I find it amusing that we have been treated to Romney speculation for the last several years, and it just amazes me that no one in the beltway media will come out and say it:
“Romney will never win the nomination because he is a Mormon.”
Period. End of story. Add on Romneycare and throw in some old clips of him speaking liberal-like as Governor of Mass., and you can see how laughable this is. But the most basic thing is the ragtag hodgepodge of teahadists, Christian right fanatics, and neo-confederates that make up the GOP base simply aren’t going to elect a Mormon. Especially a Yankee Mormon. That’s almost Muslim, fer chrissakes.
morzer
Well, you should probably add to your list Romney’s consistent longing to pander to any interest group that looks at him sideways, without any regard for consistency or shame, and the fact that he has become an object of public ridicule by so doing.
freelancer
“And spaceboy I’ve missed you
Spinning round my head
And any way you choose me
You’ll break instead”
When you literally believe in Sky Daddy and when you die, you become a ruler-king of your own planet, this kind of thing was bound to come up.
This is good news for Mike Pence.
Mattminus
You’re really discounting the power of perfect hair.
phillip anderson
Yeah, I’ve never understood this one. I don’t care how much money he’s got, the teatard fundie base that is the nominating electorate of the GOP just ain’t ever going to nominate, as you put it, a “Yankee Mormon” former gov of Taxachessettes.
Ever.
Curtis Faith
But you can count on Glenn Beck not counting Romney’s Mormonism against him.
Villago Delenda Est
Almost Muslim?
What’s worse, it’s borderline Papist!
burnspbesq
I’m fairly conservative in this crowd, and it says something that the closest the Repubs can come to a candidate I find credible is Mitch Daniels.
Thin bench? Thinner than the Steelers secondary when Polamalu is out.
FTR, I hope Troy has a great game but the Jets win. Trojan Family heck yeah!
Mike Kay
I think Mittens could win the nomination if palin and hucklebe decided to stay home and continue cashing Murdoch’s checks.
maya
The turkey buzzards have returned here a full month earlier than usual. That means Jeb Bush, as in Bush 45, will be the GOP nominee in 2012. The buzzards have spoken.
schrodinger's cat
But, but, its his turn…
Who will be the next nominee?
Pawlenty : Has a charisma of a door knob
Jindal: Same problem
Huckabee: Too chubby
Gingrich: Same as Huckabee..
OK I have no idea, may be we should nominate Tunch, he has more charisma in his paw than all these GOP presidential candidates put together, which brings me to a request, we want TUNCH, a photo of his highness with his doggie minions.
Edited for clarity.
morzer
@Mike Kay:
Gotta disagree. The GOP has begun promoting the repellent Mike Pence recently, and if he gets into the ring, Mittens might as well practice boot-licking 101 again.
Mike Kay
@burnspbesq: daniels isn’t credible. He’s 5’2″ short and he’s an arab. they’ll never vote for an arab.
Sixers
@burnspbesq:
A conservative type who went to a university that cheats. Noticing a pattern here(I’m a ND fan).
I love to tease my republican friends about the GOP being the home to more racists and Romney is the perfect example I bring up. Its like the GOP is saying “hey we aren’t racist- we won’t even vote for that white guy!”.
Mike Kay
@morzer: no gop congressman has won the nomination since 1880.
freelancer
@morzer:
Seriously, I might go bankrupt donating to Mike Pence.
morzer
@maya:
No, because Jeb has been trying to get the GOP to stop the racism against Hispanics, and that’s been very poorly received. Jeb would be a good candidate, but the teabagging hordes are not going to accept him as things stand.
metricpenny
I don’t know John.
You know what my friends and family were saying to me right up until 11/4/08 as I was campaigning for President Obama?
“You’re delusional. This country will never elect a non-caucasian as President.”
schrodinger's cat
@burnspbesq: Someone said he was 5ft 3inches tall and hence not competitive, plus he has Arab ancestry.
ETA: That’s what BJers told me, I remember a similar thread where we were trying to guess who the next nominee will be.
shortstop
I dunno. This is the common wisdom, but the CW kind of went out the door when the GOP went stark raving mad.
Just as evangelicals used to smack around Roman Catholics but now have an uneasy truce with more conservative Catholics due to shared interests in making abortion illegal and sticking it to teh gheys, I wonder if the Protestant religious right would swallow hard and vote for Romney just because they have such a burning hatred for Obama, for Democrats…for all of us. I think that as long as Romney says exactly what they want to hear about social issues, they might just be willing to overlook the magic underwear.
I sure don’t think he’d be fundies’ first choice. But just as they eventually fell in behind McCain, I think they’d do the same for Mitt if it’s between that and letting Barry Hussein Kenyan Tyrant Soetoro be reelected.
Skepticat
And Willard is such a wimpy name.
suzanne
I have to say, I wouldn’t be too hip on voting for a Mormon, either. The vast majority of the Mormons I’ve known (and I grew up in the second-largest Mormon community in the world) have a really hard time with that whole separation-of-church-and-state thing, since the LDS Church makes all that noise about re-establishing God’s kingdom here in the Americas. So any Mormon candidate would have to be incredibly specific about their personal beliefs versus their public beliefs in order to earn my vote.
morzer
@Mike Kay:
Well, that increases the odds of it happening sooner or later, and Pence would be able to appeal to the various pathologies that make up the GOP asylum. I wouldn’t discount him at this point.
Dennis SGMM
The Southern Baptist Convention would never accept Romney so I’d say that he’s dead out. At this early, wild-assed-guess stage I’m betting on John Thune.
SFAW
You could assure Mittens’s fail by starting a rumor that he went to Kenyan College, in Nairobi, OH. The Teabaggers would go nucular before someone edumacated them.
On an unrelated note …
burnspbesq –
Look, you’re either for the Jets or agin ’em. This Trojan Family crap has got to go. And how can you support a guy named for a race of short people who work for Willie Wonka? Get a grip, will you?
Mike Kay
@metricpenny:
I didn’t know you were related to Bill Clinton
morzer
@freelancer:
“Mike Pence – he may be a secret Muslim, but he’s our secret Muslim”.
That’s the slogan I intend to deploy to rally the Redstate hordes to the cause.
Tom65
Ignore the Palin/Bachmann juggernaut at your own peril.
the Reverend boy
I would usually agree with John’s sentiment on this point except Glenn Beck is a Mormon and look how many ‘Real True Christians’ follow him.
Granted, running for President is not nearly the same as what Beck does at all. But when you look at the convergence of Beck’s popularity and influence among primary voters plus the inevitable ‘anyone but Obama’ sentiment and Romney’s establishment backing, the fact Romney is a Mormon may not matter so much.
Mnemosyne
@shortstop:
Yep — if the Mittster can pull out the nomination, they’ll hold their noses and back him. He might be able to pull it out if all of the Republicans who went for McCain got together and backed him, but I don’t think there’s nearly as much consensus about Romney as there was about McCain.
morzer
@SFAW:
Polamalu is the new OompaLoompa?
Sixers
@shortstop:
They won’t let it get to the point of him being the nominee is the point.
This is no Catholic-Evangelical divide we’re talking about here. Evangelicals always bring up how Jesus was Satan’s brother according to Mormons even though every Mormon I’ve talked to says thats false. Color me shocked if Evangelicals learn and accept and find understanding for Mormon beliefs by 2012. Not the most willing to change type o crowds.
cbear
Another thing that is, apparently, never going to happen, is fixing the fucking problem with viewing this site with IE.
I’m sorry, John, I know you put up with a lot of crap and spend an inordinate amount of time managing the site, but how fricking hard can it be to make the site viewable to the 50% of people who use IE?
Please. Pretty please.
General Stuck
bobbing for apples in a barrel of turds can offer hope to any turd in particular. Even odd ones with magic underwear and a purdy mouth.
morzer
@Sixers:
Then there’s the health-care plan, the flip-flopping, the liberal record in Massachusetts. Not to mention the fact that the Palin rabble hate Romney with a rare passion. I can imagine many things from them, but not a sudden love of Mittens.
Mike Kay
@SFAW: actually, he did his missionary work in France (ie FRANCE!), so they can tar him as French (ie FRENCH!) and as a draft dodger (yup, the 64 year old mittens had his share of deferments)
DFS
@suzanne: Well, re-establishing God’s kingdom on earth is not the part you need to worry about. Mormons make some Dominionist-sounding noises sometimes, but they aren’t really that into it in practice.
That said, they are into influencing politics in comparatively minor, but incredibly irritating ways, like campaigning against gay marriage and backing Utah’s dementedly complex regime of liquor laws.
shortstop
@suzanne: You’re in luck, then! Because if there’s anything Willard excels at, it’s telling individual audiences exactly what they want to hear!
@Sixers: I don’t think they’re anywhere near learning and accepting and finding understanding for Mormon beliefs. I just think their hatred for us is even stronger. I could very well be wrong about that.
Tom Q
I’ve asked this here before, but never got a solid answer: On what basis other than “it sounds like a freaky religion” would GOPers reject a Mormon? My (admitttedly superficial) take on the Mormon Church is, they think sex is filthy, and believe the wealthiest citizens — the elect — are closer to god. They ARE the Republican party, far as I can see. (Why else is Utah about the most GOP state in the country?)
Turgidson
Romney would have to thread the smallest needle ever to actually pull it off. Run the table big time in the Northeast and mountain west primaries and hope the other candidates savage each other fighting over the teatard vote for so long that a “teatard unity candidate” doesn’t emerge until Romney has an insurmountable lead.
I’m not sure the Northeast+Mtn west adds up to an insurmountable lead, even if he does manage to win all of them.
So, I almost agree with “never.” It is almost as unpossible as me fail english.
Mike Kay
@freelancer: not before I max out to her royal highness
Pongo
I dunno. They hang on conversion-boy Glenn Beck’s every utterance…
Jeffro
Bachman is running for VP…dunno, it just came to me…
Mike Kay
@Tom Q: the whole polygamy thing is a lead anchor.
stuckinred
@Mike Kay:
kth
Romney is the only one who can beat Obama if the latter is vulnerable. So it all depends on Obama’s numbers a year from now. If they are up, wingnuts will vote their hearts (i.e., whoever Sarah Palin anoints, including herself), and no one else will show up for the primaries. But if Obama’s numbers are flat or down, they will hold their noses and vote for Romney (particularly as he’ll attract all the money and the GOP primary base will be wider).
quaint irene
Can’t speak for the wingnuts. But for me, the one thing that would put him out of any running is that amazingly incoherent concession speech at the last primary. Full of rambling conspiracy elements, it was near Palin-esque in it’s WTF? quality.
DFS
@Tom Q: Mormons are clannish and vaguely cult-ish, some of the more esoteric elements of church doctrine are arguably incompatible with defining the sect as Christian, but most of all, I’d say the problem is that Mormons are pretty firm on the point that they’re the only true church and everyone else is wrong. Which, despite the fact that Mormons have almost everything else in common with the GOP’s hard-right Christian base, is always gonna leave a big divide between the two.
morzer
An oldie, but a goodie on Romney versus Huckabee:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZrmfv0J15k
suzanne
@DFS:
But all of that is in service to the larger goal of “re-establishing God’s kingdom on earth”. Supposedly that won’t happen until the laws of the land are in accordance with those of God. And, to quote our girl Whitney, “HELL TO THE NO!”
Tom Q
@Mike Kay: 120 years after the fact? That’s some statute of limitations.
For me, of course, the biggest problem with Mormonism is “founded as an obvious fraud”. But that wouldn’t bother Republicans.
Spaghetti Lee
Isn’t Romney at the top of every GOP straw poll, though? If it is him, I wonder if the Palinistas will nominate one of their own.
SFAW
Mike Kay @ 35 –
Just a coupla more nails in his nomination-fail coffin.
Not sure what you mean. I was referring to Troy Oompa-Loompa, who plays Safety for the Steelers. You know, the guy with more hair than talent. (Rumor has it they’re going to have him cover either Pete Lammons or George Sauer (Jr. of course), so that he’ll have a matchup that won’t make him look bad. Fortunately for him, Don Maynard was not available.)
Sixers
@Tom Q:
Evangelicals. Huckabee voters will not switch to Romney. Will not.
@shortstop:
You can’t side with one devil to get things done over the other devils if you’re evangelical. Theres bigger things at stake for them(the rapture) than who wins in 2012.
ant
heh. somewhat OT, but along the same theme….
Yesterday I saw a post up over at redstate in the diary section where someone was discussing Cain, and the SC primary. LOL.
The trike-force were all gaga over Cain. They seem to have forgotten about the pigmented-skin-color issue in that state. I never did get around to checking if Cain was childless….. so I could be way off base on this…
lol.
trollhattan
Mittens is just something to aim a hairdryer at. Speaking of Palin (we were, amiright?) Chait flags a doozy of a psychological explanation for anti-Palinism by the estimable James Taranto. Take a deep breath before diving into the deep end.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/81916/another-exploration-the-crazy-roots-palin-hatred
Tom Q
@DFS: “The one true church” was a slogan of the Catholicism under which I was raised, as well. I guess they downplay it more, these days (since Vatican II).
morzer
@SFAW:
I detest the Steelers, but Polamalu is pretty good at what he does.
Just sayin’.
Tim O
Has anyone brought up Ambassador Huntsman? Same problem right?
Mark S.
@shortstop:
Exactly. Principled conservatives hated Walnuts a helluva lot more than they ever hated Mitt.
I actually think RomneyCare might hurt him more than Mormonism. But I can’t see anyone else right now who could beat him. Huckabee? Snowbilly? I just don’t see it.
gnomedad
Dunno. Glenn Beck may be clearing a path. “Romney: He May Be Mormon, But He’s Batshit Insane!”
DFS
@suzanne: Like I say, I wouldn’t really call that stuff part of a larger Dominionist-type program. It’s hard to describe, but it’s more like…say, if Dominion Theology’s proponents are would-be conquerors and dictators, Mormons are just incorrigible neighborhood busybodies.
Also, Mormon doctrine doesn’t prescribe a takeover of secular society as a precursor to the second coming or anything. Jesus is just gonna come back at some point. (To Jackson County, Missouri. No foolin’.)
jl
Looks like the godless Mitch Daniels is the new bogeyman. Maybe Multiple Choice Mitt can pass through their filter as the lesser evil.
This will be fun. As Devo, the prophetic originator of the ‘devolution’ concept put it:
it’s a matter of time
it’s a matter of luck
it’s a matter of chance
’til I self destruct.
Sixers
Next time you’re watching the Huckabee family sing along on Fox take a look at the audience and pick out the ones you think would vote for a Mormon governor of Massachusetts who enacted his own form of socialist health care before Obama and also left old yeller on top of the car for a 6 hour ride. Don’t bother taking your socks off to count.
shortstop
@Sixers: I think you may be acquainted with more sincere evangelicals than the ones I know. Again, Romney would have to say all the right things about abortion, homosexuality, race and so forth. But I think he will. And I think they’re going to see one devil as decidedly less devilish than the other and much more likely to uphold the spirit, if not the letter, of what they see as their tribe.
Switching gears a bit: I know that the GOP has rearranged its calendar so that winner-take-all state primaries come later (they used to come first). That will make a difference, and will probably be in Romney’s favor.
Nutella
But he has “shoulders you could land a 737 on”, and “chiseled-out-of-granite features, a full, dark head of hair going a distinguished gray at the temples, and a barrel chest” so obviously he’s going to win!
shortstop
@Tim O: Is he a Mormon? I did not know that.
Tim Cooper
Hey here might be a good measure. I remember back in high school, when the LDS church opened up a temple in the local area. (Tigard Oregon, near to Portland) All the local fundamentalist churches got hot and bothered.
I remember the fundies doing some minor picketing and leaflets being distributed all over the place explaining why the LDS folks aren’t “truly christian” I was agnostic/Lutheran then as I am now, but thought the whole thing was really silly given how politically conservative both groups were.
So does anyone live near to where a temple has been opened recently? Did the fundies come out in force? Any local anecdotes to share?
C Nelson Reilly
I hope it’s Mitt just to see the dog shitting on the roof of the station wagon commercials
flounder
It’s not that he just a Mormon, but that he is a Mormon Priest of the type called the Melchizdek priesthood.
DFS
@flounder: Any male church member over the age of 18-19 or so holds the Melchizedek priesthood. So do I, sort of, although I kicked the God habit a long time ago.
GregT
@shortstop: Yep. Huntsman did his Mormon mission to China, which is one of the reasons he knows the language and makes a great ambassador.
Svensker
@burnspbesq:
We don’t always agree on stuff, but J E T S, hells ya!
morzer
@Svensker:
Green Bay
All the Way
Svensker
@morzer:
First you make me laugh, then you piss me off. Isn’t there a song in there, somewhere?
And, yuh, but what about the Stealers?
Turgidson
@morzer:
As a Bears fan, I want to make some confident prediction of the imminent destruction of the Packers.
but I’m stopping myself because the Packers’ QB is Aaron Rodgers (playing the best football of his life lately), and ours is Jay Cutler (more good than bad this year, but not trustworthy…at all). Gulp.
SFAW
Yeah, I know. He’s no Revis, but he’s certainly better than most of the Safeties out there. (Yes, I know Revis is not a Safety.)
Basically, I was just busting chops.
I am sure that, now that I wrote it, he’ll make the Jets receiver corps look like a receiver corpse. But it will be interesting to see how the secondaries compare at the end of the game.
morzer
@Svensker:
Steelers? That itty-bitty pseudo-franchise out of Putzburgh? Pah and double pah, I say.
I must say that there was much howling and wailing and gnashing of teeth in Patsie-land after the great defeat. I went out for a walk with my wife the next day, and some random old guy standing on his porch as we went by decided that we were the perfect recipients for his thoughts about how unfair it all was and how life sucked. We managed to restrain our evil grins for a block and then burst out laughing.
General Stuck
Anything is possible on planet wingnut, when the opponent is Ballack Obama.
Sixers
@shortstop:
I have a friend from childhood who spent 12 years in catholic school with me outside Philadelphia. He moved to salt lake city, got married and became a born again Christian. I’ve been to his church and its not the fire breathing type, very nice people. There is however a biker gang type feel with those two faiths in the city with a real us against them mentality mainly from the evangelical side. This is people who’s neighbor, mailman, doctor etc.. are Mormons. On the surface everyone is very nice but below that is the belief that they are perverting their Christian faith. That’s more serious than any presidential election to them. That’s evangelicals in a city where people live next to Mormons and “like” them. I don’t see deep south evangelicals who aren’t exposed to Mormons regularly being as willing to accept them.
Romney may survive the nomination process but I doubt it. If he does he’ll have to deal with the subtle reminders from Huckabee and Palin true believers about how Mormonism is weird and scary. He will never overcome that in a way that will generate the type of turn out he would need from the base to get elected.
morzer
@Turgidson:
You know, if it wasn’t for Jay Cutler, I could like the Bears, but I just can’t bring myself to support the Prince of Poutitude.
shortstop
@GregT: More news to me! Thanks!
Nick
@metricpenny:
This COUNTRY would elect a Mormon President, the Republican Party just wouldn’t chose one as its nominee.
BGinCHI
There, fixed that for ya.
shortstop
@Sixers: You may be right. Do understand that I hope you are, because besides Romney being the Bidness Arm of the GOP’s boy, he’s also a lot less likely to freak out low-information independents than any of the others.
Turgidson
@morzer:
He is very difficult to like even if you are a lifelong Bears fan. He’ll probably get more leeway with Bears fans than he would elsewhere because he’s the first thing resembling an honest-to-god franchise quarterback we’ve had since Luckman.
But to paraphrase something John Madden said about Jeff George: “Great hardware, terrible software.” Love that cannon arm and his mobility at that size, but he’s often about as careful with the ball as not-so-beloved ex-Bear Rex Grossman. He just makes the interception thrown while backpedaling more aesthetically pleasing than Rex did because he has that big arm.
donr
I kinda think there’s an even chance that Huckabee might get the nod. Is that crazy of me? Or, since I haven’t really been paying attention, has he taken himself out of the running by hosting a talk-show where there surely would be at least a few compromising clips…
Svensker
@morzer:
Their tears are sweeter than honey. Jets have already had their “super bowl” — everything else is just gravy.
eric k
BGinChi,
In a rep primary that is a plus not a minus:-)
Tsulagi
I’m not so sure. R’s don’t have a dominant candidate, and Mitty is one of the few, maybe only two, who would put in the time and work to win the nomination. Palin has hearts and minds of the base, but do you really see her getting her heels scuffed getting outside her Facebook/Twitter/Fox glass palaces for an extended period? Or risk her easy money income selling stupid? One thing to lose as a VP candidate tapped late in the game. That’s forgiven. Another to get the prez nomination then lose. And she would go down in flames. Even that bastion of deep teabaggery thinkering, RedState, said she can’t win due to her unfavorable ratings now at 59% among Independents.
Intrade still has Multiple Choice leading the pack for the nomination. You know Mitt will do or say anything to win the nomination. Aw shucks Huck would too, but he’s not gonna get it. Then you have the airhead bus riders, Palin and Thune. Mitch Daniels? Nah, he doesn’t meet the minimum height bar for the president ride.
One interesting thing at Intrade has Marco Rubio by far leading the field for the R-VP pick. Can easily see that. Teabaggers loved him in the FL race. Probably still do even though Rubio has tried to put some distance between him and the loonier loony T-elements. If he were to get into the prez primaries, could even see him as a dark horse winning the nom if the others self-destruct or take too much fire. But see him more likely as a VP pick. Romney could point to Marco as his brown Hispanic Christian friend and running mate.
SFAW
And here I was thinking you’re a Jets fan.
Let’s pretend that it was just another regular-season victory against the (not really) hated (that much) Pats, and the Super Bowl is still two-weeks-and-change away, OK? Acting like “last week was Teh Game” is what has killed more teams than I can count.
burnspbesq
@Sixers:
Does Our Lady of the Lake still have football? You’ve been irrelevant for so long …
Jeanne ringland
@Sixers:
There are two things going on here: most Mormons really don’t know half of what their religion is about, and there is a practice among Mormons called “Lying for the Lord” to protect the public image of their church. So they either don’t know or wouldn’t tell you if they did.
They do not tell new members all of their beliefs, and they justify this by saying “milk before meat”, meaning that they are too young in their belief and would not be able to handle it. This is part of why they are considered a cult.
They do believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers but now they squirm around the question by saying that all beings are “spirit children” of God, but that Jesus is the only begotten son of God, and He was begotten the same way you and I were begotten. They are taught that Satan was an angel who wanted to be chosen to be the Christ and fell later.
Sorry, but I’m fascinated by this strange group.
Jeanne ringland
@DFS: What the Mormon church in Utah did in California in the last election wasn’t so minor.
Jeanne ringland
@DFS: He’s only comin’ to Jackson County Mo if you’re Reform LDS. Those guys in Utah think he’s coming to Salt Lake.
Tax Analyst
@quaint irene:
For the current Republican Party that’s a Feature, not a bug. For this group Coherence & Relevance are as outdated as Logic & Proportion. And we all know that L & P have long since fallen sloppy dead.
Remember, Conspiracies have just as much chance of being “true” as things that really have happened.
No, I don’t think it’s impossible for Romney to win the GOP nomination. I think Obama would prevail in the general election, but there is no way to really know right now. Expect a lot of “No-Mormons” types to change their mind if given the choice between the Kenyan Usurper and Mighty-Mitt-the-Morman. As several others have mentioned, he’s not a democrat and he’s not black -that goes a long way with far too many folks, I fear.
Cacti
@Sixers:
Then the Mormons you spoke to were being dishonest.
Mormon theology does, in fact, teach that Jesus and Lucifer (aka Satan aka teh debil) are brothers.
Cacti
@Nutella:
Fix’d it for ya.
Wile E. Quixote
@donr:
It’s not going to happen. Google “Maurice Clemmons” to see why.
The Other Chuck
@metricpenny:
And indeed the Republicans didn’t.
PanAmerican
Pew did polling in ’08. The negatives for Mormonism and Romney were sky high among Evangelicals. I don’t know if that precludes Mitt from the nomination. (Vagaries of the map and field etc.) But if he is the nominee, it opens them up to a third party rat fucking.
elle
that’s interesting. do you reckon the majority of Beck’s followers don’t know that Glenn is Mormon?
I wonder if he would lose followers if they were to realize this, or if their Beck-worship would continue regardless.
SFAW
Well, if he told them that he had a visitation from the Angel Moron, they might.
mclaren
Thank you, John. I’ve been pointing this out for years now. Everyone ignores the basic reality.
Maybe they think it sounds prejudiced to say “Republican fundamentalist Christians will never nominate a Mormon because they think Mormonism is a satanic cult.”
Well, it’s not my prejudice. I don’t care whether Romney is a Mormon. It’s the Republican fundamentalist Christians who’ve got the prejudice. They’re fanatical. They’re unhinged.
elle
@metricpenny:
There’s a difference. While the country might elect a Mormon, the Republicans certainly wouldn’t be the ones to nominate that Mormon as the candidate representing their party.
Just like they would never nominate Rudy or Gingrich, for similar reasons.
I think Palin will run. What would be super interesting is who she chooses for a running mate. Jim DeMint? Oooh, I know I know!! Michelle Bachmann!
mclaren
@elle:
No, elle, you just don’t get it. All the Republicans know Beck is a Mormon. But Glenn Beck isn’t running for anything.
Being a Mormon is fine if you’re the pet hatemonger, the cute TV guy, the dancing bear, the designated quisling for the Republicans. If you’re doing your Vichy French impression, they love you no matter whether you’re a Mormon or what.
But Republicans absolutely positively will not nominate a Mormon for any high office. And don’t come back and tell me “But Utah is all Mormon and it’s solid republican country.” Yeah, but that’s Utah. I’m talking high office. President. Vice president. Attorney general. Something like that.
Republicans will not stand for a Mormon getting any kind of serious high political position, not if the Republican party as a whole has anything to say about it. If it’s an individual state like Utah, maybe a senator will be able to sneak by. But that’s about it.
The Republican party as a whole is ruled with an iron hand by Christian fundamentalists and these people are absolutely convinced that Mormonism is a cult controlled by the devil. That’s not my view, that’s what the fanatical far-right Christian fundamentalists who rule the Republican party think.
There’s a huge difference between someone getting nominated for President, and some TV entertainer. Repubs don’t give a damn about who their entertainers are. They care a whole lot about whether a presidential nominee has the ‘right’ religion.
handy
Hey Victoria Jackson of SNL TV fame said she has problems with Beck’s Mormonism, so if it’s a concern for her well by gosh it’s a concern for me too.
Tax Analyst
Oh shit, sorry about the hyphen. I see it’s doing it’s Word Press hyphen thing and fucking all the following text up. My bad. A thousand – hell, a million pardons. (I put that hyphen in here to see if it will fix it. If not, maybe if will screw things up even more)
Sixers
@burnspbesq:
We do have football and we were even allowed to play in a bowl game this year! Sadly our program lacks the honorable and principled leadership of a Lane Kiffin so you know win some, lose some.
Breezeblock
Apologies if this has been covered, but Fatso Pappasso, aka Gov Christie of NJ, has appointed a Mooslim judge and the Teahadists are crapping on him. He’s done. Oh, and he’s Super Fat.
And he’s my Phat Phucking Governor. WHEEE!
rikyrah
I’ll say it. it’s fucking obvious.
for all their CHRISTIAN talk, these folks are about the most UN-Christian folks you’ll ever see.
tominwv
Finally someone with a voice has publicly said what I have been saying for years: No Georgia cracker is going to vote for a mormon. period.
Tehanu
@Tom Q:
I don’t know about the “sex is filthy” part. A musician I knew some years back used to go to Utah every summer to teach at, I think, BYU. He said (and he may just have been bragging, so take a few grains of salt with this) that the Mormon girls made a big fuss if he suggested drinking coffee, tea, or Coca-Cola, but when it came to jumping into bed, they were the most enthusiastic women he’d ever met.