Will LDS (Mormons) flee GOP if Mitt gets shelled? Salt Lake Tribune >>>

[helderheid]

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3898391

Will LDS flee GOP if Mitt gets shelled?
Faith under fire: If the gloves come off in a primary, some say it could shift political affiliation
By Thomas Burr
The Salt Lake Tribune

WASHINGTON - Mormon Republicans may have a watershed moment coming soon, depending on whether their fellow party and religious member, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, will be accepted by the GOP's evangelical wing.
If the Republican conservative base rejects a Mormon for office largely because of his faith, do followers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continue their staunchly Republican loyalty anyway? Do they stay home in November? Do some ditch the GOP for independent status, or migrate to the Democratic tent?
"I think that's a real possibility," says Charles Reagan Wilson, director of the University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture. "To feel that kind of rejection from the national party they have allied with, that could well lead to some reassessment of the party."
In the past three decades, Mormons have saddled up with the Republican Party in overwhelming numbers, making Utah an ultra-red state. Though The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doesn't officially favor a certain party over another, followers are largely Republicans, including most Mormon members of Congress and the faith's most promising national politician - Romney.
While officially just exploring a potential presidential bid, Romney has been jetting across America meeting with Republican groups and shelling out money to local candidates, all preparatory moves for chasing the White House. But the issue of his religion continually dogs Romney, and some observers predict a Mormon could never be elected president.
A Gallup poll in 1999 found that while 79 percent of Americans would vote for a Mormon, 17 percent wouldn't - a significant deficit from which to start a presidential bid. Much of that bias can be traced to the South, where some evangelical groups have little regard for the Mormon faith. Some groups don't consider Mormons to be Christians, and Romney may face a tough crowd.

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http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3898391

** Please - don't let this thread turn into a Mormon bashing one - many of the Utah State Democratic Party leaders are LDS and I know some very fine people in the LDS faith. **

[PaDem]

1. The Mormons aren't going anywhere..........

I don't think Romney being shunned would matter in the least.

[helderheid]

2. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

[PaDem]

question for you......

I asked this in another thread but didn't get an answer. Who is that in your sig pic? Many DUers have that picture and I can't quite make it out. Looks like Olbermann or Stephen Colbert.

[Doctor_J]

6. That's Colbert

[helderheid]

7. it is Stephen Colbert. I proudly put him there after he skewered * at the

correspondence dinner:

rtsp://video.c-span.org/60days/wh042906_colbert.rm

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Romney isn't going anywhere, either, except maybe in his dreams

[Doctor_J]

8. No kidding

These phony crises the GOP is always floating get really tiresome

[CabalPowered]

3. I think Mormons are too self-involved to really care

about the future of Romney or any other pol. I know most of my Mormon relatives in Utah don't even know who Romney is. The same set of relatives would die before voting Dem, even if a Rep went on TV and killed babies. I have fewer number of Mormon Dem relatives and they are diehard Dems, but not living in Utah.

[helderheid]

5. Really? This surprises me - I thought EVERYONE in Utah knew who he

was because of the Olympics thing. He was all over the news, in the papers, and on TV during the coverage of the actual Olympics as well. Interesting!

[Momgonepostal]

13. You would think...

That and the fact that the Romney's are an old, prolific Mormon family...they are probably related to a good percentage of Utah LDS.

[LiviaOlivia]

31. Isn't amazing how all these Non-Mormons

seem to know it all.

I have talked to my 84 year old Mormon father, who has voted Dem all his life, about this very question.

"Don't members of the church realize that they are in bed with the very people that lynched, tar & feathered, raped, and murdered their fellow brethren from Ohio to Nebraska?"

My father knows the truth but my brothers and sisters, all strict Mormons, listen to FOX. They, like all those who watch and believe Fox news, buy into the GOP lie machine.

So be it. They should suffer the consequences but they should be judged individually. Not as a religion.

[Olney Blue]

9. No one is safe from the GOP hate machine.

[TriSec]

10. Romney is an idiot

He's not winning anything. He might get some numbers in NH, but only because it's next to Massachusetts and they know his name. (See Paul Tsongas, 1992)

Romney has picked up the typical Massachusetts politician's habit of saying one thing and doing another...it'll be interesting to compare and contrast all the things he told the Commonwealth when he got elected to all the things he's telling the national audience now...in quite a few items, he's made a 180 degree turn.

All because it doesn't play to the "national base".

[Momgonepostal]

11. HA! In my dreams!

I'm a non-Utah, LDS Democrat and would LOVE more LDS people really stop and think about the religious right thinks about us.

Unfortunately, it might shake a few people up enough to not vote republican for this one election, but I doubt there will be many permanent defectors.

[helderheid]

12. Hi fine person of the LDS faith!

:hi:

I'm a non-LDS Democrat in Utah. :)

[Momgonepostal]

14. Nice to "meet" you!

I've seen you around the boards. You're the person you coordinated the flowers for Helen Thomas? That was GREAT!

[helderheid]

15. guilty and thanks! Nice to "meet" you too :)

[bobbieinok]

21. grew up in SoBapt church......SoBapts 'know' mormons are NOT xns

[grateful581]

16. I saw this coming

Mitt has a snowball chance in hell to get the GOP's evangelical wing vote.
Hopefully the snub of mitt will help Utah turn more blue!

(Second the no mormon bashing) :)

[helderheid]

17. Hi neighbor! I'm in Sandy - how about you?

[grateful581]

19. Hello

I'm in Cottonwood Heights.
:hi:

[Johnyawl]

18. A non-issue

Romney will get rejected by the republican evangelical base, and the vast majority of LDS will continue to vote for republicans.

[helderheid]

23. things here are changing

AMY GOODMAN: It's interesting, among the people that President Bush met with, parents of those in Iraq, who have lost their children or their husbands -- in one particular case, a woman seeing Bush for the second time, and that would be the case with Cindy Sheehan, and they have used the argument that she already saw him. Celeste Zappala, you were in Utah when President Bush was there the day before in Salt Lake City, but you were speaking outside. What was that experience like? I mean, clearly going to places where the majority of people voted for President Bush in the last election.

CELESTE ZAPPALA: It was a stunning experience to me. I had gone there with the hope that at least 200 people would come out to the Pioneer Park to hear what we had to say, and while driving to the park, I saw hundreds of people carrying signs walking the streets, and I was afraid they were demonstrators for Bush. And I was a little bit afraid, thinking so many people would come out against us, and then I realized they were for us. They were coming from all directions with homemade signs saying, you know, “Bring the troops home now.” “This war is based on lies.” You know, lots of creative things, little kids, couples, old folks in wheelchairs. Mormons for peace. I mean, it was just an extraordinary good thing. And the mayor of the city of Salt Lake came to speak at our rally, telling the -- you know, the whole city that he felt that the Bush administration has betrayed this country. So, we ended up with about 2,000 people where I had prayed for 200. And the feeling amongst the people, their willingness to stand there for a couple of hours and listen and participate and line the streets, you know, cheer when trucks went by. They honked at us and stuff. It was just – it was amazing to me. This was Salt Lake City. And if that level of passion exists there, then, you know, I think we're opening up something pretty amazing across America.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/25/1342233

[Cha]

20. I think it's way

weird that they are repukes in the first place. The republicons are the lowest scum imaginable and aren't the Mormons all they don't drink, smoke, or do caffiene? Why would they want to be associated with lying, twisted killers of innocent women, children, and men?

[bobbieinok]

22. wasn't an Ike sec of agriculture a mormon??? who became an elder???

[Momgonepostal]

26. That was Ezra Taft Benson...

I can't remember what administration he was in, but yes, he was secretary of agriculture and years later, was president of the church.

[Hippo_Tron]

25. I think it's single issue anti-choice

Mormons tend to be very nice and very tolerant of other religions (at least the ones I've met) but they also seem to refuse to consider voting Democratic because of abortion.

[helderheid]

27. nail meet head.

[tritsofme]

24. I assume that Romney would be too liberal to go anywhere in the Utah

Republican party.

So who knows on what basis LDS members would base his rejection.

[upi402]

28. they'll stay R, whoever's on the jesus team -they'll support

they love the anti-christ Bush.

[helderheid]

29. Utah was a Blue state in the 60s

[upi402]

30. Was that due to the crackdown on LDS religion?

[Erika]

32. In Idaho, the Dems said polygamists could not vote

The hard core Mormons have never forgiven them.

The Utah Mormons will talk against their polygamous background but secretly hold it sacred and with honor.

They think W is a Christian man with morals much like they did their polygamous ancestors.

Remember the Salt Lake City Olympic charges. These Mormon officials have literally no sense of right and wrong and they identify completely with the W.