Thursday Reads: The Not-Quite-Humanness of Mitt Romney
Posted: February 2, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, 2012 primaries, Media, Mitt Romney, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "The Real Romney", Andrew Sullivan, Book of Mormon, Brigham Young, CNN Florida primary debate, Cougar Club, Declaration of Independence, Genn Beck, George Romney, Joseph Smith, Latter Day Saints, Michael D. Moody, Miles A. Romney, Miles P. Romney, Mitt Romney, Mormon church, Orrin Hatch, polygamy, robots, theocracy, U.S. Constitution, uncanny valley, zombies 53 Comments
Good Morning!!
I had never seen the diagram above before until last night when I was browsing through reactions to Mitt Romney’s latest insensitive remark, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.” That’s when I found the above diagram at Andrew Sullivan’s blog.
Here’s an explanation from Wikipedia:
Hypothesized emotional response of human subjects is plotted against anthropomorphism of a robot, following Mori’s statements. The uncanny valley is the region of negative emotional response towards robots that seem “almost human”. Movement amplifies the emotional response.
The idea is you can make an emotional connection to a robot; but a robot that is very close to looking and acting human, but not quite, will elicit disgust. This could explain the reactions of revulsion that many people have toward Mitt Romney. From Wikipedia:
If an entity looks sufficiently nonhuman, its human characteristics will be noticeable, generating empathy. However, if the entity looks almost human, it will elicit our model of a human other and its detailed normative expectations. The nonhuman characteristics will be noticeable, giving the human viewer a sense of strangeness. In other words, a robot stuck inside the uncanny valley is no longer being judged by the standards of a robot doing a passable job at pretending to be human, but is instead being judged by the standards of a human doing a terrible job at acting like a normal person.
Sullivan suggests that Romney is “probing zombie territory.” I found this a very helpful way to think about the way Romney presents himself in public. He is trying very hard to act like a regular human being and he almost succeeds, but not quite–sort of like the fake humans in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Mitt Romney is a pod person!
Another behavior I’ve noticed about Romney is his tendency to get almost manic and go way overboard–as he was doing down in Florida in his attack on Newt Gingrich and in his glee at winning the primary (only the second he has won). I mentioned to Dakinikat yesterday that I thought Romney could use some lithium carbonate to bring him back down to earth.
According to Sullivan, others are picking up on this tendency too. Sullivan links to a series of photos by Dan Amira at New York Magazine, with this introduction:
Mitt Romney came into the 2012 presidential race with a reputation as a stiff, humanoid robot. Consequently, he’s been making a concerted effort to seem more warm and friendly when interacting with voters on the campaign trail. But there’s a happy middle ground between “robotic” and “maniac on ecstasy” — a middle ground that seems to elude Romney on a regular basis.
Here’s one of the photos.
I really need to read Andrew Sullivan more often. He writes:
I was chatting with a Mormon friend the other day and asking him what Mormons make of Mitt on this uncanny valley question. The phrase he came up with is “the Mormon mask.” It’s the kind of public presentation that a Mormon with real church authority deploys when dealing with less elevated believers, talking to them, and advising them. The cheery aw-shucks fake niceness in person is a function in part, some believe, of the role he has long played in the church: always a leader.
Because, make no mistake about this: Mitt Romney is a Mormon church leader. I mentioned before that I’ve been reading The Real Romney, by Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman. Here’s a 2008 quote from Mitt that introduces the chapter on the Romney family history:
I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers. I will be true to them and to my beliefs. Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it.
Mitt Romney has served his church in official leadership roles since 1977, when he became a counselor (essentially second in command) to the president of the Boston “stake.” Romney was only about 30, much younger than most who ascend to this position. But Romney was seen as special. He later became a Bishop and then stake President. As such he was in charge of “about a dozen congregations with close to 4,000 members all together.”
Romney’s great great grandfather Miles A. Romney heard Joseph Smith speak in England, and soon after emigrated with his family to the U.S. to become one of the 12 original Smith apostles. Romney’s ancesters helped to build the earliest Mormon temples, and they unquestioningly followed orders from Smith, and later Brigham Young, to marry multiple wives and travel to far away places at the whims of these church leaders. Romney’s great grandfather, Miles P. Romney along with his three wives and twenty-one children, started a polygamous Mormon colony in Mexico. That is where Mitt’s dad George was born. George returned to the U.S. at age seven.
Yesterday I read quite a bit of an e-book by Michael D. Moody, who was a classmate of Mitt Romney’s at BYU. Moody’s ancestors were also among the earliest followers of Joseph Smith. Moody’s book is called Mitt, Set Our People Free! A 7th Generation Mormon’s Plea for Truth. It is written in the form of an open letter to Mitt from one who has “left the cult.” The “letter” was actually written in 2008, but Moody believes it is just as relevant today.
As undergraduates, Romney and Moody belonged to a BYU booster club, the Cougar Club (BYU didn’t permit Greek fraternities). The club raised large amounts of money for the church and the university. Moody writes that
…in 1970-71…the Cougar Club buzzed that you planned to run for President someday and it became a fait accompli by 2006. Early and aggressively, you began your long-planned push for the U.S. presidency. After making all the right business moves and a few snazzy dance steps to the political right, you were suddenly a top tier contender for the Republican nomination with significant insider support and a freshly reinvented persona.
Moody was surprised when he heard Romney repeatedly tell interviewers and supporters that he had never intended to run for office–it just happened somehow. In fact Moody can’t understand a lot of the things Romney says that he (Moody) knows to be lies.
Moody had been somewhat rebellious during his early years at BYU and ended up getting suspended and then drafted and sent to Vietnam. It was there the Moody began having contact with non-Mormons and began to learn the history of the religion that had been hidden from the faithful–like the fact that the Book of Mormon had obviously been written by Joseph Smith himself and that the book contained many sections that had been plagarized from the King James Bible.
Still, even when he came home from Vietnam, he returned to BYU, joined the Cougar Club, and gave the religion he had been born into another chance. After he graduated, Moody went into politics specifically to support Romney’s push for the presidency and to be prepared to be one of Romney’s cabinet members when the time came. He writes:
I did my duty to the Mormon Gods and ran for Governor to expand our Kingdom and help you lead the world into the Millenium. Actually…by then I had begun my long journey out of the cult.
Moody is no longer a Mormon, but he says that Mitt Romney is still a true believer. One of the beliefs that many Mormons hold is the “White Horse Prophecy.” Moody writes:
Like previous generations, we were reared to believe the U.S. Constitution needed saving, and the LDS Church would do it. We knew our reward, because of primordial valience, was a chance to play major roles in the ensuing end day events. Jesus and “God the Father” had told the prophets, and our patriarchs had told us personally. We were a special generation.
That the U.S. Constitution is in [immanent] danger and will “hand by a thread as fine as silk fiber” in the latter days before the LDS Church rides to its rescue….The Church priesthood holders (men like Romney and Moody) will sweep in like knights to save the Constitution then set it aside to reestablish the theocratic Kingdom created by Joseph Smith and nearly perfected by Brigham Young. The stated plan is to pave the way for the political Kingdom of God and Joseph Smith’s version Millenial Kingdom on Earth.
A few days ago, Salon published an article by Sally Denton, another former Mormon and author of books on Mormon history, on Mitt Romney and the White Horse Prophecy.
When Mitt Romney received his patriarchal blessing as a Michigan teenager, he was told that the Lord expected great things from him. All young Mormon men — the “worthy males” of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as it is officially known — receive such a blessing as they embark on their requisite journeys as religious missionaries. But at 19 years of age, the youngest son of the most prominent Mormon in American politics — a seventh-generation direct descendant of one of the faith’s founding 12 apostles—Mitt Romney had been singled out as a destined leader.
From the time of his birth — March 13, 1947 — through adolescence and into manhood, the meshing of religion and politics was paramount in Mitt Romney’s life.
In the early 1960s Romney’s father George confided his political ambitions in his youngest son, then a teenager. Mitt actively participated in his father’s campaign for governor of Michigan, and during George’s three terms as governor Mitt was often in his father’s office, privy to major decisions. He attended the Republican convention with his father in 1964, and was kept abreast of his father’s failed campaign for President in 1968 (Mitt was a missionary in France).
Denton writes that [although the official church denies it] the White Horse Prophecy is “ingrained in Mormon culture and passed down through generations by church leaders…” She writes:
In this scenario, Romney’s candidacy is part of the eternal plan and the candidate himself is fulfilling the destiny begun in what the church calls the “pre-existence.”
Several prominent Mormons, including conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck [read more here], have alluded to this apocalyptic prophecy. The controversial myth is not an official church doctrine, but it has also arisen in the national dialogue with the presidential candidacies of Mormons George Romney, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and now Mitt Romney.
Mitt Romney himself has dismissed this notion.
“I don’t think the White Horse Prophecy is fair to bring up at all,” Mitt Romney told the Salt Lake Tribune when he was asked about it during his 2008 presidential bid. “It’s been rejected by every church leader that has talked about it. It has nothing to do with anything.”
Maybe not, but I still want to know more about Romney’s religion. What I’ve learned already is pretty strange–that God was once a man living on another planet, that “priests” like Mitt Romney will be masters of their own planets after death and that they will be able to take as many wives as they wish in the afterlife. That Mormon women can’t get into heaven unless they are married and and their husbands help them through. That women must stay married to the same man even after death and must be prepared to make way for his multiple wives and their children in the afterlife. And BTW, did you know that Romney’s family baptized Mitt’s confirmed atheist father-in-law as a Mormon a year after he died? No wonder Romney doesn’t want to talk about his religion!
I suppose it isn’t any more wacky than a lot of the stuff in the Christian old testament, but the fact that all this nonsense was sold to people in the 19th and 20th centuries and is people like Glenn Beck are still buying it and converting in the 21st century is pretty hard for me to accept. I don’t think that’s bigotry–it’s self-preservation. We’ve already seen what can happen when fanatical fundamentalist Christians start getting control of political parties and throwing their weight around in government and the culture as a whole (Susan Kommen, anyone?).
In light of all this, I find this statement by Romney in the CNN Florida debate to be very troubling:
The conviction that the founders, when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, were writing a document that was not just temporary and not just for one small locale but really something which described the relationship between God and man — that’s something which I think a president would carry in his heart.
So when they said, for instance, that the creator had “endowed us with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” I would seek to assure that those principles and values remain in America and that we help share them with other people in the world, not by conquering them, but by helping them through our trade, through our various forms of soft power, to help bring people the joy and — and — and opportunity that exists in this great land.
Am I crazy to be a little concerned about this guy? This post is getting very long, so I’ll end here. But I doubt if this will be the last time I bring up the Romney/religion issue. So far Romney has been allowed to skate on this. No one wants to ask him about it for fear of being labeled a bigot. I don’t care. I just want to keep another theocratic candidate from sneaking past our useless corporate media.
So… that’s it for me and my Romney obsession. What are you interested in today?
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I am going to make an early prediction: Mitt Romney will never be president of the US.
Notwithstanding the amount of gaffes he continues to add to his resume, but the very fact that he is unable to personally connect to another human being. Even Glenn Beck, a full blown lunatic, was able to make that connection far easier than Mitt. But then Beck, a one time Catholic, “came” to Mormonism by way of marriage. Mitt was born and raised in it. Big difference.
The Mormon Church exists in secrecy. Whatever it is they have hidden away is only known to a few insiders like Mittens. A “religion” founded by a well known scam artist in the 19th century, Mormonism was founded to essentially “sanctify” Joseph Smith’s appetites.
Money and access to women drove the “theology” of this sect. However, today that sect is one of the most powerful and wealthiest institutions. An “eye on the presidency” would thus legitimize their standing as they see it.
Mormonism is a “way of life” for those who practice it. Mitt is uncomfortable discussing his faith because it is so out of the mainstream of religious thinking. They thrive on “prophesy”.
Delving into that practice would raise more questions of Mitt, an elevated member of this sect. Just as Glenn Beck in all his insanity was seen and heard making these “prophesies” as a large part of his broadcasts, Mitt would be quite comfortable in that role should the question ever be raised.
This is may be one reason why he considers questions of his faith “out of bounds” since in fact he is as much of a devotee of these “prophesies” as Beck who was ridiculed and eventually run off broadcasting owing much to the peculiarites he proposed.
The “danger” is there but hidden.
Very interesting post, BB.
I was going to write something about having seen the so-called “Mormon mask” while interacting with Mormons but I don’t want to risk sounding like a bigot. I like the Mormons I know. They are very nice people. Yet, as a non-Mormon, I have always felt that I don’t really know them at all. I feel the same way about Romney. And as a religion, Mormonism is very different from traditional Christianity. That’s all I am willing to say about the subject. 🙂
They may be nice people (altough I don’t think that Orrin Hatch and Glenn Beck are very nice), but I don’t want to live by their religious rules.
Women are basically baby machines — the more babies the better. The bill boards on the Interstates near Salt Lake City — advertise maternity hospitals and show pictures of the whole massive family going to the hospital with a ready to drop the kid female.
The Mormon temple marriage is a enactment of the male pulling his wife up to heaven. A woman who left the Mormon cult wrote a tell all book.
On the other hand Mormon women in Utah had the right to vote — which they had to give up before Utah was allowed into the Union of States.
Then the biggest reason why the ERA didn’t pass — Mormon Church was opposed to Equal Rights for women. The Mormon church is not a friend of women — this church is the ultimate in fetus worship.
BB, when I said they are “very nice people”, I was referring to Mormons I actually know – a couple of whom I have known since I was elementary school age, and the “mask” they seem to wear. And, no, I don’t want to live by their religious rules, either.
I understand, Beata.
Crap, the webz ate my comment! This is an attempt at recreating my first – much more brilliant (snark) comment.
Thanks, Minx. Before this post I just lumped LDS in with the other bible thumpers. This post makes it clear to me that LDS is #1 with a bullet on the Whackadoodle List.
The graph & description really hit home with me. On The Daily Show Tuesday night there was a specific clip of Romney where he tilted his head to his left and then to his right. It just looked strangely familiar to me. Reading the graph description I realized that he reminded me of a bird. I knew it didn’t look human-like. I’ve often compared Romney to one of Disney’s audio-animatronic figures, as have others.
While the Repugnant Party spent all of time thwarting any & all Obama tried to accomplish, they lowered security on the country’s mental health facilities and the patients escaped. Those patients are now running for prez on the Repug ticket. Someone in the party should have spent some time grooming some real live boyz to run. Jon Huntsman was the only one (not an endorsement) that had valid credentials, but apparently the Repugs only want someone with valid Crazy Credentials. Unlike the puppet presidents, Reagan & Bush, this crop cannot be controlled. The strings on these puppets are being controlled by their religious leaders instead, except for Ron Paul. Ayn Rand is controlling his from beyond the grave. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Connie! You didn’t tell us you had a blog! I just went over there! We’ll list it over on our “friend’s blogs” list!!
Cool!
Well, it isn’t in the same class as this one. You posters rock! I am in awe of each and every one of you. But thanks.
“Raging against the machine”, Donald Trump is expected to endorse Newt Gingrich at a press conference today.
With Palin and Chuck Norris already onboard, this should to the trick!
Why Donald Trump’s endorsement is a matter of holding a press conference for the announcement, you just have to ask that what in this nation is worthy of attention anymore.
I’m more interested in Snooki announcing her pregnancy – or not – than what Donald Trump thnks.
C’mon Pat. Don’t you know that The Donald is a legend in his own mind. His edicts are always worthy of a press conference.
Hey, how about a lottery for who will next endorse The Newter? Ryan Seacrest? Ooh, ooh, Mel Gibson? Probably not, although a rabid Catholic, he’s probably not a US citizen.
I’m holding out for the Kardashian’s.
The “vapid” vote in this nation is just as important than any of those ugly, lazy, unmotivated poor that is bringing this country to its knees.
Rick Santorum is more Mel Gibson’s style. They’re members of the same cult, Regnum Christi.
Don’t forget Mr. Herman “999” Cain!
ZOMG! I just realized that “999” is “666” upside down! It’s the end of the world!
😆
CNN breaking news just put this out:
the 1 percenters flock together
I don’t remember George Romney having been born in Mexico being an issue when he was running for President in ’68, but back then, I was not yet a teen. 😉 How did they explain that one?
I was 18 and only remember his name – nothing about him. I certainly don’t remember any discussion of his Mormonism. But, religion wasn’t part of the political discourse then. The only time it was when when a Catholic ran for prez – JFK. It was no longer an issue when RFK ran. Ah, the good old days when a candidate didn’t have to have a notarized permission slip from his/her preacher/pastor/priest to run for office.
Fascinating question, Janice. If foreign-born, how could George Romney have qualified to be President? According to Wiki, he was born in Colonia Dublan, a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico. Was it part of the USA at the time?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_Dubl%C3%A1n
Wouldn’t he have born to American parents and therefore an American?
That must be the case, Connie. I wonder if his citizenship was questioned when he was running for President? I’m sure it would be now!
Went to Wikipedia & looked up George. Mitt is NOTHING like his father. Found this interesting passage: “When Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Detroit in June 1963 to stage a civil rights march, Romney issued a proclamation in support of the event and sent two representatives to it on his behalf, but did not attend himself because it was on a Sunday.[101] Romney did participate in a smaller march protesting housing discrimination the following Saturday in Grosse Pointe, after King had left.[101] Romney’s advocacy of civil rights brought him criticism from some in his own church;[81] in January 1964, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles member Delbert L. Stapley wrote him that a proposed civil rights bill was “vicious legislation” and telling him that “the Lord had placed the curse upon the Negro” and men should not seek its removal.[30][104] Romney refused to change his position and increased his efforts towards civil rights.[30][104]”
There was a mention that his religion wasn’t brought up during his presidential campaign but that many thought it might have been had he stayed in the race longer.
That’s interesting about George, Connie. I do remember my parents considering him a not-as-bad Republican.
George Romney walked out of the 1964 Republican convention because he thought Barry Goldwater was too extreme. He also defended Saul Alinsky to his colleages in Michigan after the Detroit riots. And of course he famously opposed the Vietnam war in 1968, saying he had been “brainwashed” by military men on his previous visit there years before. That’s what killed his chance at the nomination–the “brainwashed” comment.
George Romney’s birthplace was an issue in ’68, but both of his parents were U.S. citizens, so he was a citizen too. HIs situation was like that of John McCain, who was born in Panama to U.S. citizen parents.
I, too, had questions about Mitt’s father. I don’t remember him [wasn’t really paying attention to politics at that point in time] but political pundits, other pols, left and right, seem to have liked and respected George Romney.
Some great information, BB! Love that graph, too. How perfect. Romney does not seem comfortable with these public outings. He’s the Republican version of Al Gore. The religious edge gives the whole ‘vision’ thing a creepy edge–the prophecies, the rescue of the Constitution, the need to erect a theocracy in the US. And all you have to do is mention Glenn Beck in my company and I’m ready to rant like a mad woman. Beck and his ilk are dangerous and frankly, crazy.
The look at Romney from his roommate’s perspective–who and what Romney was when young is really interesting. I think because Mormoninism is such a young religion, we get a unique view [even though so much is hidden from the public]–that all organized religions are cult beliefs. We don’t have that benefit with older religious systems because so much time has passed and the beliefs become so culturally ingrained. And it doesn’t mean that there aren’t universal truths passed along in the major faiths but what you’re expected to swallow in the process, in the details is pretty bizarre when you think about it. Maybe that’s the crux–you’re not suppose to think, simply accept. A matter of faith.
But then, I’m a lapsed Catholic.
Anyway, good piece!
Thanks, Peg.
Here’s a telling quote from a Boston political insider — from another Romney biography.
Very interesting information – thank you for tackling the subject of Mittens for us so we don’t have to!
Fair warning about Andrew Sullivan, though, (or should I say “Danger, danger Will Robinson”?) – the guy is a raving misogynyst famous for his fixation on Sarah Palin’s pregnancy with Trigg and whether it was faked.
Love the Lost in Space reference. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Yes, I know Sullivan has his drawbacks, but on Romney he’s spot on.
This is a really interesting post. At the end of the day, the thing that is bothering me the most about all these republicans is that I am going to have to end up voting for Obama, and I REALLY didn’t want to. ugh.
A South Carolina state senate panel just voted to end insurance coverage for abortions for rape and incest victims. It now heads to a full committee. There is no state supplemental plan for coverage even available to buy if it came down to that.
I know. It really bothers me too, but if there is any chance MA could go for Romney, I’ll have to put an “X” next to Obama’s name.
That’s awful about SC.
No, you don’t have to vote for Obama. There’s such a thing as not participating in your own destruction. And also the practical politics of forcing the Dems to listen to someone besides wingnuts. That’s not going to happen until we stop voting for them.
As for the whole the-Repubs-are-much-worse argument. Sure. They are. But with Obama, in Vastleft’s inimitable words, “With a Repub, half the US protests right wing policy. With Obama, one half accepts it, and the other half demands even worse.” We’ve been living with the first term of Bush III. Why participate in your own destruction, just to get more Bush III?
It’s the lesser-evil-strategy and the Democratic leadership has been using it to prop Obama up. The Repugs are cra-a-azy, the strategy says. The Republicans ‘are’ crazy in their present configuration. But Obama and his minions are free-market acolytes, who think the neo-liberal schtick is reasonable, that if we cut social programs to the bone, keep feeding the industrial/military complex, the market gods will smile and everyone will be fat and sassy. And those poor ole bankers? They’re necessary to keep the wheels greased and pay for the handmaidens’ elections.
It’s bunk! Even hardheaded neo-conservatives [those who can still think] know that the Left is necessary to keep capitalism in check. But where is the Left? Where are the Progressives? Still sucking their thumbs and loving on Obama.
It’s a disaster. That’s why I refuse to vote for either party. They’re decrepit, corrupt dinosaurs. We need a meteor shower!
Right, there’s not a dimes worth of difference between Bush and Gore. Vote Nader!
Evidence proves you wrong because elections have consequences! How soon we forget.
Live in Florida & voted for Nader in 2000. Let the stoning begin. Problem is – Jeb & Katherine along with the Supremes orchestrated the theft of the election. I firmly believe that Gore would have lost even if Ralph hadn’t run. The fix was in. Yes, I’m a card carrying, duly registered Cynic.
However, I will grudgingly vote for Obama – again – this time. The devil you know, well you know how that goes.
I figured somebody would come along and say “But, but, Nader!”
Fergawdsake, Al Gore was not ideal. No politician is. But he was not a simple lying sack. He was not a Republican, even if he was not the ideal Dem. And Bush II, the man who could find it in himself to laugh at convicts on death row, was clearly a very different ball of something. In that case, throwing the election to Bush II was a bad idea.
Don’t fight the last war.
This one is different. On one side you have somebody who has demonstrated that he will push Republican policies — state torture, war, dismantling Social Security, etc., etc., etc, — without any (effective) protest. On the other side you have people who want to push Republican policies under their own flag and with (perhaps!) protest.
There’s not a huge difference. Arguably, the people’s silence makes the first worse. If you feel the difference is nonetheless big enough to vote for somebody who runs the bus over you, you may be right. That’s valid. What’s not valid if listening to campaign speeches and hoping it won’t be as bad next time.
I can’t begin to get my mind around that SC BS. That is terminally insane.
Mark my words, when the Obamatrons are turned lose on Mittens the charges of “LDS is a racist religion” are going to eclipse anything we have ever seen in terms of attacking a candidates faith. It will be like the “Birthers” and the “Obambam is a Muslim” only the MSM will allow it. With appropriate hand-wringing and brow furrowing, of course. That is my “prophecy” anyway.
With Citizens United that stuff can be left to a Super PAC now. No fingerprints or trace evidence, even for the best CSI team.
I doubt it. And I don’t think the MSM would go along with it. Keep in mind that the Mormonism is the fastest growing religion, bar none. And the Mormon church is superrich–they pretty much own Las Vegas and many other businesses. They’re extremely powerful. But we’ll find out eventually.
Perhaps, but if ’08 is any indicator, Obots get a pass on anything they say, racist, sexist, age-ist or just out and out lies. Their favorite trick is accusing others of racism, ask Bill Clinton. If the MSM holds their feet to the fire I’ll be surprised.
Here’s how it will go, first black people will start getting “did you know” e-mails and texts about Mormonism and race, then black radio and blogs will pick it up, then the MSM will either air it as something controversial for their phony he said/she said debates or just ignore it. Either way the dammage will be done, the message that “A vote for a Mormon is a vote for racism…” will be out there. I do not think that the MSM will treat attacks on Mormonism from Obots the same as they would if say, Santorum or Bachman were attacking Mormonism. – IMHO
Ron4Hills! Good to see you!
Oh yeah, and I fogot to say, if the Republicans nominate Newt Gingrich, i amy be forced to go back on my word and voted Democrat.
Some want Newt to get the nomination because they think he is easier to beat. I disagree. “ANYTHING” can happen in an election. Especially with an incumbement with as bad a record as Obambam. The danger of a Gingrich presidency is far too grave.
Mittens, even with his “Guy Smiley”, disingenuous 1%-tiness, and the possible messianic delusions, is not as scary as newt.
I think Mitt is scarier, because Newt could never beat Obama. Mitt might.
This is what alarmed me from Sally Denton’s article:
I knew a lot of Mormons when I lived in California and one very good friend is a Mormon. I think I am her only non Mormon friend. She wears that “mask” you reference and she has let it slip in front of me several times, calling me when her emotions can’t be contained behind that mask. It’s sad and frustrating at the same time to see her put the mask back on as if the emotional outburst never happened or is downplayed to almost non existence.
“Oh yeah, and I forgot to say, if the Republicans nominate Newt Gingrich, i may be forced to go back on my word and vote Democrat.”
Even my husband has said that. And he cannot stand Obama. For myself? As a Democrat Wandering the Wilderness, I reject both legacy party candidates. I have no horse in this race. They all suck!
BB, thanks for that thoughtful piece but you lost me at Andrew Sullivan.
He’s spread more toxic memes about both Clintons than the late, unlamented Jerry Falwell. The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.
I was a kid when JFK ran for president but I do remember the concern that he was a “papist” and would take his orders directly from the Vatican.
All religions have beliefs that are ludicrous, ridiculous and laugh out loud funny. Virgin birth-really? Resurrection–c’mon.
If Romney gives a major speech vowing to uphold the Constitution even when the LDS church disagrees, I don’t see his fantasy of choice as a big problem.
Sullivan is a hack, but then so is Romney.. So I guess they deserve each other 🙂
good piece! BB. 🙂