Romney and Religion

Despite the spin placed on it, the open minded, politically correct people of America are still afraid of people that are different than them. Mitt Romney is a Mormon, and as such he is different. In this race, Mormons have been the only people allowed to be openly discriminated against without anyone playing the bigot card.

I couldn't disagree more. The cut-up, sound-bite presidential hopeful may not have been where Romney stood strong, however when the voters here took the time to hear him speak, and read his message from the source, he came across as the man he was - Presidential. I truly believe he was someone who could help America in the age that is before us. I am saddened by the lack of true interest by our voters. Just listening to the comments of those leaving the polls in Florida and California make one cringe at the misinformation and utter lack of knowledge of those who go to the polls. Hillary was Vice President? Huckabee was the only man married once? And this is what swings their vote. How many actually know anything of their true vision and policies? We will get what we take the time to look for, and so it is.

Lisa Miller quotes a doctrine that is not part of LDS canon. No matter, the article does point to some key issues that Romney had in his campaign. Romney is a businessman who became a politician and is not all that versed in the political process - especially that of Presidential politics. This was an expensive lesson for Romney, but now that will serve him well in 2012. Romney is an outstanding candidate for President and will likely come back in 2012 a much more savvy campaigner.

I think Lisa Miller really hit some key points here. Let me disclose that I am a democrat and an Obama supporter, so Romney or anyone else on that side of the aisle was likely to sell me. But I believe I can look at the republican side of the draw with a little more distance and objectivity.
I am struck by a couple of things about Romney that seemed under-reported to me. It seems to me he never connected strongly with republican primary voters. Long before the primary results, look at his fund raising. He was reaching into his own pocket almost from the beginning. Yeah, he is worth quarter or a half a billion dollars, but you can't tell me the plan going for his team was not to be able to raise campaign funds and have him repeatedly have to reach into his own funds.
Secondly, and this is where I think objectivity is valuable, I am perplexed on how the self described 'conservatives' (Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, Laura Ingram) can christen this guy as the conservative choice......huh? He has held these so called 'values' for about ten minutes. When Huckabee says that Romney seems like he didn't reach political puberty until the age of 60 he is absolutely right. There is video of him as an established politician (at least in his mid to late 40s) disavowing the Reagan/Bush1 years. The primary results show that regardless of what 'reality' the so called conservative pundits want to spin about Romney, the actual voters saw him for what he is. His only true political value is his winning, and he will do or say whatever he thinks will accomplish that. I don't doubt that the religion thing hurt him, and I did see Huckabee exploiting that earlier in the campaign. But what doomed this guy is insincerity and the lack of anything resembling a true 'core' political belief system.

I agree that most Christians have a suspicion that "Mormons are weird". Having said that I do think Romney could have overcome that,at least partly, by being a defender of his faith, without preaching. Obviously the so-called "religious right" was looking for the most viable Christian candidate and Huckabee "seems" more genuine to them. For myself, I agree that a ???true Christian??? needs to live a more Christlike life and avoid being critical of anything or anyone that doesn???t fit their mold. Dave M.

Romney was the one man who saw the problem of illegal immigration. In a few years, don't be surprised if our country is renamed "North Mexico." All the other leading candidates can't seem to comprehend the "illegal" part of "illegal immigration" and it's detrimental impact to our country in terms of cost and culture. As the grandson of immigrants, I hope that someone wants to uphold the law and stop this travesty.

Romney lost because Huckabee and McCain two-timed him by teaming up against him. Huckabee won in Iowa but in later contests, it was clear that he did not have a chance in hell of clinching the nomination. But he assigned himself the purpose of siphoning off votes from Romney, so that McCain could win.

Huckabee siphoned off enough votes from Romney in both South Carolina and Florida for McCain to pull off wins, by cobbling together enough votes from independents and left-leaning republicans.

He then teamed up with McCain behind the scenes, to deny Romney the win in W.Virginia, by having McCain's people throw in their votes with Huckabee. If that is not cheating, then what is ?

Huckabee did the same in the Southern states, where those voters would NEVER have voted for McCain and Romney would have been their choice, in the absence of Huckabee. But Huckabee dogged Romney throughout the south, denying him wins against McCain.

No wonder Romney simply could not congratulate McCain for his "wins", when he finally got out. You can fight against a blanket media bias towards McCain but there is nothing you can do, when 2 of the competitors team up against the remaining one, to deny him wins.

We do know, at least, that religious bias is a factor in the campaign process and there are many who will cast their vote along those faith/loyaty affiliations and find it very difficult to tolerate nuanced explanations. It is very unfortunate that competive religious influence should be involved, but that seems to be a part of our culture. We are faithful, but also fearful and defensive about our beliefs and prone to be critical and theo-centric, and intolerant. as a result. Romney sought diligently to keep his religion out of the political process, and to express tolerance of all faiths. Too bad that we can't accept Christian virtues without without invoking knee-jerk incredulity and opposition. We have a long way to go.

Tony C. That is a gross generalization and you know it. Do you know the basic tenets of evangelicalism. You probably think that all of Wall Street is corrupt because of companies like Enron. That's the same logic you used about peoople and religion. If you did some homework, which I'm sure you haven't, you would see that extremism rarely is consistent with the underlying beliefs of the religion these people say they adhere to. So please do your homework before posting out of emotionalism.

I am a 59 year old caucasian female, born and raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who also happens to be a political independent, but usually vote for the democrat, especially on the national level.This may be partly due to my almost 37 years as registered nurse. I know that the uninsured and downtrodden people in this country are my main concern. I also know that I couldn't support Mr. Romney's campaign for president. I think he is a fine person, and has great organizational skills, as was evident in the way he helped the state of Utah pull off one of the most successful Winter Olympics in recent memory. I am a life-long resident of Salt Lake City, and had misgivings about the impact the Olympics would have on my community, but was proud and delighted at how they turned out, and how united the community was at that point in time, especially following closely on the heels of Sept. 11th. That being said, i just didn't think Mr. Romney had the experience or, for that matter, the genuine desire to be the President of the United States. He certainly had the personal fortune to make a run for it, but I agree with others who thought that there was just something lacking in his political beliefs, and his different "view" of some critical issues when he was campainging to be governor of Massachusetts, and what he has been telling all of the people on the ampaign trail. I personally voted in the primary earlier this week, for Barack Obama, and will hope and pray, yes, pray, that he makes it to the White House. CP, SLC, UTAH,

Besides lying, crooked, arrogant poltiticans and governments, the biggest problem in this country is right-wing, evangelical whack jobs and extremists of other religions who hide behind their religions and beliefs to spread hate, bigotry, homophobia, racism and a number of other things. COWARDS all!

The premise of this article is illusory at best and liberal propaganda at worst. No m(ASS) media makes any issue out of Harry Reid's mormonism, does it!?!?!

Romney IS an excellent candidate for President. The liberal m(ASS) media fell all over itself propping up osama obama, clinton and even McLame. The people or "sheeple" are unfortunately too STUPID to remember that just a few months ago McLame was dead in the water over his amnesty push. OK, he served with honor as a soldier in Vietnam. So did John Murtha apparently. Both (especially Murtha- who is actually anti-military now) are appeasers. McLame is apparently obsessed with "reaching across the aisle" in order to "make friends" with the likes of kennedy and feingold or silver or whatever. McLame will be Far better than either of the two liberal socialist appeasers clinton or obama BUT he falls FAR FAR short of the quality Romney would have brought to the White House, notwithsatnding the ILLUSORY mormon issue. 40 years of unfettered liberalism has turned out many many stupid Americans, who will get what they deserve one way or another until they wake up...IF they wake up!!! This article is symtomatic of that stupidity!!

BillBub, what you don't understand is that no religion is worth its salt unless it has a factual basis. And I say this as a trained philosopher of science and religion. Are you so trained? So any educated person who has checked into the history of Mormonism can readily verify that on a genetic and historical basis the Mormon faith is false. Now that is not to say Mormons aren't wonderful people with an excellent value system, but the truth is that they trade heavily on borrowed Christian capital, while adding other doctrines in the mix that are inconsisent with Christianity. As I stated, this is readily available information and anyone can look it up for themselves. So while I'm sure there are some evangelicals that "bash" Mormonism out of ignorance, there are those who do so out of knowledge as there are a myriad of problems with Mormonism. And by the way, I voted for Mitt because of his values, and I don't think his Mormonism in any way takes away from his ability to govern.

Never mind his religion (which is irrelevant, see Article 6 of our Constitution). For me, and many of my friends, Romney's problem was best summarized by Huckabee, when he compared Romney to the guy who lays you off. As a software professional who's been laid off three times, I could relate to that. In our culture where just Appearances counts for so much (which is tragic), Romney appeared to many as way too slick, even insincere, a view that was buttressed, I think, by his hiding behind Republican Orthodoxy. I think it's a shame that his religion even came into question, but when it did he chose to genericize his faith, in the same way Mormon missionaries do when they come knocking on your door.

I have no idea what Romney Really believed. All I know about him is the Orthodoxy he repeated, parrotlike-like, at every opportunity.

The Evengelicals (American Taliban) are the most intolerance divisive political faction in the US. Their religious intolerance toward Romney was typical of their mindset.

Even though McCain will need to prostrate himself before them for the moment, hopefully McCain's rise marks the end of their influence in the long term.

We can only pray.

I listend to Mitt's farewell speech the other day several times. What he said made no sense at all. He knew he wasn't get the nomination, so he used the stale old phrase, "I am resigning becuase I love my country". NONSENSE!!! He was a governor for ONE term. He had no foreigpolicy poilcy experience. He kept mentioning how successful he was with the Olympics.



SO WAHT!! It wasn't about religin at all.

Hman: Coouldn't agree more. I have finally concluded that being a republican is truly a BIRTH DEFECT!

Romney says he dropped out for the good of the the party my a**. Give me a break. Romney dropped out for two reasons. 1) Because he didn't stand a chance of becoming the nominee and: 2) because he didn't want to spend anymore of his own money.

He didn't get the votes because he is a a) WHINER, b) had no record to run on, which is why he constantly avoided answering direct questions and continually attacked every other candidate running, both Republican and Democrat.

Romeny is a ex-CEO/CFO and his concern is $$$$. Making and keeping as much as possible. He's all about position, ego and arrogance. Romeny has no idea what the needs of regular people are and his rhetoric about how he can relate to the average guy on the street is nauseating, as are the other Republicans in the race..

John McCain will be the nominee and the Republican party will back him, no matter how much they mouth off against him, because that is just the way they are. No morals, no convictions, no interest in truth. Bigots, homophobes, racists, anti-women's choice, pro war, etc. If John McCain should unfortunately be elected, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will never end, which is exactly what he is hoping for. Think about the innocent Americans and others across the globe who will lose their lives, be mentally or phsically disabled for life if these wars continue. McCain is as guilty of being a war monger as Bush and McCain is still living as if in the Vietnam era. He is a very dangerous man. Think carefully before casting your vote. This country cannot survive another 4 or 8 years under a Republican dictatorship.