In 2008, I remember hearing about it from one prominent D.C. pollster: The question (or set of questions) asked of voters was something like this: "Given the following choices, who would you be least likely to vote for -- an African American, a Jew, or a Mormon?" The answer was clear: a Mormon.
I couldn't help but wonder why this was the answer. If someone were asked a question like this, what would they be most comfortable saying out loud? Also, what I find so disconcerting is the vast discrepancy between the Mormons I know and the occasionally absurd news stories or a recently canceled HBO television show (Big Love): it is no wonder there appears to be at least some level of consternation about Mormons at-large. After all, media impression has strong power in this nation.
The truth is, however, America may in fact have another JFK moment in 2012. In 1960, JFK famously didn't run for president as a Catholic, but "as the Democratic Party's candidate for president, who happen[ed] also to be a Catholic." [Recall Hillary Clinton, who didn't run because she was a woman, but ran despite being a woman. Of course, there was Barack Obama too, who barely mentioned race at all during his campaign until a pivotal speech in Pennsylvania in March of 2008.]
In the end, however, Hillary is a woman and nearly shattered a glass ceiling by winning more votes than any other woman in primary history. Obama paved the way for future African Americans and broke an unbelievable barrier by becoming the first African American president. And JFK was the first candidate to tear down the religion wall. (Before him, only Protestants had been elected president.)
And keeping religion in mind, my thought as of now is that the Republican candidate in 2012 will be a Mormon. And this candidate will clearly run despite being a Mormon, but will nonetheless still try to make appeals to the religious conservative Christian Republican base.
As a nation, we have looked past race; we came so close to shattering the gender gap (and I hope more than anything that we break it the upcoming years); we also need to continue to look past religion in choosing who we elect.
Read between the lines here, however. This is not a clear prediction or an endorsement for Mitt Romney. He seems like the frontrunner now. But I also see Jon Huntsman entering the fold and being "The Great Surprise of 2012." And let me be clear here too; this is not a prediction or endorsement for Huntsman. The major match-up of this primary, in my opinion, will be a match-up between Romney and Huntsman: two former governors, two Mormons, and two former business executives.
You know what's funny? For years I have been telling people to watch Jon Huntsman as the potential future leader of the Republican Party (long before David Plouffe issued what was seemingly a "warning call" about him).
The other day I went to a law library and found an old article written by a "Hillary Rodham" in the late 1970s. I also found notes on the Internet on how classmates throughout her studies used to talk about her likely political success. When I once did a research project on Bill Clinton, what I found was the same -- his closest childhood friends always knew he would be "move mountains." Some claim they always knew he would be president. For some people, you simply know leadership when you see it. Huntsman has rare talents and abilities that I have recognized for years. If he can win the primary (as he is moderate on some issues, which the conservatives may tear him apart on), then he is likely an incredibly viable candidate against Obama in the general.
But I am a blogger and a moderate Democrat and I issue no endorsements here and no predictions even for one candidate. Just a simple title: "The Mormon Candidates of 2012" -- of which I hope neither of the two aforementioned candidates are actually defined as. So why did I pick this title for my piece? Because in the end, Shakespeare may have written, "love is blind," but despite all that I have written above, he never wrote that politics is.
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Jon M. Sweeney: What Will Be The Top Religion Stories of 2012?
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
Mormonism at odds with every other branch of Christianity (if you believe in it). Orthodox, Catholics and Prodestants all believe that Christ was resurrected for only 40 days in North Africa and then ascended directly to Heaven. Not saying one believe supersedes the other, but it does to seem to put traditional Christianity at odds with LDS.
Or maybe that blacks in the war of heaven against hell did not pull their weight thus they were slighted with the mark of Cain.
Everything you have claimed is wrong.
If a voter does not want to vote for a Mormon candidate who declares that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, that is perfectly OK.
If someone chooses to believe in something totally absurd, I'm allowed to hold that against them.
---- in response to my stating that the evil Prop 8 ads paid for and created by mormons violated
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor"
netzach63 replied to me -- "You're just steamed because those uppity Mormons forgot their place - and voted their conscience on a social issue."
OK, there are approximately 8 times as many adult Gays in California as mormons of all ages --
yet you guys cling to the utter crap that you were simply voting your consciences, and we who were oppressed are just spouting sour grapes --
I wonder how many of you were kind of feeling you were voting against peoples rights, but had to do it for the church? I laugh when you find my comparison to "good Germans" in 1935 to be unfair.
YOU CREATE HATE to keep your prosperity scheme going, and you really tune out that you hurt millions of people along the way,
LET ALONE that all those million of dollars could have fed the poor.
As to the contribution of individual members - those were over and above the amounts already given to the Church for the needy.
When there is a ballot measure, one side wins and one side loses. Lives are effected. That's just the way it is, when you live in a place that allows ballot measures. The only way to avoid that - apparently the way you are suggesting we should have followed - is to roll over and play dead.
And I'm still waiting for you to give an example of "bearing false witness" from Yes on 8. I have given a perfect example of bearing false witness from the No on 8 side. It might be a good idea to check your own eyes for a beam, before addressing the mote you perceive in the eyes of others.
On its own websites, it brags of sending 60 truckloads of goods to Haiti, not the 600 truckloads (or 6000) it could have well afforded.
B-- "when there is a ballot measure" -- YOU GUYS masterminded it, promoted it, paid for and created the TV commericials, brought in the Knights of Columbus, made BYU students man phone banks, etc.
C-- "false witness" -- you guys always want to make us look like we do no research, typical mormon maneuvering. Anyone can look on Youtube and find several commercials LYING THAT LITTLE KIDS WILL BE FORCED TO LEARN ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS --- a horrendously offensive lie.
All this unconscionable mixing was to avoid TEMPTING MORMONS to re-think "sin"
Now you got rid of the Iowa judges --- FOR SHAME!
I wouldn't vote for a Scientologist, either, if that makes anyone feel better.
Also, Big Love wasn't "canceled," which is what happens when a network unilaterally decides a show should prematurely end--the creators and HBO decided it would be best if the 5th season was the last. Same as with Six Feet Under, if anyone remembers back that far.
Who is "we"? What is the "something"? And what makes it a "hoax"?
You want to "throw facts", so define them.
"Something" is Joseph Smith and his Golden Plates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_plates#Unsuccessful_retrieval_attempts
The fact that it was completely (and very obviously) made up is what makes it (or anything else) a "hoax."
Are those good definitions?
I'll cede the point that no one preached you HAD to be a polygamist to go to heaven, but not the point that polygamy wasn't given up so that Utah could obtain statehood. You realy going to deny that? Give me a break.
Personally, I was raised as a Mormon and would never vote for one. Not because of the reasons some would think. I merely disagreed with the concept that they are business people, who can steal your money M-Sat and then on Sunday, they had the adacity to stand and preach religion to anyone who will listen. That hypocracy struck me at the age of 16, I left and never went back.
I couldn't help but wonder why this was the answer."
Because the majority of Americans are smart enough, albeit just barely, to not trust someone to run the country whose main guiding principles come from a mid-19th century shyster who claimed he found magic golden dinner pates from Dog and could translate them using a magic rock while looking through his hat.
While driving through Utah a few years ago, we stopped at a cafe on the east side of Zion National Park. We ordered lunch and while waiting for our meal, we picked up the pamphlet that was in the napkin holder. Among other dire warnings, it said that the gentiles driving through the park were "cigarette smoking, heroin pushers who prey on young people." I'm not kidding. We bolted our food and left to drive through the magnificent rocks of Zion National Parks alternately laughing and being outraged the whole way through.
Awhile back a couple of the young men wanted to volunteer at the library. They insisted that their name tags say: elder "jim". They came in once to volunteer then disappeared.
That said, given the self-righteous, sanctimonious Xtian Right Wing of any persuasion and their either overt or open desire to change this country into a theocracy, I wouldn't vote for any candidate whose policies adher to the radical religious right.