{"id":229,"date":"2008-01-07T21:00:40","date_gmt":"2008-01-07T21:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2008\/01\/is-romney-still-dogged-by-morm.html"},"modified":"2008-01-07T21:00:40","modified_gmt":"2008-01-07T21:00:40","slug":"is-romney-still-dogged-by-morm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/01\/is-romney-still-dogged-by-morm.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Romney Still Dogged by Mormon Questions?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"romney18.jpg\"Leave it to The Salt Lake Tribune<\/em>, the Church of Latter-day Saints’ hometown paper, to keep insisting that Mitt Romney’s Mormonism is a drag on his candidacy<\/a>. As God-o-Meter sees it, the only problem with these stories–and there have been one or two a week for months on end now–is that they never cite hard evidence. Now, God-o-Meter realizes this doesn’t mean that anti-Mormon sentiment isn’t real. It is<\/a>. But if the Tribune<\/em> needs only find yet one more religion scholar who says evangelicals won’t vote for a Mormon–for reasons we all know by now–to justify the latest Mitt-can’t-beat-his-Mormonism piece, God-o-Meter thinks the paper is setting the bar too low.
\nTake this morning’s Tribune<\/em> piece: Evangelical fears: Romney struggles to shift attention from his religion<\/strong>. It opens with an anecdote of a woman who tells Romney she’s dubious about his faith at a forum in New Hampshire. Since that woman is won over to Romney’s side by story’s end, however, the Trib<\/em> hangs its entire Mormon-can’t-win story on a quote from a single scholar:<\/p>\n

“It’s virtually impossible for Romney to calm the religious fears of evangelicals,” says Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.
\n“There’s a limit to what he can do with religion at this point. [And] it’s only going to get worse after New Hampshire.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The piece cites the outcome of the Iowa caucuses as proof positive of Romney’s ongoing struggle to get evangelicals to accept him despite his faith:<\/p>\n

…Iowa made clear his religion is a hurdle he has yet to overcome. Romney finished a fairly distant second to Huckabee and managed to attract only about one of every five evangelical
\nvoters. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God-o-Meter can’t argue with those stats. And the Romney team itself, privately, cites anti-Mormonism as a factor for its weak showing among Iowa evangelicals. But God-o-Meter just wants to remind everyone that Romney was vying with a Baptist preacher for evangelical votes in Iowa, and that Romney’s record on so-called values issues like abortion and gay rights has been about as consistent as Hillary Clinton’s hairdos. So while Romney’s Mormonism continues to be a stumbling block, it’s by no means his biggest hurdle. Particularly not in New Hampshire. The Tribune<\/em> should find some new angles for its Romney coverage.<\/p>\n


\n6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leave it to The Salt Lake Tribune, the Church of Latter-day Saints’ hometown paper, to keep insisting that Mitt Romney’s Mormonism is a drag on his candidacy. As God-o-Meter sees it, the only problem with these stories–and there have been one or two a week for months on end now–is that they never cite hard…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mitt-romney"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Romney Still Dogged by Mormon Questions? - God-O-Meter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/01\/is-romney-still-dogged-by-morm.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Romney Still Dogged by Mormon Questions? - God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Leave it to The Salt Lake Tribune, the Church of Latter-day Saints’ hometown paper, to keep insisting that Mitt Romney’s Mormonism is a drag on his candidacy. 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