LOSING FAITH IN MITT

While I hardly consider myself a Republican, I’ve spent the last few months rooting for Mitt Romney as he runs for president.

The first reason is perhaps the dumbest: he’s Mormon. You see, I’m Mormon, too, and it’s every minority or sub-group’s dream to put one of their own in the White House. Think of how excited the Greeks got when Dukakis was running 20 years ago. (Someone had to be excited about that, right?)

This instinct has its limits, however. I’m not so Mormon that I could bring myself to support Orrin Hatch during his no-hope presidential bid in 2000. Nor do I believe that Mormons are inherently good at running things. The state of Utah has been run by Mormons for 150 years, and its government spends most of its time trying to figure out if Satan loves illegal immigrants.

But Mitt does have a lot going for him. He was a successful businessman. He turned the Salt Lake City Olympics from a scandal-ridden joke to a successful and profitable event. He got elected governor in a Democratic state and actually enacted a universal health coverage plan. That’s not a bad resume, really. (Although not as good as Bill Richardson’s.)

And, yes, Mitt does have presidential hair.

But Mitt does have a few things going against him. First, he’s changed some crucial opinions a few times in his political career. As a result, conservatives think he’s a moderate dressing up as a right winger, and moderates think he’s a right winger pretending to be centrist. Not a good place to be.

But he’s got another big liability: he’s Mormon. Before the campaign, I naively thought this wouldn’t be much of an issue, but I’m clearly wrong.

Mormons haven’t always had the easiest time in America. For several decades, they were driven from city to city by angry mobs. It was actually legal to kill Mormons in the state of Missouri until 1976. In the 1970s, my dad was on an airplane when a woman discovered he was Mormon. She asked to see his horns.

But that’s ancient history, right? Nope. While I can honestly say that I’ve never experienced any discrimination because of my religion (except for that one time when my Jewish friend wouldn’t set me up with any of her friends because of my chaste lifestyle) there is apparently more than a little hostility to Mormons out there. Over the past few months the press has been filled with hateful and distorted information about Mormons coming from both the left and the right. I’m not going to bother linking to any of it, but when both Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton are ganging up on you, it’s not good news.

Mitt’s stiffest challenge may be in the south, where more than a few people labor under the misapprehension that Mormons eat their babies in secret temple rituals. Even in the nation as a whole, around 30 percent of people say they wouldn’t vote for a Mormon under any circumstance.

It’s a little disheartening, really. I thought we had gotten past all this nonsense when JFK got elected 47 years ago. “A Catholic in the White House!? So now the Pope gets to run our country?” Yet many people who would find the previous statement offensive or absurd have no problem openly admitting they wouldn’t vote for someone strictly because of their religion.

Of course, they shouldn’t vote for Mitt. Nobody should, in my opinion. I came to that sad conclusion after the May 15th Republican debate on Fox News. In that debate, Mitt said the US should double the size of our prison in Guantanamo. He also supports “enhanced interrogation” which is the new code word for “torture.” You can see his full comments here… (Mitt's campaign actually posted this on YouTube)

For a man as smart and savvy as Mitt not to understand that GITMO detentions undermine all that we stand for as a nation is simply unacceptable. He’ll say that the War on Terror ™ is a fight for our way of life. But if we destroy our way of life in the process, when what are we really fighting for? If he can't understand that, then he's really not fit to be president.

Oh Mitt, I once had such high hopes for you. The dream of a Mormon president will have to wait for another time, and for a more attractive candidate. President Donny Osmond, anyone?