Calling it quits: In Romney's words

Romney did indeed pull the trigger in a speech to CPAC a few minutes ago:

"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and frankly I would be making it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. Frankly, in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror," he said.

"This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters... many of you right here in this room have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President. If this were only about me, I'd go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, in this time of war, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country," he said as the crowd exclaimed, "No, no."

"I will continue to stand for conservative principles; I will fight alongside you for all the things we believe in. And one of those things is that we cannot allow the next President of the United States to retreat in the face of evil extremism!"

Romney to quit presidential bid

Only two nights ago, Mitt Romney promised his presidential campaign would continue on. But it won't.

Mitt Romney is suspending his Republican presidential bid, sources are telling CNN and Time magazine's website.

He is to make the announcement in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

Romney was far behind in delegates after John McCain swept winner-take-all states in the Northeast and also won California and other big states on Super Tuesday.

But even as he huddled Wednesday with key advisers at his Boston campaign headquarters, a spokesman insisted that Romney was in the race for the long haul.

It was a rough run for the former Massachusetts governor. But is this it? Will Mike Huckabee call it quits too in hope that John McCain will extend the VP spot to him?

Romney says Mormons not Christians?

From the Unlikely About Face Department:

"Mitt Romney has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith."

That comment was made by a policy expert from Focus on the Family. But if you recall from his faith in America speech, Romney said:

I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church’s beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history.

In other words: We're as Christian as Lutherans and Catholics. Romney's campaign has rebutted the Focus on the Family claim.

GetReligion has the backstory and a bit more explanation:

There’s quite a bit of buzz out there right now in evangelical circles about a series of informational videos that are up and running at CitizenLink.org — which is part of the wider kingdom linked to an activist by the name of James Dobson. The videos feature clips of recent webcasts with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

Right now, everyone is asking — will Dobson endorse either (gasp) Mitt Romney or (gasp!) John McCain? It is in that context that the following blog item by Michael Scherer appears at Time, with the pushy headline: “A stealth Mitt Romney endorsement from the religious right’s powerbrokers?”

The clip on Rudy Giuliani is harsh (note that reference to dancing in drag). No surprise. The McCain video says voters have no way of knowing what the senator will do next. No surprise. Then the video on Mike Huckabee is surprisingly critical. No surprise?

After praising Huckabee’s social views, both Perkins and Tom Minnery, a policy expert at Focus on the Family, hammer the former Arkansas governor for his foreign policy views. Minnery suggests that Huckabee does not understand the cause for which American troops are dying in Iraq. Then Perkins suggests that Huckabee lacks the fiscal and national security credentials needed for a conservative presidential candidate. “The conservatives have been successful in electing candidates, and presidents in particular, when they have had a candidate that can address not only the social issues, [but] the fiscal issues and the defense issues,” says Perkins. “[Huckabee] has got to reach out to the fiscal conservatives and the security conservatives.” Ouch.

Now hang on, here comes the buried lede.

So what about Romney? He comes up roses. “He has staked out positions on all three of the areas that we have discussed,” says Perkins. “I think he continues to be solidly conservative.” Then Minnery defends Romney from criticism that he is too polished and smooth. “Mitt Romney has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith,” Minnery adds. “But on the social issues we are so similar.”

So what's the reality here?

Publicist: Romney about to get 'swift-boated'

I'm been receiving e-mails from Daryl Toor since last week promoting a new book, at first ambiguously, that he says will do to presidential candidate Mitt Romney what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did to Sen. John Kerry in his unsuccessful 2004 run for the Executive Office.

This exciting new book -- Mitt, Set Our People Free! -- published by Revelation Press, reveals just how Mitt Romney's sacred oath to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, known as the Mormons or the LDS -- including a vow of obedience to the "Living Prophet," the President of the LDS Church -- will impact his ability to govern as President of the United States.

Jesus said that man cannot serve two masters -- but if Romney is elected President, he will have to serve two conflicting oaths. American Presidents swear an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. However, this Presidential Oath is in direct conflict with Romney's sacred oath to his Mormon Church -- a blood oath which puts Romney's life, fortune and obedience at the unrestricted service of his Church. This obedience is defined by the Church's Living Prophet, the President of the Mormon Church and -- as they believe -- the literal Voice of God on earth.

According to author Mike Moody, "One of the LDS Church's basic tenets is a prophecy from founder and First Prophet Joseph Smith that in the latter days, the U.S. Constitution will 'hang by a thread as fine as silk fiber' until a Mormon leader rides in on his White Horse to save the U.S. and the Constitution -- then use his control of the United States to set up a world-wide theocracy, one based on the clearly unorthodox beliefs of the Church of Latter Day Saints."

Author Mike Moody, himself a 7th Generation Mormon from a family of Church-founding patriarchs - men who served Joseph Smith and Brigham Young as they created this remarkable "church" -- uses his both insider knowledge of the LDS Church and his long-time personal ties to his one-time college fraternity brother, Mitt Romney, to point out the essential conflict between Romney's sacred Oath to the Church and the oath he seeks to take as President.

Moody also details -- chapter and verse -- the many compromises and less-than-candid and frequently inconsistent positions Romney has taken to bring himself from successful venture capitalist to one of the leading contenders for the Republican nomination for Presidency.

The entire press release, via Reuters. After reading the release, I was immediately suspicious of author's intentions and current religious affiliation. The Sleuth picks up the scent:

For all the talk about dirty tricks this season, one of the more questionable (and curious) came at a news conference Monday far from the campaign trail. At a news conference at the sleepy National Press Club in Washington, a no-name college classmate of Mitt Romney hawked his "open letter" to Romney titled "Mitt, Set Our People Free!"

A lapsed Mormon, Michael Moody mocked his former religion (in very nasty terms) and declared Romney unfit for the presidency because of what he sees as the Mormon former Massachusetts governor's biggest conflict: his "blood oath" to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

And then came the "C" word: "The great American cult," Moody said, characterizing the religion founded by Joseph Smith, a prophet to Mormons.

"Many of you are from the East Coast and you don't know a lot about Mormonism," Moody said to the roomful of about a dozen reporters and four photographers who clearly had nothing better to do, what with 75 percent of their colleagues from the Fourth Estate (truly a "C" word organization) in New Hampshire to cover Tuesday's primary.

So, even as he went on and on (and on) trampling the tenets of Mormonism, Moody omitted references (too obscure for his East Coast audience) to the angel Moroni, who led Smith, the prophet, to a set of golden plates in 1827 written in an unknown language -- and then to the seer-stones Urim and Thummim, which translated the ancient language to the epic Book of Mormon.

Instead, Moody spoke in more dumbed-down terms of how Mormons are beholden to living prophets, such as Gordon Hinckley, who can tip them off to the Second Coming. "The Mormon prophet -- he is the man," Moody said, adding that "they" -- the Mormons -- are "waiting for Hinckley to tell 'em: 'Let's go to Missouri and knock it off with an Osmond concert and build the new Jerusalem."

The seemingly embittered former Mormon claims he and Romney were members of the Cougar Club together at Brigham Young University, where he saw Romney give the valedictorian speech at their 1971 graduation ceremony. There was "great buzz" on campus about young Mitt one day running for president, he said. Romney's view, he claims, was "If not me, then who?"

One of his main problems with Romney becoming president is that Romney, if he follows the teachings of his faith, "believes he's going to become a God some day."

Don't worry about this book making much of an impact. I can't find it online. And who's ever heard of Revelation Press?

Evangelical vote buries Romney, buoys Huckabee

About 80 percent of those who helped Mike Huckabee trounce Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses last night described themselves as evangelicals. More from The New York Times.

Despite some major stumbles in the final stretch of his Iowa campaign as he endured a ferocious assault on his record from Mr. Romney, Mr. Huckabee struck a chord among Iowa Republicans with a distinctive mixture of humor, Christian conservatism and economic populism.

His stump speeches evoked comparisons to the prairie populism of William Jennings Bryan. And he charmed audiences with a witty and extemporaneous speaking style honed over 10 years in the pulpit as a preacher and local televangelist before he entered politics; he is a former governor of Arkansas. He told voters to pick a candidate who was “consistent” and “authentic,” an unstated contrast to Mr. Romney’s recent conversion to opposing abortion rights.

What most distinguished Mr. Huckabee from the rest of the Republican field, though, were his escalating appeals to the economic anxieties of lower-income voters. He emphasized his own roots as “the son of a fireman who worked a second job,” denounced stagnant wages and rising inequality, and portrayed his underfinanced fight with Mr. Romney as “the people” against “the Wall Street-to-Washington axis of power”

“People would rather elect a president who reminds them of the guy they work with, not that guy who laid them off,” Mr. Huckabee said at a campaign stop Thursday morning, invoking an implicit contrast with Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts.

Waiting for Joseph Smith

Manya Brachear, who was a Gralla Fellows with me, goes a bit deeper than just wondering whether Mitt Romney's speech yesterday will quell fears about his faith. (For evangelicals, the LA Times reports nothing will.) On her excellent religion blog, The Seeker, Brachear writes about a glaring omission in Romney's name dropping.

Abraham Lincoln, Brigham Young, John Adams and, of course, John F. Kennedy. But there was one name he did not invoke.

Where was Joseph Smith?

Just as John F. Kennedy was not the first Roman Catholic to run for the White House, Romney is not the first Mormon to do so. Prophet Joseph Smith Jr. announced his candidacy in January 1844. As mayor of the Nauvoo City Council, Smith ran on a platform of the gradual abolition of slavery, a reduction in the size of Congress, a national bank, territorial expansion that included the annexation of Texas and Oregon and radical prison reform that would have converted all prison sentences into community service.

He also championed a "theodemocracy," a form of government that would guarantee Americans the freedom to attach themselves to whatever moral community they desired. Each community and its religious institutions would work toward developing a public and private morality while government would work to protect their liberties.

That ideal might have inspired a candidate more than 150 years later.

"Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree,” Romney said Thursday. “There are some who would have a presidential candidates describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become a spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes president he will need the prayers of people of all faiths."

But how would we know whether Smith inspired Romney? The Mormon prophet was never mentioned in Romney’s speech. The omission of that legacy is a shame, said Terryl Givens, a professor of literature and religion at the University of Richmond and a Mormon. But it’s also understandable.

Mitt Romney's unremarkable JFK moment *

Today was the much anticipated day when former Massachussets Gov. Mitt Romney would explain the role of religion in public life and work to diffuse voter apprehension to his Mormon faith.
Here's video of the speech and some excerpts, which left me fully underwhelmed.

"There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths."

Yeah, it's sort of his JFK moment, and I agree with what he is saying. But when you get down to the substance, it's just political rhetoric and vagaries.

* Updated: Jeffrey Weiss at the DMN religion blog says Romney is trying to have it both ways by saying he will be true to his Mormon faith and that as long as he serves all Americans, the specific of his religious beliefs are nobody else's business.

But as I wrote in January, there are distinctives of Mormon doctrine that could have public policy implications. If he chooses to follow them, it won’t be necessary to have a church authority tell him what to do. And if he doesn't tell us which of those distinctives he considers essential to his faith, how will we know?

Romney doesn't want a Muslim Cabinet official

Like I've said here and here andhere and here and here and here and etc., Americans have become far to fixated on religious representation in politics. From the blog that tells us all about God talk on the presidential campaign trail:

Mitt Romney, the presidential candidate most disadvantaged by his personal religious faith, said earlier this month that "based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified."

"But of course," Romney continued. "I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

You can read all about Romney's remarks today's Christian Science Monitor, in a not-to-be-missed op-ed by Mansoor Ijaz, a Muslim investor who asked Romney about Muslim appointees at a fundraiser earlier this month. Here's the Romney team's response.

Ijaz does a perfectly good job refuting Romney himself, so God-o-Meter will only state the obvious. How can a presidential candidate whose Mormon faith accounts for just 2-percent of the American population rule out a Muslim in his cabinet on the basis that Islam has too few American adherents?

'Gingerly, Romney Seeks Ties to Christian Right'

Tell me something I didn't know already. Re-reportage from the NY Times:

He has invoked the Rev. Rick Warren, a popular evangelical author and megachurch pastor. He has quoted Scripture and alluded to the Gideon Bible as favorite late-night reading. And he has cited his belief in Jesus Christ as his personal “savior.”

As Mitt Romney has had to grapple with suspicions about his Mormon religion during his presidential run, he has tried in various ways to signal his kinship with evangelical Christians, who represent a crucial constituency of the Republican base but consider his religious beliefs to be heretical.

He faces a delicate task in trying to stake out common ground with conservative Christians, while not running afoul of deeply rooted evangelical sensitivities about any blurring of distinctions between Mormonism and conventional Protestantism.

Romney's got a date Friday with the Values Voter Summit (because everyone else votes for things they don't value). His aids still aren't sure if he'll directly address his religious beliefs then. Polls continue to show many Americans would not vote for a Mormon president, no matter how qualified they may be.

Evangelicals to split from Republican Party?

I've shared that evangelical Christians, widely credited with establishing the Bush presidency (I'm so embarrassed), are not happy with either Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani. This is leading, according to the NY Times blog The Caucus, to a potential revolt led by Focus on the Family's James Dobson and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council to support a third-party candidate, though who is not clear.

A revolt of Christian conservative leaders could be a significant setback to the Giuliani campaign because white evangelical Protestants make up a major portion of Republican primary voters. But the threat is risky for the credibility of the Christian conservative movement as well. Some of its usual grass-roots supporters could still choose to support even a pro-choice Republican like Mr. Giuliani, either because they dislike the Democratic nominee even more or because they are worried about war, terrorism and other issues.

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For months, Christian conservatives have been escalating their warnings about the risk that nominating Mr. Giuliani could splinter the party. Dr. Dobson wrote a column declaring that he would waste his vote before casting it for either Mr. Giuliani or a Democrat who supports abortion rights like Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Richard Land, the top public policy official of the Southern Baptist Convention, has said that nominating a Republican candidate who supports abortion rights would make white evangelical votes “a jump ball” between the Republicans and Democrats, with other issues taking the fore.

I don't imagine this coalition of evangelical leaders will be throwing their weight behind Michael Bloomberg.

Mitt Romney sits down with Christianity Today

We all know Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who is Mormon, could use some evangelical support. So it's no wonder he chatted with my former editor at Christianity Today, who recently left to attend seminary. The Q&A went online this morning.

Many Christians voted for President Bush out of a feeling of faith kinship. Do you see any drawbacks to that type of voter affinity?

People should be able to vote for who they like on whatever basis they like. I try not to counsel my fellow Americans on how they make their decisions. I think by and large democracy works pretty well.

Many times, people are misinformed about a candidate or their positions, and that's unfortunate. But if they have accurate, complete views, I say let them vote as they wish.

How are voters misinformed about you?

I just don't think many people know me very well at this stage, and that's to be expected. I'm a governor, and therefore not yet a national figure. I anticipate by the time the primary season rolls around next year that I will be very well known and will either be strongly supported or will be someone people don't want to back. I'm pleased that I'm connecting with voters in the states where I've spoken most frequently—states like Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina, and Florida.

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But has your candidacy exposed differences between the two religions?

While the doctrines of my church are quite different from evangelical Christian doctrines, the values of our faiths are very much the same. I don't know of a doctrinal difference that would suggest a different policy outcome or that would suggest that a President of my faith would lead in a different direction than President Bush, an evangelical Christian.

When I was governor here in Massachusetts, a number of Catholics wondered what it would mean to have a Mormon as a governor. After some time, one of the leading Catholics in our state remarked to my Catholic deputy chief of staff, "The best friend we have on Capitol Hill (Beacon Hill) is the Mormon governor, not the Catholic legislators." He was joking a bit, but the value base that we share is so pronounced that the differences of doctrine really disappear.

Perhaps it's difficult for some when two faiths have been in the battle place of ideas to say that we disagree on doctrine but share a very strong value base. It's almost like a strong Republican and a strong Democrat have been battling for ideas in America for 50 years, and they suddenly find themselves in a foxhole fighting the Germans. They have no problem working with each other, because whether you're a strong Democrat or a strong Republican, you share the same American hope for the future.

How do you answer evangelicals who want their President to have faith but not your faith?

It depends on what they worry about. Do they want agreement on doctrine, and does that really effect how someone leads as President? Or does someone want a President who shares values and will preserve the values and culture of America? That will only happen if people band together where we share common values.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I wish people wouldn't vote for politicians based on their purported religious views. I'm fairly confident that Mitt Romney is a sincere Mormon; if not, he would have dropped the shtick a while ago because it's been nothing but campaign baggage. But I'm very skeptical of other candidates who profess to be the flavor-of-the-decade brand of Christian.

You know what I'd like this time around? A good president.

The president's own personal Jesus

I've kvetched quite a bit about the insincerity of presidential candidates playing the God card. I don't want to hear about it, I said. But in this week's Time magazine, Michael Kinsley writes that he wants to know more.

These days presidential candidates are required to wear their religion on their sleeve. God is a personal adviser and inspiration to all of them. They all pray relentlessly. Or so they say. If that's not true, I want to know it. And if it is true, I want to know more about it. I want to know what God is telling them--just as I would want to know what Karl Rove was telling them if they claimed him for an adviser. If religion is central to their lives and moral systems, then it cannot be the candidates' "own private affair." To evaluate them, we need to know in some detail the doctrines of their faith and the extent to which they accept these doctrines. "Worry about whether I'm going to reform health care, not whether I'm going to hell" is not sufficient.

What exactly should we worry about? Most important, we need to know what forms of conduct a candidate's religion forbids or requires and how the candidate interprets that injunction. Is it a universal moral imperative or just a personal lifestyle choice? Every religion has its list of no-nos. Mormonism's is very long and includes alcohol, coffee, tea and such forms of sexual behavior as "passionate kissing" outside wedlock. If Romney's church doctrines require efforts to impose these restrictions on others, Romney has a Cuomo problem: he cannot be a good Mormon and a good President. ...

It will be amusing if Romney is done in by a fear of his religious values because, as near as we can tell, he has no values of any sort that he wouldn't happily abandon if they became a burden. But in politics, you are who you pretend to be.

Joseph Smith for president

Mitt Romney is having trouble assuring voters that his Mormon faith isn't a bad thing. But a new documentary, "A Mormon for President," wants you to know that Romney's not the first to encounter such problems. From my press-release junk box:

The film is being helmed by producer/director Adam Christing, a member of the Mormon History Association. "Very few people realize that Romney is not the first Mormon to run for the White House," says Christing, who studied theology at Biola University in Los Angeles. "The first Mormon to run for the Presidency was actually the first Mormon, the prophet, Joseph Smith. Those who want to understand Romney's challenge today, must first understand Joseph Smith."

Much has been written about Joseph Smith, whose 200th birthday was in 2005, and I'm not going to attempt to add to that. But here's a few links.

Mitt Romney: Draft dodger? Not quite

As the Vietnam War raged in the 1960s, Mitt Romney received a deferment from the draft as a Mormon "minister of religion" for the duration of his missionary work in France, which lasted two and a half years.

Before and after his missionary deferment, Romney also received nearly three years of deferments for his academic studies. When his deferments ended and he became eligible for military service in 1970, he drew a high number in the annual lottery that determined which young men were drafted. His high number ensured he was not drafted into the military.

The deferments for Mormon missionaries became increasingly controversial in the late 1960s, especially in Utah, leading the Mormon Church and the government to limit the number of church missionaries who could put off their military service. That agreement called for each church ward, or church district, to designate one male every six months to be exempted from potential duty for the duration of his missionary work.

Romney's home state was Michigan, making his 4-D exemption as a missionary all but automatic because of the relatively small number of Mormon missionaries from that state.

That is a Web exclusive from part one of the Boston Globe's ambitious seven-part series that began Sunday, "The Making of Mitt Romney." Part two looks at Romney's mission in France. So far, Romney's Mormon faith has caused him a lot of grief as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination.

Evangelicals: Romney not 'guided by God'

As I've written about before, Mitt Romney is suffering heavily in his quest to become the next American president because of his Mormon faith. In yesterday's LA Times, Stephanie Simon illuminated the problems surrounding the Mormon factor by talking to evangelicals -- the politically active and conservative brand of Christians who were so influential in electing, and somehow re-electing, President Bush.

"When it comes right down to it," says (Bible book store worker Marty) Thomas, 40, "a Mormon's strength is human. A Christian person's strength is superhuman. I want [a president] who has that extra on his side."

In his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — a lifelong Mormon — has often reminded voters that he's running for commander in chief, not pastor in chief. What's important, Romney says, is that he has strong faith; the details are irrelevant.

But a sharp concern about the Mormon Church shows up in poll after national poll. About one in three voters would be less likely to support a Mormon candidate. The faith draws among the most unfavorable ratings of any religion. Doubts run especially deep among evangelicals, who may account for as many as half the votes cast in Republican primaries in the South.

Some evangelicals can articulate specific Mormon beliefs that disturb them — for instance, the teaching that only married couples can achieve the most exalted realms of heaven.

Many others want to give Romney a chance; they like his conservative politics. Yet they feel uneasy about turning over the country to a man who has a radically different — and in their view, heretical — understanding of God.

This is not an arcane theological dispute; to some born-again Christians, it's at the very core of presidential leadership. If Romney does not understand what they take to be God's true nature, can he still receive divine guidance? If he doesn't accept the Trinity as they conceptualize it, can he still be filled with the strength of the Holy Spirit?

Such concerns about Romney's faith, are, of course, based on the premise that government officials, particularly the once-clear-though-now-disputed leader of the free world, should share the religious views of their constituents.

The media's Mormon problem

This is getting really old. Mitt Romney is a legitimate candidate for the Republican presidential ticket. A conservative governor of one of the most liberal states in the union, maybe he could rebuild some of those political bridges burnt and blown up during the past six years. But Romney won't be president. He won't even edge the hapless -- and surprisingly popular, though increasingly less so -- pro-choice Rudy Giuliani.

Why is it unlikely he'll get the primary nod? Because he is Mormon -- in fact, his great-great-grandfather was a polygamist martyr -- and that is all the media seems to be able to talk about. The Washington Monthly, Reuters, The New York Times, and even conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt.

In November, Time asked "A Mormon for President?" shortly after two-thirds of Americans said they wouldn't vote one of Joseph Smith's followers into the Oval Office (though there are 15 in Congress). In March, however, Gallup released a new poll saying 72 percent of Americans would vote for a qualified Mormon for president. Back came Time yesterday with this story:

John F. Kennedy's election in 1960 was supposed to have laid the "religious question" to rest, yet it arises again with a fury. What does the Constitution mean when it says there should be no religion test for office? It plainly means that a candidate can't be barred from running because he or she happens to be a Quaker or a Buddhist or a Pentecostal. But Mitt Romney's candidacy raises a broader issue: Is the substance of private beliefs off-limits? You can ask if a candidate believes in school vouchers and vote for someone else if you disagree with the answer. But can you ask if he believes that the Garden of Eden was located in Jackson County, Mo., as the Mormon founder taught, and vote against him on the grounds of that answer? Or, for that matter, because of the kind of underwear he wears?

Slate editor Jacob Weisberg threw down the challenge after reviewing some of Joseph Smith's more extravagant assertions. "He was an obvious con man," Weisberg wrote. "Romney has every right to believe in con men, but I want to know if he does, and if so, I don't want him running the country." That argument, counters author and radio host Hugh Hewitt, amounts to unashamed bigotry and opens the door to any person of any faith who runs for office being called to account for the mysteries of personal belief. He has published A Mormon in the White House?, a chronicle of Romney's rise as business genius, Olympic savior, political star. But Hewitt has a religious mission as well when he cites a survey in which a majority of Evangelicals said voting for a Mormon was out of the question. If that general objection means they would not consider Romney in 2008, Hewitt warns, then prejudice is legitimized, and "it will prove a disastrous turning point for all people of faith in public life."

The Mormon question has settled in right next to the issue of whether a twice-divorced man has credibility discussing family values or whether changing one's mind on an issue like abortion is a sign of moral growth or cynical retreat. Unlike in 1960, today the argument is less about the role of religion in public life than in private. It is about what our faith says about our judgment and how our traditions shape our instincts--and about what we have the right to ask those who run for the highest office in the land.