July 2006 @ 11:00 am

So sad. The Jersusalem Center will not open this fall after all. “While it is the hope and expectation that the university will resume student programs at some point, the university will not make any decision regarding future programs until the current conflict is resolved in such a way that students can safely travel to the area and within the Holy Land.”

Rick Brookhiser suggests that Evangelicals for Mitt make their own bumper sticker:

“SEND HIM TO THE WHITE HOUSE BEFORE HE GOES TO HELL.”

More: “PRESIDENT ROMNEY—HELL, YEAH!”

Shazam! Gov. Huntsman signs on to Sen. McCain’s Straight Talk America political action committee. I’m a little shocked. So soon and McCain? It’s so early to endorse a candidate but one I know I would not support is McCain (unless he won the primary). However, one Mormon governor endorsing another’s opponent is probably a good thing to allay my fears I mentioned last post. (Thanks Corner)

Mormon filmmaker supporting Romney plans anti-bigotry ad campaign The Director of “The Other Side of Heaven” launches website and PAC “RunMittRun.org” to counter misconceptions about Mormons. Plans include an advertising campaign in key primary states for this fall. Sounds like a good idea but I hope it doesn’t backfire and reinforce the impression that Mormons are in lockstep and that Romney is indeed a Mormon candidate. There’s a blog too.

It looks like LDS.org may have posted new scriptures. The changes I notice immediately are more subdued colors and that you can’t “mark” a verse like you used to be able to with a dot, though I was never able figure out what that was for. What else is new? (Curiously, I noticed this by someone’s del.icio.us bookmark for the beta home of the scriptures on a different domain.)

It’s a new month, which means its time to ask again if Americans will accept a Mormon president. While this question has been pondered for some time, the Los Angeles Times apparently thought a poll would fill a slow-news weekend holiday.

According to a Los Angeles/Bloomberg poll 37% of the respondents said they would not vote for a Mormon for president.

I am not one in a position to pick apart poll methodology but color me skeptical. Thirty-seven percent seems like a huge chunk of people who are prejudiced against a poltitican solely for religion. Also, this poll widely differs from a 1999 poll that said only 17% would not vote for a Mormon presidential candidate. What’s happened since then, did Senator Hatch’s brief 2000 run leave that bad of an aftertaste in voters’ minds? I doubt many even remember his candidacy.

Some interesting tidbits from the Bloomberg report:

• more than two in five Democrats say they wouldn’t for a Mormon (including 50 percent of liberal Democrats)
• about a third of both Republicans and independents say they wouldn’t
• females are slightly more negative toward a Mormon candidate than males
• “minorities are more opposed to a Mormon presidential candidate than whites, with 51 percent saying they wouldn’t vote for one, versus 31 percent of whites. Sixty percent of nonwhite Protestants say no to a Mormon president.” [wow!]

Interestingly, a Mormon candidate arouses suspicion across the political spectrum, uniting liberal Democrats and conservative evangelicals.

I think that this persistent speculation of Romney’s religion is only going to help inoculate Romney from this issue before the 2008 campaign season really heats up. But this last paragraph from the L.A. Times sums it up nicely:

According to Campbell, “The question facing Mitt Romney is: Will he be the Mormons’ Al Smith — who was the first Catholic ever to run for president, in 1928, and went down in flames — or will he be the Mormons’ John F. Kennedy?”

Chances are that Governor Romney will be a Mormon “Al Smith” but he’s had a great start so far. Maybe he can become a “JFK”. After all, a 1960 poll had 35% say that they didn’t like the thought of a Catholic president.