Mysterious Dirty Tricks Mailer Reminds South Carolinians About Romney's Mormonism
With the primaries rapidly approaching, it's only natural that some of the more sleazy campaign tactics would intensify. CNN has obtained a mailer in heavily evangelical South Carolina, purporting to be a holiday card paid for by the Mormon Temple in Boston, wishing fond holiday wishes from the Romney family.
It also contains an old quote from the late Orson Pratt, one of the early fathers of the LDS Church, reminding people of the church's original tradition of polygamy:
"We have now clearly shown that God the father had a plurality of wives, one or more being eternity by whom he begat our spirits as well as the spirit of Jesus, his first born, and another being upon the earth by whom he begat the tabernacle of Jesus, as his only begotten in this world."
Comments (19)
Willard wrote on December 30, 2007 2:30 AM: Richard L. Adlof wrote on December 30, 2007 9:08 AM:I can guess why Huckleberry put out the "Let's have a clean campaign" ad a couple of days ago. This is right up his alley. Huckabee gets to play pious while 'associates and friends' smear others. Perhaps he will give another forgiveness speech.
Yo Huckabee! The transgressor must be repentant before you forgive otherwise you are stealing your god(s)'s grace from them.
buck wrote on December 30, 2007 9:52 AM:This has Huckster's paw prints all over it.
Ugluks Flea wrote on December 30, 2007 10:45 AM:South Carolina is where the gloves come off in repub primaries. This is a study in subtlety compared to what's yet to come.
smartalek wrote on December 30, 2007 11:20 AM:In one of the last segments of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (in both book and movie), Sam is able to rescue Frodo from the orc outpost in Mordor because all the orcs and other assorted pug-uglies, moved by the malign proximity of The Ring, have slaughtered each other. Sam and Frodo breeze right out through the corpses, and go on to save the world. I always thought this to be a bit of a reach, a deus ex machina fix that would be most unlikely to actually happen, even given the willing suspension of disbelief.
But wouldn't it be great if the Romneys and the Huckabees and the Thompsons and the McCains and the Giulianis -- and the Pauls, too, who's the wackest of all, his oppositions to the Iraq debacle and the "unitary executive" notwithstanding -- all just left each other's bodies dead on the ground, and let the world be saved for real?
(Of course that does bring up the question of who could be our Frodo; anyone here ever seen Hillary's feet? Obama's? I see Edwards as Aragorn, but maybe that's just me...)
Anyone think Mitt's people might be behind this? Check out the responses from Romney's campaign, they're going to play it for all its worth.
sixstring wrote on December 30, 2007 12:14 PM:Anonymous--
Liberal Democrat here, but raised as a Mormon and have raised my children in the faith...
It's an interesting question that you raise about the origins of the Orson Pratt quote.
There is a logic to Romney's own people doing this, but as Mormons they have no idea how this would play ultimately. They would really be playing with fire in doing this since the quote is equally or more likely to produce negatives for Romney as opposed to producing sympathy. It's like throwing a weak pass out into the flats against a very aggressive defense when you're backed up on your own three yard line. Yes, it might surprise them when they're expecting you to run the ball, but they might also just as easily pick it off and run it into the end zone.
Since Romney's braintrust is more likely to be Utah or northeasteran Mormons, they have very little idea about the intensity of negative feelings towards Mormons in the Deep South. They are more likely to think that the negativity towards Mormons in the Deep South is like the garden variety negativity that they have personally encountered in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, New Hampshire, etc.
They really don't instinctively understand the depth of negativity towards the LDS faith that one might encounter in the Deep South. Unlike those of us who grew up in the LDS faith in places like Louisiana and Texas (that would be me), they may not appreciate how dangerous it would be to run this play--if they, in fact, were the ones who called it.
We may never know the answer, but you raise a good question.
Anyway, Romney is a dangerous man, so I would hope the outcome in SC is a stunning and final defeat for him.
Goldspinner wrote on December 30, 2007 12:17 PM:It smells like a last-ditch effort to play the Mormon persecution card. It never fails to get LDS members riled up in priesthood and fast and testimony meetings. It also increases Mormon voter turnout and contributions to LDS-backed 527 groups.
Bruce Webb wrote on December 30, 2007 12:32 PM:Anonymous, Mitt gets nowhere trying to hit back on people who maliciously present true pieces of Mormon doctrine. There is exactly no refuge in claiming "Yes that is what I believe but it is unfair for others to point it out" when you are openly claiming to be a Christian just like any other.
I am not particularly interested in trying to delineate Christianity and put people in or out of the circle. But one thing is clear as clear: Mormonism is not Southern Baptism. You can be a big tent Christian and accept all equally. Which would make you likely to be a member of the United Church of Christ and open to Inter Faith councils. Mormons and Southern Baptists typically don't play those games, they know who is going to heaven and hell and on what terms and neither is fundamentally going to grant reciprocity.
At some point you can accept 'One True Faith' or you can embrace 'Ecumenicalism' but these are fundamentally unreconcilable. If you really believe in the tenets of your faith then you have to accept that people who fall outside those bounds are going to suffer adverse consequences. Which is why both Mormons and Evangelicals are avid supporters of missionaries. They don't want anyone to go to hell, on the other hand both understand that not everybody has a ticket to heaven, and each believes they have the Holy Conductor on their side.
People who don't believe Romney's faith matters don't really understand faith. 'Christian enough' doesn't pass the test for a lot of people.
Bruce Webb wrote on December 30, 2007 12:53 PM:"It also increases Mormon voter turnout and contributions to LDS-backed 527 groups"
Well 527 contributions are always good but what kind of Mormon turnout are you going to get in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida? Per this map that looks like a pretty shallow well
http://www.adherents.com/maps/map_us_lds.jpg
If I am reading the map right both Iowa and NH have less than 1% Mormon population, some large fraction of which presumedly already motivated to turn out for Mitt or not particularly political to begin with. You have to be pretty politically brain dead to decide that whipping up a fraction of a fraction of voters is worth introducing this particular message into public consciousness. Plenty of people are willing to look past Mitt's beliefs, which doesn't mean they are going to leap to defend them.
Huckabee is not a total rube. Anyone who thinks that 'Jesus and Lucifer are brothers' thing was some innocent accident hasn't been around politics enough. The fingerprints of him or his surrogates is all over this thing.
oleeb wrote on December 30, 2007 12:56 PM:I don't understand why people assume it is Huckabee and not McCain trying to deep six Romney? In fact, nobody knows.
Romney's Mormonism is a simple fact that remains problematic for him. I would think that the more his Mormonism is front and center, the worse it is for him with the GOP base of lunatic "Christers" as Gore Vidal calls them. It is also problematic for most Americans who identify with some form of Christianity because there just isn't any segment of Christianity that accepts Mormons as Christians: none.
Mormonism is as alien a thing to most Americans who call themselves Christians as Islam is. Most Americans cannot process what it means to be anything outside of either "Christian" or Jewish because of a virtually complete lack of knowledge. In fact, most Americans who identify themselves as Christians don't know a whole helluva lot about Christianity outside the basice Jesus stories. Go beyond that with respect to any religion and it's just not something they understand. As long as it remains that way, Romney or any other Mormon is going to have problems on the national level---especially as a Republican.
buttersmoke wrote on December 30, 2007 3:07 PM:This is some private individual's work, and not connected with any campaign. None of the GOP candidate's campaign managers would knowingly allow this to come from their camp. That said, the private individual certainly favors one of the campaigns, and could even be volunteering for a campaign, but is not assisted by any campaign on this.
Seriously folks, this kind of thing would be easy to do. Times have changed with software and home office printers. Name any candidate and I'd bet you could come up with a double-sided hit piece in about 30 minutes. This one from SC looks like someone did it with wedding invitation software.
Speaking of which, I think I'm going to do some push-polling today in Iowa. Here's my plan:
1. Write a quick script with 2 or 3 questions (ie, "Would you vote for a woman for President if you knew she was a lesbian?" or "Do you think a Muslim should be elected President given our problems with the Islamic world?" or "Would you vote for a man to be President who has fathered an illegitimate child which is about to be born?")
2. Get some Des Moines area home phone numbers off the internet (www.superpages.com)
3. Press *67 on my phone to block my phone number and then call and just ask the questions.
You see my point, it would be very easy for one person to create a national (or at least local) political news story.
Goldspinner wrote on December 30, 2007 5:48 PM:Bruce,
Even though your map purports to show percentages for LDS membership, please keep in mind that even in the Intermountain states, the "official" percentages aren't accurate. Ask any ward clerk how many "less active" members remain on the rolls years after leaving the church. That's one of the reasons why units now use the Member and Leader Services (MLS) software to track anyone who's ever had any type of official church contact...including non-members.
With that said, there are enough active LDS members in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida to merit relatively new McTemples in Boston, Columbia, and Orlando. In order to build a new temple, the Corporation of the First Presidency requires a very high level of activity from temple-worthy members in a given geographic area. Also note that my earlier comments were not limited to those states. Mormon money and power are quite effective in places like Virginia, Maryland, DC, Hawaii, Oregon, and yes, Iowa...and Nebraska.
http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2004/10/03/nebraska/doc415f8dff391b2123060506.txt
http://blog.mrm.org/2007/10/lds-growth-and-retention/
Bruce,
If you're the same Bruce Webb that used to do projects with the Benson Institute, I apologize for the snarkiness.
Bruce Webb wrote on December 30, 2007 8:07 PM:Well I am not Benson Bruce,then again snark doesn't really sting me. You can't travel six blocks without seeing a Mormon church in Boise (where much of my family lives now) I am not particularly impressed by singular temples here and there in cities outside the mountain west. If you have updated numbers bring 'em.
CranialRectalLoopback wrote on December 31, 2007 12:13 AM:You can't have freedom without religion, so let freedom ring.
SocraticGadfly wrote on December 31, 2007 12:44 AM:Why is nobody else mentioning Rudy's name in conjunction with this? He's free-falling in the polls and desperate...
Goldspinner wrote on December 31, 2007 1:39 AM:Bruce,
Quel dommage: your namesake is a really nice guy. Singular temples? That's the sort of clueless remark I'd expect from someone who doesn't live in what Utah and Idaho Saints refer to as "the mission field". You apparently never had to travel for days in order to perform baptisms for the dead.
The brethren don't spend millions of dollars to build a temple unless there's a critical mass of temple-worthy members to use them and enough volunteer temple workers to staff them. Since members with recommends make up a fraction of total members in a temple district, there are plenty of folks on the rolls who just happen to be LDS...and vote.
Unlike Boise, where the ward boundaries are dinky, folks in the "mission field" get phase five chapels that can serve more than three wards or branches. You knew the brethren don't like wasting consecrated funds! For someone who lives in Boise, you sure haven't learned much about the local dominant cultural group.
Not that I'm being coy, surely you realize that as a female and non-priesthood holder I'm not supposed to have full access to the previously mentioned database. Grounds for excommunication, don't ya know? As far as supporting stats go, you'll have to find your own ward clerk to lead astray.
Bruce Webb wrote on December 31, 2007 9:22 AM:"You apparently never had to travel for days in order to perform baptisms for the dead."
Oddly enough I have never travelled even minutes in order to perform baptisms for the dead.
You made a point about turnout that really wasn't religious at all. I made a point about demographics that undercut your turnout point and you respond with "recommends" and "phase five chapels". And boy howdy you are impressing the hell out of progressives by practically bragging "that as a female and non-priesthood holder I'm not supposed to ...". Sister in my world a uterus is not supposed to be a barrier. We haven't done enough to make equality between the sexes a reality but at least we are trying.
For what it is worth I don't live in Boise, most of my family does. I live north of Seattle where LDS presence is relatively heavy but not dominant. I suspect that the reason wards are 'dinky' in Boise and not very large around here is precisely because of density. More Mormons, more chapels and temples.
I am not out to pick quarrels with people of faith. As far as I am concerned you are free to worship God in any form you like, or no form at all. I was responding to a comment about 527 groups and turnout.
