Romney is the third U.S. presidential candidate of the Mormon faith to credibly threaten to achieve a major political party’s nomination.

The first of these three was Romney’s own father, George W. Romney, a progressive on Civil Rights who had been the savior of American Motors Corporation, who, while governor of Michigan, stood in 1967 as a popular alternative to Richard M. Nixon for the Republican nomination. The second was Mo Udall, the liberal Arizona congressman who gained considerable support throughout the 1976 primary race as a rival to centrist Jimmy Carter, whom had campaigned as a devout evangelical. During the latter part of Udall’s campaign, Udall had faced criticism from black activists concerning the fact that the church stated as Udall’s religious affiliation, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the formal name of the Mormon church), barred blacks from holding its lay priesthood (which policy, incidentally, the LDS Church did not change until 1978). In response to this criticism, Udall withdrew nominal affiliation with the denomination in 1976.

Mitt Romney differs from Udall in Romney’s social conservativism; yet, similarly to Udall’s rivalry with the outspokenly evangelical candidate Jimmy Carter, one of Romney’s chief rivals in 2007 was also a self-professing evangelical and former Southern governor, Mike Huckabee, who is a social conservative populist.[1]

While the speech was perceived a response to Huckabee’s mercurial rise in the polls in late November within first caucusing Iowa, soon to cast ballots on Januaury 3 (in which likely caucus goers are deemed to be over 40-per-cent evangelical), with commentators opining that Romney hoped it would effective answer the media’s longtime pre-occupation with the hurdle manifested by Romney’s heterodox faith, Romney’s campaign billed the speech as extolling American freedom of worship while helping to satisfy public curiosity about how Romney’s strain of religious devotion would inform presidential governance.

(Summary.) Mitt Romney gave a speech at the George Herbert Walker Bush Presidential Library in Texas, with the former president providing introductory remarks. The speech, which was widely regarded as referencing that of then-Senator John F. Kennedy’s September 1960 pledge not to allow Catholic doctrine to inform policy, discussed the role of religion in American society and politics.

Romney’s speech gives primacy to the American Constitutional right of religious liberty, which produces cultural diversity and vibrancy of dialogue. He called for public acknowledgements of God such as within Holidays religious displays. Romney said, “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.”[2]. He cited a religious nature to historic abolitionists’ campaigns, the campaign for American Civil Rights, and the contemporary campaign for the Right to Life. Romney advocated maintanance of a separation of Church and State, stating that he, as president, would decline directives from churches’ hierarchies, including that of the Mormon church.

Romney said while there are those who would prefer he indicated he holds his LDS faith merely as a tradition, in actual fact he believes in his faith and tries to live according to its teachings, and while sacraments and confession of Romney’s “church’s beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths,” he still holds Christ “the Son of God and Savior of mankind.” Romney declined to address further the specifics of his Mormonism, implying that any compulsion to do so would counter the Constitutional prohibition of a religion test for political office.

(Commentary.) While the speech received wide praise [3] Eugene Robinson has argued that Romney implied that nonreligious people cannot be proper Americans, and called that assertion “a form of bigotry”; MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann called the speech a “shameful and shameless self-comparison to the thirty-fifth president.”[4]

In a telephone interview with Romney on Friday evening, I asked him why he had, to many ears, seemed to fail to reach out to those of no religious belief: “I was struck that you did not explicitly extend the definition of religious liberty to those who believe nothing at all …”

In an interview with Newsweek, Romney said, “I don’t think I defined religious liberty….it includes all, all forms of personal conviction….The people who don’t have a particular faith have a personal conviction. I said all forms of personal conviction. And personal conviction includes a sense of right and wrong and any host of beliefs someone might have. Obviously in this nation our religious liberty includes the ability to believe or not believe.”[5]

Universityy of Chicago law profesor Geoffrey R. Stone argues that America’s Founding Fathers, as freethinkers whose ideals sprung more from the Enlightenment, were reacting against Colonial-era Dissenters religious pieties arising from the Reformation/Counter-Reformation than they were expressing these pieties.[6] Historian Jan Shipps finds Mitt’s reference to the Founders’ piety to be quintessentially Mormon.[7]

(Immediate responses from fellow Republican candidates.) After the speech, one of the two current Republican front runners, Rudolph Giuliani said that Romney had done “what he had to do.” Said Giuliani. “It would be better if he didn’t have to do that.”

On the Today show, Huckabee used Romney’s speech as an opportunity to emphasize his own “authentic” views as did Fred Thompson in an radio interview in Iowa. “Sen. John McCain acknowledged being locked up with atheist POWs who nevertheless were ‘patriots’ in an interview with ABC News”.[8]

On Fox News Sunday, Huckabee said it was inappropriate for voters to consider the tenets of Mormonism in judging Romney’s candidacy, but rather should judge Romney on his record.[9]

Republican candidate and ideological Libertarian Ron Paul released a statement saying that while Paul feels uncomfortable talking about his faith in the political arena, he supports religious tolerance, comes to his own faith through Jesus Christ, and believes any attacks implying Romney unfit to serve only due Romney’s faith “fly in the face of everything America stands for.”

(“Comma problem.”) After the speech was delivered, Romney’s advisors told reporters off the record that Romney said that through its means he wanted to address his “comma problem”: the common practice to put next to his name in media reports, “(comma) who is a Mormon (comma).”

(References.)
[1] “Evangelicals help propel Huckabee into the lead, poll shows” Dec. 9, 2007, Kansas City Star http://www.kansascity.com/445/story/396249.html
[2] MSNBC “On the ground at Romney speech” 6 December 2007 http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/12/06/499942.aspx
[3] Opinion pieces and editorials http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,5143,695234288,00.html
[4] Eugene Robinson on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, December 7, 2007. A clip containing this comment can be found here. [http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2007/12/romney_is_a_mor.html
[5] Romney quote in Newsweek http://www.newsweek.com/id/74472/output/print
[6] Geoffrey R. Stone’s commentary http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/romneys-founders_b_76142.html
[7] Jan Shipps’ commentary http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1211/p09s01-coop.html
[8] “Rebecca Walsh: Romney propped up bigots” op-ed piece, Dec. 12, 2007 Salt Lake Trubune http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_7674266
[9] Huckabee and McCain on Fox News Sunday, Dec. 9, 2007 http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/12/huckabee_mccain_on_fox_news_su.html

“The most hypocritical and horrifying thing you will see in the entire presidential campaign, I guarantee, is his speech on his Mormon religion.” http://www.236.com/blog/w/jim_david/mitt_romney_makes_me_hate_whit_2834.php

Boy, the examples are running a bit over now. I think I won’t tolerate goofing off at work any more and will end this.