Meridian Magazine :: Faith and Politics: Iowa Christianity, and an Important Speech

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For months now, political analysts have been speculating about whether Mitt Romney would give a speech like the one John F. Kennedy delivered in 1960 to Greater Houston Ministerial Association. Kennedy’s goal was to calm voters’ fears about his Catholicism — and he succeeded. A Romney speech would be similar in intent — to reassure voters about his Mormonism.

Pundits have been divided on the question of whether Romney should give what has come to be known as “The Speech.” At Article VI Blog, we have argued that such a speech is a bad idea because it would simply give permission to the news media, Romney’s opponents, and critics of the Church to explore, confuse, misrepresent, mock, and ridicule Mormon beliefs and practices of worship.

Other writers who are sympathetic to Romney, like Hugh Hewitt, have also counseled against The Speech. (Hewitt wrote a book about Romney’s Candidacy, A Mormon In The White House?” which we reviewed here.)

Not surprisingly, Governor Romney does not listen to us. On December 2, 2007, the Romney campaign issued the following release:

Statement from Kevin Madden, Romney for President campaign spokesman:

Governor Romney has made a decision to deliver a speech titled “Faith in America."
The governor has been invited to The George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas to deliver this address on Thursday, December 6.

This speech is an opportunity for Governor Romney to share his views on religious liberty, the grand tradition religious tolerance has played in the progress of our nation and how the governor’s own faith would inform his Presidency if he were elected.

Governor Romney understands that faith is an important issue to many Americans, and he personally feels this moment is the right moment for him to share his views with the nation.

Governor Romney personally made the decision to deliver this speech sometime last week.

While identifying a venue for this address, the campaign consulted with President George H.W. Bush’s office last week about Governor Romney’s decision. President Bush was gracious enough to extend an invitation to deliver the speech at the presidential library.

The invitation to speak at the presidential library is not an endorsement of Governor Romney’s campaign.

Kevin Madden, Romney for President campaign spokesman

So why is Romney giving The Speech? Only he knows, but I think it’s because of what has been happening in Iowa. From Yuval Levin on National Review Online’s The Corner

Among other things, the decision to do this suggests the Romney team is finding what a couple of other Republican campaigns have hinted at about the fine details of their Iowa polling: that Romney’s slip in Iowa, and Huckabee’s rise, has to do with an implicit but very real unease about his Mormonism among evangelical protestants who might otherwise be inclined to support him.

My co-blogger at Article VI Blog, John Schroeder, had a few comments:

I think there is little doubt that this decision has been determined to be a political necessity because of Huckabee's very slick playing of the religion card — something we have documented here thoroughly. I also think the use of the Bush Library for this purpose, while not an endorsement of Romney, is a message from the senior Republican statesman around today that this should not be an issue.

Given the title of the speech this is going to be nothing like the Kennedy speech. Undoubtedly this is going to be heavy on history, the constitution, and tradition in our great nation. I hope Romney will continue to talk little about Mormonism and much about what has made America great. He must rise above this, not be mired in it.

We were saving George Will's blistering of Huckabee until tomorrow's Reading List, but what he had to say is just too apropos the moment:

If Huckabee succeeds in derailing Romney's campaign by raising a religious test for presidential eligibility, that will be clarifying: In one particular, America was more enlightened a century ago.

My initial reaction to this news is simply disappointment in my Evangelical brethren. That we have forced Romney into this is shameful. What lies in the future for us is not pretty. We are supposed to be smarter.

I am more philosophical about this, and think maybe it's just as well that The Question gets out — way out — in the open. To my mind, Romney is searching for a political antidote to an especially poisonous "witches' brew." The ingredients of the brew.

Ignorance of Mormonism, and resulting distrust or suspicion of Romney by people who generally lack malice;
Distrust of Mormonism by others with serious theological differences who believe such differences actually have something to do with choosing a presidential candidate;
The belief (held by many who are also in category no. 2) that Mormonism is a serious menace to society and to the eternal salvation of mankind, and that electing a Mormon president would only serve to legitimize that menace;
Outright bigotry by those who really hate Mormonism, either from religious conservatives who see the faith as an all-too-successful competitors for parishioners, or left-wing bigots like Jacob Weisberg who dispute any belief in the miraculous;
Last, but perhaps most important in this context, politicians and their consultants (Huckabee for now, certainly Senator Clinton in the general election, if Romney is nominated), who see an opening here and are exploiting it. This category is the most disgusting of them all.

What can The Speech do to neutralize this deadly potion? One paragraph from Hugh Hewitt's "A Mormon in the White House" comes repeatedly to mind:

This vision of [Mormonism as a] “cult” is difficult to square with the sunny Mormons one encounters at Boy Scout jamborees, on city councils across the land, or in the professions and business. But for those who do not know any Mormons, or at least not that well, this background music dominates the attitude they bring to the idea of a Mormon candidate for the presidency ... [W]hat Romney confronts is the widespread attachment of the term "cult" to his religious beliefs. This is a political problem of the first order.

As I've said before, if Romney can somehow, through The Speech, convey to people that essence of "sunny Mormons," the Boy Scouts, the big, happy families that exude wholesomeness, the people who rush hurricane relief to strangers, his "Mormon problem" will fade.

I hate to simplify the problem that much, but I think that's the key. If he can get people to see him, his wife Ann, his five sons, and his lifestyle as genuine — in short, if he can make people feel all right about him, he'll put this nonsense behind him.

But if he can't pull that off, then a perfectly qualified candidate for president will have been put out of the presidential race because of his religion. As Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review says:

[I]f you are not going to support Mitt Romney for president because he is Mormon, or because you think he will not be elected president because he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, say your prayers for America.

Remember December 6, 2007. Watch The Speech that day if you can. You will be watching American and Church history being made.

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About the Author:

Lowell C. Brown is co-author of Article VI Blog, http://www.article6blog.com, which is devoted to discussion and analysis of the religious issues surrounding the 2008 presidential election. Lowell is also a Los Angeles-based attorney who is a partner in Arent Fox LLP, where he practices corporate health law for institutional health care providers. He describes himself as an active, committed, convinced Mormon and has served in a number of callings in the Church, his favorite of which was Scoutmaster. The views expressed here are Lowell's own.