Romney's Conservative Problem

Today's must-read is for anyone interested in who will bear the GOP standard in 2008. It comes from Robert Novak who discusses the problem Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is going to face in the GOP presidential primaries, specifically with religious conservatives.

Is the problem that Romney is a dreaded Massachusetts governor (and thus by definition an open-the-jails liberal)?

Not quite.

In fact Romney's problem with the religious conservatives is ... religious. To wit: Romney is a Mormon.

The U.S. Constitution prohibits a religious test for public office, but that is precisely what is being posed now. Prominent, respectable Evangelical Christians have told me, not for quotation, that millions of their co-religionists cannot and will not vote for Romney for president solely because he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If Romney is nominated and their abstention results in the election of Hillary Rodham Clinton, that's just too bad. The evangelicals are adamant, saying there is no way Romney can win them over.

Or as one astute politico put it to me recently: The religious right thinks that Mormonism is a cult.

Novak (who knew he was a Romney fan?) goes on to make the JFK comparison.

Nobody is suggesting that Mitt Romney as president of the United States would be taking orders from the president of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City. The Republican whispering campaign against Mormons is broader -- based on ridicule of the church's doctrine. I have heard Republicans who have read the Book of Mormon express astonishment that any rational person could believe that.

Who knew that religious conservatives watch South Park?