Romney

[Topper]

Please take your question and make it more general, more sweeping. TIA.

And please don't confuse my Joseph Smith w/ everyone else's - there are Joseph Smiths, plural- I have my own and he is very different from YOhio's.

To outsiders, there was only one Joseph Smith. He was a socialist in modern terms. Did he not act as the first Mormon to campaign for President?

Why do Mormons not generally champion a platform similar to their prophet?

[il Padrino Ute]

You've got your own, personal Joseph Smith?

It was the B side to Depeche Mode's big hit.

[oxcoug]

You've got your own, personal Joseph Smith?

Hell yeah. Mine is more of a "less talk, more rock" variety of Joseph Smith. We all get our own. Truman Madsen drew one up that a lot of Mo's are into.







[all riffing from Topper's weird construction of "your Joseph Smith."]

[Topper]

Hell yeah. Mine is more of a "less talk, more rock" variety of Joseph Smith. We all get our own. Truman Madsen drew one up that a lot of Mo's are into.







[all riffing from Topper's weird construction of "your Joseph Smith."]

Did you want me to refer to him as Joe Smith?

[oxcoug]

To outsiders, there was only one Joseph Smith. He was a socialist in modern terms. Did he not act as the first Mormon to campaign for President?

Why do Mormons not generally champion a platform similar to their prophet?

You're clearly trolling but I'll half-play along.

Presumably you know that it's silly to compare a 19th c. communal ideology that depends on voluntary participation to a 20th c. system of government which depends on involuntary, universal participation.

The communal ideology lives quite robustly in a Church that asks - and generally receives - that its members give 10% plus of their income to charitable causes as presided over by the Church - the LDS welfare system is one of the most responsive and efficient anywhere in the world and (per no less an authority than Ted Kennedy) its emergency response system is consistently among the first on the ground. It is - in fact - quite communistic in some pristine senses of the word. People give up their money for the good of the community - they are asked (via tithes + fast offerings) to give according to their ability and others receive according to their needs.

It's not perfect nor is it exactly what Joseph Smith envisioned, but it's pretty ridiculously solid given the world we live in.

You done trolling yet?

[myboynoah]

In Boston, Mitt Romney ‘evolved’ in Mormon leadership, some churchwomen say

Starts out not sounding so good for Mitt (driving a recent convert from The Church), but gets better. I guess his critics will just use Mitt's softening as another example of being a flipflopper.

Overall, pretty good, though I thought the author used some strained linkages to discuss unique Mormon beliefs and practices.

Only men can enter the Mormon priesthood, which acts as the authority in the church and has the power to perform sacred rituals rooted in the Book of Mormon. Mormons believe their prophet and founder Joseph Smith translated that scripture from golden tablets revealed to him in 19th-century New York, thus ending centuries of apostasy and restoring the true church of Christ on Earth.

. . . . . . .

The Salt Lake hierarchy approved of Romney’s performance in Belmont, and in 1986 elevated him to the position of president of the Boston “stake,” a regional area similar to a Roman Catholic diocese, a concept which, in the Book of Mormon, Jesus talked about as he appeared in the Western Hemisphere.

This is just plain :

During one meeting with the church’s women’s relief society, he encouraged the wives of his peers to look after less fortunate families in the congregation, but advised that the culture shock might be difficult for them. “ ‘Sometimes, people are wearing polyester in Medford,’ ” Dredge recalled Romney as saying. “I thought, ‘Oh my God.’ ”

[LA Ute]

From Instapundit:

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: New York Times Slimes Romney.

Here at Via Meadia, we have written extensively about how reports of impending American theocracy have been greatly exaggerated. Indeed, put into historical perspective, the religious forces acting upon American politics today are far gentler than those of generations past. But it appears that the New York Times remains unconvinced, as evidenced by a recent spate of alarmist editorials about the faith of Mitt Romney.

This is not about Governor Romney, and it is not about the faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS). Via Meadia takes no view at this early stage about the merits or demerits of the various candidates, and our inveterate Anglicanism gets in the way of embracing the Mormon faith. But bigotry is something that needs to be fought in all its forms; unreasonable fears and prejudices based on religion will always be with us, but such fears belong in the gutter among the wackos, the haters and the tin-foil hat brigades on both the right and the left. When they rise from the sewers and the swamps into mainstream publications and can be casually uttered in polite company by distinguished professors, something is going very wrong, and people who believe in the American way need to speak up. . . .

As far as I can make out, Professor Bloom is more elitist misanthrope than bigot; his hatred and loathing for Mormonism is part of a broader and deeper disgust with almost everything that the common people think or do in the contemporary United States. The essay drips with condescension and disdain; he hates and fears the Mormons not because they are different from most of their fellow citizens but because they are like them. . . . I say nothing about the motives of Professor Bloom or the New York Times. But so far as I know, neither has ever expressed any concern over the stout Mormon faith of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

I have a comment and a question. Comment: The New York Times would never spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about a Muslim candidate’s religion in this fashion. Question: When George Romney ran in 1968, was the New York Times fretting about his Mormonism?

UPDATE: Reader John Ward emails: “I don’t recall the NYT having a fit when Mo Udall was running for the Democrat nomination for president.” I guess only Republican Mormons are scary.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader John Burke writes:

I worked in Udall’s New York Presidential campaign in 1975-1976 (after my earlier choice, Birch Bayh, dropped out). Trust me when I say that no one among New York Democrats ever said, boo, about Udall being a Mormon, even though a host of candidates were competing furiously for support within the party (Udall, Bayh, Fred Harris, Scoop Jackson, Jimmy Carter). All these candidates were grilled closely and frequently about where they had stood on the war, where they stood on amnesty for draft resisters, what they had done to block Nixon’s Supreme Court nominations, and dozens of other then-current issues. This questioning took place in living rooms and Democratic clubs with small groups. I was deeply involved in all of this from mid-1975 when Bayh began to line up NY support. I must say that I don’t even recall being aware of Udall’s being a Mormon, although it is a long time ago. I certainly would recall if anyone had made an issue of it (I remember clearly the shades of differences the candidates had on other matters).

Sad to see the NYT becoming so much more bigoted than it was a generation ago.

In fairness, Mo Udall was a lapsed Mormon who said he left the church over the priesthood ban.

[RobinFinderson]

The Mormon church claims that its leader speaks on behalf of God for all people in the world. It teaches that obedience to the teachings of the prophet is necessary for the attainment of one's full potential. The more orthodox the Mormon candidate, the more likely (in the public's mind) that he will allow the Mormon church's leaders to influence public affairs. The degree to which a candidate's Mormonism is a legitimate issue is probably pretty well correlated to the measure of that person's presumed orthodoxy crossed with the likelihood of the candidate winning office. Republican Mormons tend to be more orthodox. Even non-Mo's know that.

[YOhio]

Mitt Romney missed the 60's.

http://www.aei.org/article/politics-...cts-corny-50s/

[YOhio]

This makes me laugh. Romney is using a Kid Rock tune as his campaign theme song.

[YOUTUBE]bu3rsha1ZtI[/YOUTUBE]

[Commando]

This makes me laugh. Romney is using a Kid Rock tune as his campaign theme song.

I went to a Romney campaign event yesterday and was a little rattled by it. It does make sense though, since they are kind of Detroit or whatever, and Kid Rock is republican/conservative. However, the kid rock jump was impressive just before he skipped up to the podium

[Art Vandelay]

I went to a Romney campaign event yesterday and was a little rattled by it. It does make sense though, since they are kind of Detroit or whatever, and Kid Rock is republican/conservative. However, the kid rock jump was impressive just before he skipped up to the podium

Who is Romney's Joe C? Is Perot still alive?

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I went to a Romney campaign event yesterday and was a little rattled by it. It does make sense though, since they are kind of Detroit or whatever, and Kid Rock is republican/conservative. However, the kid rock jump was impressive just before he skipped up to the podium

Did Romney do some fist pumps to the beat of the Kid Rock song?

[SeattleUte]

From Instapundit:



In fairness, Mo Udall was a lapsed Mormon who said he left the church over the priesthood ban.

Wait a minute. I thought Harold Bloom was a great fan of Mormons.

For the record, I'm a great fan of Bloom's, but I thought that article in the Times about Romney was nonsense. He got it backwards. As a politician Romney has been as successful as he has been becasue he's assimilated. He's to Mormons what Obama has become to black activists. There's nothing to fear from him in terms of religious silliness or extremism. There's much more to fear in that regard from every other Republican candidate except for Jon Huntsman.

Actually, much of what Bloom has written about Mormons is nonsense. If you read his writings on Joseph Smith and Mormons closely, you see that his admiring statements about JS (that he's a "religious genius" and so forth) all arise from the King Follett Discourse. Otherwise, he thinks the Book of Mormon is crappy literature, and cites it as exhibit A that Joseph Smith was a poor writer, he lumps Mormons in with other U.S. born faiths like Southern Baptists and SDAs. He certainly has no illusions that the Book of Mormon is an ancient record (sorry ChinoCoug, just being honest).

I do know he did a favor for Teryl Givens and gave him a blurb for one of his books that really says nothing but ChinoCoug regards as exegesis of the Book of mormon.

[LA Ute]

[YOUTUBE]SvxDzS7B774&feature=player_embedded[/YOUTUBE]