choice." He promised voters that he would honor a "moratorium," meaning he would not try to move state abortion law in one direction or the other, and he's kept his word. Romney speaks of the moratorium as an act of deference to "an overwhelmingly pro-choice state" and not as reflecting any commitment he might still have to a pro-abortion rights position. "I recognize the right for a state to choose its own course," he says. Romney describes himself as "pro-life," but his own moratorium has prevented him from moving abortion policy in that direction, were he inclined to do so. On abortion, Romney's church is in favor of life but permissive of abortion in cases of incest or rape or when the mother's life or health is threatened (that last a very roomy loophole). Suffice to say, Romney has not seen fit to advance his church's policy.