The Real Winners and Losers

By

Donald White

One hundred sixty-four years ago, Joseph Smith became a candidate for president and in four months he was dead. An armed mob killed Joseph and his brother Hyrum and drove the Mormons from their homes and farms in Illinois and Iowa to what is now Utah.

Today there are more than thirteen million Mormons, a world-wide religion in 178 countries, fourth largest in America. Mike Huckabee’s Evangelicals were so wary of this church that they fought the Mormons every step of the way, calling it a non-Christian cult. They voted for Huckabe, knowing that he couldn’t win, keeping Mitt Romney from winning. On the other hand, the Mormon Church was completely neutral about politics—they never ask members to vote for specific candidates. They did not endorse Mitt Romney. Wouldn’t Harry Reid have had a fit if they had?

Importantly, Mormons have forgiven past Illinois mob offenses. With the loss of Florida and only a fair showing in Super Tuesday, Romney did the right thing. He dropped out of the race in the interest of the Republican Party and threw his support to the ultimate winner, John McCain. 

Romney Did The Right Thing

With each primary it became clear that the GOP favored a maverick Republican who claimed to be conservative. McCain claims that only he has commander in chief instincts, and he is definitely right! But what has he ever commanded or run except a small squadron? Even in his best military days he was assigned tactical duties, not strategic command.

At the same time, Republicans have rejected a true leader, a true conservative—a man who has created jobs and improved the economy for thousands of people.

Shame on you, America

This is amazing because this year’s biggest issue is the economy, Mitt Romney’s acknowledged area of expertise.

America is in recession. The U.S. is in trouble with a deep housing depression and unemployment—good jobs vanishing to foreign lands—and steadily increasing, unbearable national debt. International confidence in the dollar is at an all-time low, meaning Americans, logically, should be looking to vote into office someone like a Romney with proven job-building skills who can correct this errant economy that both parties have allowed to go astray.

Meanwhile, the surge has calmed the Iraq war, something in which the very captious John McCain not only claims credibility but some responsibility.

America’s economic downturn and the sub-prime housing market crisis are real. How can Republican voters ignore that fact of life—unless they believe that McCain is also an economic guru. Even he admits he isn’t.

Romney Has Learned A Lot

Governor Romney now can look back at an intense year and a half that has cost him a good part of his fortune with what pundits will say has very little to show for it. That is unless this year was a dress rehearsal for the 2012 election.

Romney has learned a lot from his campaign. We hope he is forty million dollars wiser. If he makes another run in four years he may want to make some more friends, break the ice with other politicians a little earlier, campaign for candidates to other offices as did McCain, and line up well-known national endorsements that become seen as photo ops and official approval, while erasing the impression that he is plastic and bobblehead-stiff.

Romney’s Run Was Good For The Church

Mitt Romney’s running for the Republican presidential nomination gave rise to much debate inside and outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Was it good or bad for Mormons that their faith has been the object of close scrutiny of friends, enemies, and strangers? Their religious practices have been free game for ridicule and praise by Americans. There has never been so many religious bloggers.

Many have asked, “What would it be like to have a devout Mormon in the White House?” Would the Mormons be blamed if his Grand Old Party ticket lost to the Democrats in November? We’ll never know.

It is safe to say that in the annuals of American political history some years hence we will find that Governor Romney’s religion had little impact on the presidential race. At the same time, it is equally fair to suggest that Mike Huckabee’s candidacy and religious backing had much to do with Romney’s demise.

While Romney did not win the nomination, his run was overwhelmingly good for the Mormons.

The Religious Issue—Helped or Hurt?

Certainly there was an initial flurry of interest—passive curiosity—in Mr. Romney’s religious beliefs. Many may argue that Governor Romney was wrong when he failed to meet those questions head on, to informally discuss his religious background, perhaps Reaganesque in his living room wearing a sweater before a warm fire; he could have allowed all the country to understand just what kind of person he is. It was almost like he was too private.

More people will argue—given the critical sound-bite mentality of elections—that he took the right course in referring all religious questions to his church and only speaking about the Second Amendment and separation of church and state in his College Station, Texas speech at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library. It was an outstanding address and it did him much good, helping him appear presidential and attractive to those who had never heard him speak, which was most of us in and out of the church.

History will judge if he handled the religion issue correctly, but something good happened. His initial failure to come right out with information turned some people off—mostly critics who would be turned off at anything he did—and created a vacuum that caused much discussion and controversy on the blogs, though not all of it was correct and complementary to the Mormons and Mitt Romney.

Conservatives Are Still Troubled

Actually, even the blog controversy probably cleared the air for non-Mormons who must have learned a great deal, if not from Romney, from Mormon bloggers. When it came right down to it, Romney’s wealth and ability to flood the airwaves with advertising may have turned off his opposition, but it also made him new friends and made “Mitt” a household name.

McCain wasn’t conservative on important issues like President Bush’s tax cuts which he and only one other Republican senator voted against. Consider the liberal amnesty bill McCain co-sponsored  with Ted Kennedy, and McCain-Feingold which would have severely restricted voters’ First Amendment rights. The bill had been heavily promoted by the liberal news media.

McCain-Feingold would enhance the power of the liberal news and entertainment media, since they would continue to enjoy unrestricted power to promote favored politicians while tearing down others.

It would have severely restricted the right of citizen groups to collect and spend money to inform the public about what members of Congress are doing in Washington, including alerting citizens about upcoming votes on key issues in Congress.

McCain calls himself conservative? He is anything but, except in matters of choosing Supreme Court Members, the Iraq war, and defense.

Because of Romney’s character and commitment to focus only on the issues, he did not attack McCain as a person or his occasional lack of scruples.

Loss Not a Blow Against Mormonism

Despite Romney’s loss in the primaries, it is difficult to see it as a blow against Mormonism or a setback for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are too many great people in that church for one election, one man, or even a series of negative comments to damage it. And given the way the people accepted Romney, political defeat or not, it is not a setback for Romney the man, just Romney the presidential candidate.

It is not repudiation against the church that claims to be the force described by the prophet Daniel when he saw a stone cut out of the mountain that would roll forth in the latter days consuming all kingdoms before it. When something as vital as this gets momentum, nothing can stop it. Certainly not one election or one little man named John McCain.

It is doubtful that in the future that politicians, pollsters, or analysts will find any basis upon which to attribute Romney’s loss to the fact that he is a devout member of this church.

There will be other Mormon candidates for national office—there are currently 15 in the U.S. Congress including speaker of the house Harry Reid—and if the Romney v. McCain v. Huckabee series of clambakes proved anything it is the following proposition: so long as the Mormon faith in the United States continues to produce politicians with the integrity, stature, and moral character of Willard Mitt Romney, the electorate of the United States will welcome them to their highest offices—even if some Evangelicals won’t.

Latter-day Saints can be proud of the distinguished manner in which

Governor Romney conducted himself in this race, the poise and dignity that he exhibited and the widespread respect that he earned from the American electorate at large.

Mormons should also be proud, rather than embarrassed or critical, of the unabashed manner in which Governor Romney spoke of his faith, “the faith of my fathers,” and the values that he constantly draws from it.

Mitt Was A Great Ambassador of Truth

It is encouraging to this writer that Governor Romney has single-handedly taken on the world in behalf of the Latter-day Saints. After all, until the late President Gordon B. Hinckley, who recently passed away at age 97, this church was not good at media hermeneutics or communicating its fundamental beliefs on radio and television. Singularly, following Hinckley’s lead, Romney stood up and praised the day he became a Mormon—which was at age 8 at the hand of his father the late George Romney who baptized him.

The Mormons had been erroneously defined in the public eye as non-Christian cultists, something that is anathema to Mormons. But now, thanks to Romney and the late President Gordon B. Hinckley, the world knows this church is ultra-Christian. Though, importantly for Mormons, its teachings of the nature of the Godhead don’t coincide with Catholic or many Protestant views because it is far more comprehensive and understandable.

Always seeking to banish any semblance of religious display from the public square, Governor Romney, like Joseph Smith, demonstrated forcefully, clearly and unabashedly to the American people that Mormons are in fact not only religious people with solid moral values, but Christians with a world-wide following—people not afraid to stand and testify of Christ; that they are a people who invite others to join them in worshiping the true God, his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost as three separate personages even as did Joseph Smith, the first latter-day prophet.

American Voters Get What They Deserve

Americans deserve what they get in a politician. It always comes back to haunt them. If Obama is elected it may come back to haunt all of us in some way.

Unfortunately, most of America’s press is liberal and still holds a rather limited view of the Latter-day Saints, but even that is improving.

When Mitt Romney refuses to use profanity, but only an occasional Ozzie and Harriet style “gosh” or “Gee” or “good heavens”, he is portraying who he is, conforming to the Latter-day Saint prohibition against being profane and using profanity and vulgarity. He is Mormon through and through and when another Mormon runs for president, maybe the electorate will understand this church a little better. Oh, there will be more, for this church is ever expanding while the rest of Christianity dwindles.

Devout Mormons are not monolithic or disengaged from American life; but the good ones like Romney do not treat money as a pathway to personal popularity for popularity’s sake, and they are not consumed in becoming millionaires for the money or for the glitz and conveniences money can buy, but for what that money can do to aid in a common cause or to help others less able.

Latter-Day-Saints Live Their Religion

Consecration is their byword and they live their religion. By definition as an honest tithe payer, Romney has already given many millions of dollars to his church, money he would say wasn’t his, but the Lord’s.

The Latter-day Saint faith is comprised of millions of honest, intelligent, educated, articulate, hard working, and broad-minded men, women, and children. They are fully and passionately engaged in the day-to-day affairs of contemporary society in a thoughtful, concerned and productive fashion.

They might not be United States Senate and House members—though fifteen are—or presidential candidates, but they may be faithful government workers or honest and hard-working doctors, accountants, office workers, engineers, laborers, lawyers, farmers, teachers, or business owners. They may appear like Governor Romney, with clean-cut looking faces because they don’t use alcohol or tobacco, or even caffeine-laden soft drinks, drugs, coffee, tea, or porn. They don’t practice polygamy—no, the FLDS Church that got busted for child abuse and polygamy is not Mormon—frequent bars and burlesque houses, gamble, or carouse.

Perhaps because they are a more serious minded people, they—like Mitt—have been given undeserved descriptions like rigid, plastic, or stiff. That’s actually in their favor, knowing what we know about the morals of the average American today.

Mormons don’t divorce as often as others, don’t have mistresses and clandestine lovers, don’t engage in premarital or extramarital sex or watch R-rated movies. Besides their strong health and moral code, another reason they live longer is that they do not have as much stress in their lives because they live with strong, supportive families.

They are admonished to read the scriptures daily, hold family gatherings called Family Home Evening on Monday nights, do family history work and attend the temple. If they break the commandments they cannot enter the temple.

Mormons believe in God and Jesus Christ, go to church for three hours on Sunday, accept mission calls—two years today, but 30 months when Romney went to France; and, believe me, these missions are tough and are not like a walk in the park to a Sunday School class. Mormons, both men and women, are expected to accept positions in the church since it has a lay ministry, though only men hold the priesthood. As Mike Wallace of CBS said, “being a Mormon is not easy.”

Mormons are an honest, law-abiding people of all races and ethnicities, and all of this tends to make them look younger and live longer than other Americans.

Church—True Winner

Regardless, Governor Romney has demonstrated to the world that the face of the true Latter-day Saint is in fact one face of the 21st century, one every American wishes they could cultivate.

With his integrity, passion and sensitivity, Governor Romney truly should have earned the respect of not only his peers, but of all Americans. He was the most qualified to lead this country out of recession, during war and into a better time, but unfortunately the average American rejected him.

Did they reject him because of his faith? Some may have, but not generally because his faith is the one Romney attribute that rises above all others. His dedicated groundbreaking work in 2008 has effectively made it easier for him or someone like him to win over a reluctant American voter in times ahead.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its people emerged winners of this year’s primary election. The losers were the American people.