Larison on Romney's presidential prospects, or lack thereof.

[randomness]

Daniel Larison has, as usual, some intelligent things to say about Mitt Romney and his chances of becoming president (excerpted for length):

As I kept observing during the primaries, anti-Mormon sentiment in America is considerable and widespread and not at all limited just to conservative evangelicals, but it is particularly strong among the latter. People who do not want a Mormon President are very comfortable saying so (there was no issue here of respondents who gave false answers to pollsters), and the only groups whose candidates meet greater resistance with the electorate as a whole are Muslims and atheists. No one would say that it is surprising if a Muslim candidate could not win a presidential nomination or national election, because I think everyone understands that the electorate is not going to support such a candidate precisely because of his religion. Call this identity politics, call it sectarianism if you must, but it is all but unavoidable in a mass democracy in a country where the majority belongs, broadly speaking, to the same religion.

Candidates of minority religions are not going to fare well in national elections here until a considerable majority is non-observant or simply not religious at all. This observation tends to annoy politically active ecumenists who seem to think that religion could not possibly matter so much that it would affect voting or political alliances. It seems to me that this rule about minority religion candidates is true in pretty much any Western-style democracy with a large observant religious population. Indian secularism seems to offer the exception to the rule, as the elevation of Manmohan Singh to the post of PM there shows. Parliamentary systems can be more immune to this rule to the extent that one of the leading parties, as in India, is self-consciously not aligned with any particular religion, and presidential voting involves more of a personal identification with the candidate that makes this issue more significant.

In any case, the opposition was similar, albeit less intense, with a Mormon candidate. The difference is that surprisingly few in the media and the pundit class seemed willing to believe that respondents actually meant it when they said this. That was the fundamental political obstacle that Romney could not have overcome and will not overcome in the future if he tries again. In the event that he somehow prevailed in the primaries, he could never have won a general election with so much built-in opposition to his candidacy. Looking back on the embarrassing campaign and the final result, Republicans might regret McCain’s nomination, but given the intense hostility to Huckabee from the leadership and the movement elite (including many of the very people who later conveniently became devoted Palinites) Romney was the only viable alternative. The presidential vote would have been an even greater defeat for the GOP with Romney at the helm, and a significant part of this would have been on account of his religion.

This does not touch on the flaws that Romney himself had as a candidate, which would have made winning difficult even without the problem of anti-Mormonism, and which complicates the story by using a deeply-flawed candidate and his campaign as the evidence for the limits of political cooperation among different kinds of religious conservatives. It complicates the story because there was good reason to doubt how much Romney actually shared social and religious conservatives’ political goals. Having no pro-life record worth mentioning, given his extremely convenient discovery of the evils of ESCR around the time he began preparing his presidential campaign, he seemed to offer pro-lifers little more than lip service in a campaign against a number of other candidates–including MCain!–whose pro-life credentials were far superior. Perhaps realizing that he had no credibility, Romney was constantly on the attack against his rivals by trying to paint them as insufficiently zealous in the cause. This wasn’t just a case of the zeal of the convert, but it was more like a con-man pretending to be a zealous convert lecturing long-time devotees on their lack of fidelity while trying to convince them to join his pyramid scheme. There were other liabilities, not least of which was his career in private equity firms and his identification with corporate America, which would have become huge drags on the ticket as the financial crisis unfolded.

Comments

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

As I said when he started running, I was so much against him because of how I felt about his tenure as MA Gov. that I would've certainly started sowing anti-Mormon dissent amongst anyone who would've listened if it was looking like he'd had a chance. As a Jew, I'd've done this with much internal unhappiness, but it was a whatever-it-would-take sort of thing in my head…

I mean, yeah, I think that being Mormon IS a sign of lack of critical thinking beyond the lack necessary to be an observant Muslim, Christian or Jew (cue: South Park's Joseph Smith episode), but that WASN'T my (internal) point.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I have a long list of reasons why I'd never want Romney to be president, not least his con-man carpetbagger modus operandi, but it continues to disturb me that the biggest bar to his presidency is his religion, something that shouldn't (in my frothingly liberal agnostic opinion) matter.

[jab2.livejournal.com]

i don't have recent data, but the last poll i heard was that 45% of americans admit to being Christians. if that's still true, that is actually a minority role, even though they act all big and cocky like they own the place!

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Not to contradict you, but the first data I found said otherwise:

The American Religious Identification Survey says 77% Christian, as of 2001, down from 86% in 1990. (http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm)

That's not such recent data either, though.

[eac.livejournal.com]

It may also depend on how you ask the question...

don't matter..the dude has no chance.

[ddreslough.livejournal.com]

There is one thing in America that supersedes religion, politics and even baseball. Dogs.

He mistreated his dog.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1638065,00.html

It's ovvvaah.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Candidates of minority religions are not going to fare well in national elections

That's true, but it's complex. Is Roman Catholicism a "minority religion"? It's pretty easy to argue that it was until at least 1960 -- my father remembers job listings for professors (which must have been in the range 1955 to 1964) that said "No Catholics or Jews." But JFK made it over that hump, and arguably inducted Catholicism into the majority group.

And in 1976 Jimmy Carter was considered strange for being overtly born-again. (How things have changed.)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Funny you should mention that! As it happens, Larison discusses Catholic candidates in a part of the essay I didn't quote:

It is debatable whether these [sectarian] differences have ever really been buried. It is more that they have been papered over, and for the most part they could be kept out of sight. This was mostly because, as a practical matter, there were not usually many non-Protestant candidates for President running in Republican primaries. Orrin Hatch in ‘96 or Alan Keyes in ‘96 and 2000 barely registered, and were not serious competitors, which made their religious identity irrelevant to the shape of the race. 2008 was just about the first time that there were major national Catholic Republican figures (Brownback and, technically, Giuliani) and a Mormon candidate and an evangelical candidate all in the same primary contest. Pre-Iowa sniping between Brownback and Huckabee supporters pointed to the limits of the alliance between Catholic and Protestant Republicans when both sides have presidential candidates who are “one of their own.” 48 years after Kennedy’s nomination in the other party, it remains the case that no Catholic has ever been at the top of a Republican presidential ticket, and the only Catholic named to a Republican ticket was Goldwater’s running mate. It would be rather bizarre if Republicans nominated a Mormon candidate before they nominated a Catholic, especially when there is much to be lost with the former and much to be gained with the latter.

[sea-bound.livejournal.com]

Hm.

A couple of observations:

First, the fact that people consider religion when debating the merits of a political candidate is in direct violation of the First Amendment of our own Constitution. So much for separation of church and state.

Second, having worked with several Mormons for the first time in my life last summer, I was surprised to find how pervasive our stereotypes of them are. I'm no fan of organized religion, but I'm not a fan of people being flogged for the behavior of the extreme elements of their social group either. Romney is a flawed candidate because of his performance as governor of MA and his particular political stances, but not because he's a Mormon (having said that, I also understand--but don't accept--the convenient ability to categorize candidates and mobilize people for/against them based on one single identity). To support the idea that we can block one candidate because of his religion without similarly opening the pandora's box on every other religion is absurd.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

My read on the original post is that it's not an advocacy piece, but simply an observation about the American electorate and its likely voting behavior.

I think his contention is that anyone who isn't a member of the majority religion--however that's defined--has an uphill fight regardless of which religion that is. I have to say that given the history on this, I can't say he's wrong. In particular, it's most difficult in the party which more closely identifies itself with the majority religion.

Whether this should or shouldn't be true is something aside from his point.

To support the idea that we can block one candidate because of his religion without similarly opening the pandora's box on every other religion is absurd.

What I read him to be observing is that box is open, and that "every other religion" is already discriminated against.

[sea-bound.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I completely agree with most of the observations within the author's post itself. My comments were designed more to address the debate evolving in response to your LJ post.