Mitt's Mission

For all his strengths, however, Romney has been unable to shake his authenticity problem, the sense that he is a glossy and robotic candidate who will say anything to get elected and believes nothing in his heart. His trouble starts with his all-too-convenient conservative-conversion narrative: the pro-choice, pro-gay-rights governor of Massachusetts was miraculously transformed into a crusader for unborn life and the sanctity of marriage, just in time to run for the Republican nomination for president. But underlying the "flip-flopper" charge against Romney is a more disturbing perception, that the numbers-driven candidate is too cautious and committed to winning to explain what he believes in, including his church. "If you choose not to talk about the church and focus solely on Romney's business and political abilities, you deny the public an opportunity to know him as intimately as the public demands of its front runners," says Kirk Jowers, director of the Republican Commonwealth PAC and a Romney supporter. The fate of Romney's candidacy may come down to one question: can he embrace his own biography to create a political and personal narrative that has heart—and soul?

The real Mitt Romney is a descendant of pioneer Mormons, a passionate lay leader, a lion of the modern LDS church. He is also the son of George Romney, the former governor of Michigan and president of American Motors, a straight-talking, hard-driven Mormon who stood up for what he believed in, even at great political cost. Born in Mexico in an LDS community devoted to perpetuating the practice of polygamy (George's grandparents were polygamous; his parents were not), George finally settled in Salt Lake City. But his ambitions were always much bigger than the provincial society of Utah Mormons could satisfy. At 21, George returned home from his mission in England and Scotland, determined to court Lenore LaFount, a sophisticated girl who had recently moved east to Washington, D.C.

George wanted his parents' blessing before following her there. His mother had died while he was abroad, so he and his father went to her grave together. "He wanted to be as close as he could on this earth to both his parents," explains Mitt's eldest sister, Lynn Keenan. There, at the grave site, George told "both of them that he would never dishonor the family name." George had the conviction, unusual for his generation, that Mormons should live in the world, not out of it, and that a believing Latter-day Saint could thrive among nonbelievers.

Mitt (his given name is Willard) was born in 1947 in Detroit. He was the last of his parents' four children. The Romneys made sure to keep the principles of the Mormon faith at the center of their children's lives. Latter-day Saints believe that each person lived as a spirit with God before the creation of the world. The job of Mormon parents is to help their children adhere as closely as possible to God's principles so the family can return to God in heaven and live out eternity together. Mormon rules against swearing, against the consumption of alcohol, coffee and tea, against extra- and premarital sex keep LDS members on the straight and narrow path back to the divine.

The George Romneys went to church each Sunday; it was not optional. Prayers were said over the evening meal every night, and family members took turns saying them. Tito Cortella was a 17-year-old exchange student from Turin, Italy, who lived with the Romneys when Mitt was about 12. "My English was not very good at that time," says Cortella. "In spite of that, George Romney was asking everybody, one per night, to say the prayer. It was my turn, too. I had to learn it."

The LDS Church is a lay organization: nearly every job within it is held by a member and not by professional clergy. From a young age, Mormon children are prepped to take on these leadership roles. Starting at the age of 5, they are expected to speak in church on simple spiritual and theological topics. At 8, they're baptized. At 12, boys become "deacons"; they prepare and eventually serve the sacramental bread and water at worship services. Around that time, children can also do "proxy baptisms," or baptisms for the dead. (These are mostly done on behalf of Mormons' own ancestors, but they became controversial about a decade ago when it was discovered that they were also being done for dead Holocaust victims. The church ceased the practice, wherever possible.) When a boy turns 19, he often embarks on a two-year evangelizing mission; before he departs, he undergoes the sacred temple rituals for the first time. There are anointings and other secret rites, and he receives the undergarments that he wears almost all the time that mark him as a Mormon. All the observant males in the Romney family would have followed a trajectory that is something like this.