As you may have heard, Mitt Romney’s great-grandfather was a polygamist. It’s hard for me to think of a reason why a rational person would hold this against Romney, but it’s not hard at all to think of a reason why an opposing campaign would want that information out there: Did you know Mitt Romney is a Mormon? IT’S TRUE!
I went on record a lot in the lead up to this insanity saying that Americans would never elect a Mormon president. More specifically, I said they’d never elect someone who wore magic underwear. At this point, however, it feels like Mormonism is working less against him than it is becoming a kind of hokey branding strategy. You know: Giuliani: 9/11. Edwards: Son of a coal miner. Romney: Mormon. It could be a lot worse (i.e., Tancredo: Crazypants.) (Pew did some polling on this one-word summation of candidates here.)
Usually we say you fear what you don’t know. I think good old-fashioned American ignorance is working on Romney’s behalf. Currently, the average state of knowledge on the LDS faith extends to, “they used to be able to marry more than one chick,” and “neatly dressed.” Neither of these things necessarily discount a candidate. (And I think in the day and age of the Miracle Bra, perhaps “magic underwear” doesn’t hurt, either.) CW is that Romney needs to “pull a JFK” (ahem) and give a speech explaining and demystifying his religion. I say, MYSTIFY AWAY. If he can somehow work in an obscure “Mormon blessing” into his speeches (“Blessed are the cheesemakers“?), all the better.
No, what’s working against Romney is something far more prosaic than his freaky political beliefs; it’s his wavering political beliefs — at least he hasn’t changed his mind recently about being a Mormon.