Outrageous Anti-Mormon bigotry against Romney

[JackWhite]

In a typical dirty political trick, some Iowa voters received phone calls (known as "push polls") criticizing Mitt Romney's Mormon faith. These calls are obviously designed to undermine Romney's campaign in a state with a low Mormon population. These underhanded smear tactics designed to elicit bigotry need to be totally condemnded. I feel sorry for Mitt Romney having to endure such loathsome tactics by his desperate opponents.



Or at least that is the story that the Romney campaign put out. A few journalists decided to take a closer look at these smear phone calls. First they took a look at the two people the Romney campaign put forward as having received these calls. The Romney campaign omitted some key information about these two phone call reciptients: they are both paid Romney staffers.

In another amazing coincidence the firm responsible for making these calls was Western Wats, a company based in Utah. An examination of campaign contributions discovered that many Western Wats employees are Romney donors.

It is not a proven fact, but cursory evidence suggests that these calls were done by pro-Romeny people, if not the campaign itself, as a way of generating sympathy for Romney, a poor man viciously attacked for his religious beliefs.

[Ron Burgundy]

Wow, could you link to a story about this? I heard about the calls and Romney whining about them, I havn't heard the conspiracy part.

[JackWhite]

Mark Hemingway in the National Review has an article on this. It doesn't include all the information, but it gives some info on the controversy.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...GE=&w=MA==

[BigPoppa]

I think it was an attempt to defuse Mormonism as an issue by forcing all the other candidates to go on the record "deploring such dispicable attacks". Once they'd gotten a few media cycles of everyone saying how we should view Mormons just like any other mainstream religion, it would make it much harder to shift gears and start calling them cultists.

[iron81]

I saw this article that said the same thing is happening in NH. Apparently, this type of tactic is explicitly illegal under New Hampshire law and the Attorney General is investigating.

[Borodog]

Wow is this going to backfire.

[iron81]

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Wow is this going to backfire.

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Its possible the Romney Campaign agrees. The Tribune article suggests the firm making the calls has ties to the Giuliani campaign, but Jack's article suggests the firm might favor Romney. That article said that if he can get the other candidates on record saying Romney's faith isn't an issue that that will help defuse the issue.

[canis582]

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Wow is this going to backfire.

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On both of them. Unless they find Romney is doing it to himself.

But Romney believes in Joseph Smith and all that BS where he dictated the text to some guy and now he wants to be pres? come on.

[John Kilduff]

[ QUOTE ]
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Wow is this going to backfire.

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On both of them. Unless they find Romney is doing it to himself.

But Romney believes in Joseph Smith and all that BS where he dictated the text to some guy and now he wants to be pres? come on.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see why someone believing in Joseph Smith and the golden plates is so much more farfetched than believing in Moses and that God gave him the Ten Commandments, or more farfetched than believing that the Koran contains the words of Allah given to Muhammad via the archangel Gabriel.

Joseph Smith and the Mormon story just appears more strange to people unfamiliar with the faith. It isn't really much more farfetched.

Most people generally believe and feel comfortable with what they were raised up with as children. The fact that they have a religious background doesn't necessarily mean they can't make sound or moral decisions.

Of course, if they believe in something that has evil real-world effects, rather than in something merely erroneous or frivolous, then that may become a different matter (as in believing in Shari'a Law, a system with evil real-world effects when viewed through the lens of a Western civil-rights-oriented perspective).

Romney doesn't favor replacing the Constitution with Mormon Law, does he? (heh, I don't suppose so [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] ); therefore, I don't think it is a big deal.

So Romney believing in Joseph Smith etc. is not more wacky than Jews believing in Moses and the Ten Commandments (literally), Muslims believing in the Koran, or Catholics or Protestants believing in various things.

You might think only atheists can reason well, or that only atheists would make good candidates for President (do you think that? Just curious), but don't forget: the atheists could be wrong too.

Thanks for reading.

[Borodog]

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I don't see why someone believing in Joseph Smith and the golden plates is so much more farfetched than believing in Moses and that God gave him the Ten Commandments,

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It might not be, but 86% of Americans believe the latter and not the former, while a tiny percentage believe both, smaller than the percentage who believe neither.

I don't think there is any way to plausibly deny that being Mormon will hurt Romney. Now, I doubt it will be decisive, as obviously he has already achieved high elected office in the past.

Edit: Removed double negative. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]