Can Romney Win the Presidency?

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

This coming Saturday, South Carolina will hold its Republican Party primary. The candidates include Mitt Romney, who was victorious in Iowa and New Hampshire; Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, two social conservative Christians, and the more secular Newt Gingrich.

Last week, more than 100 evangelical Christian conservatives gathered in Texas and voted overwhelmingly to rally behind Santorum, to create a united front against Romney. Their problem? Romney's Mormon faith.

Romney is a sixth-generation member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as the denomination founded in the 19th century by Joseph Smith is officially known.

Mormons consider themselves Christians. However, the theological differences between Mormonism and traditional Christianity are so fundamental, experts say, that they encompass the very understanding of God and Jesus, what counts as Scripture, and what happens when people die.

The Mormon Church maintains that in the early 1800s, its first prophet, Joseph Smith, had revelations that restored Christianity to its true path. He bequeathed to his church volumes of revelations, including the sacred Book of Mormon, which includes an appearance by Jesus in the Americas shortly after his resurrection.

But no other Christian denomination has ever accepted divine revelations that go beyond the two Biblical testaments. After all, Muslims, too, recognize the entire Christian and Jewish Bible as divinely inspired, but also consider the Quran to be the final word of God as revealed to the prophet Muhammad.

Persecuted by other Americans - Smith himself was lynched by a mob in 1844 - the Mormons trekked across the American Great Plains under the leadership of Brigham Young in 1847, and created their own "Zion" by the Great Salt Lake in today's Utah (then still Mexican territory).

Romney's mother comes from Utah, but his father was born in a Mormon colony in Mexico. He is descended from Mormons who came to the Chihuahua desert in 1885 seeking refuge from American anti-polygamy laws.

Polygamy continued in the Mexican colonies after church elders officially banned it in the U.S. in 1890. It was the only way Utah was able to attain statehood six years later.

When it comes to the matter of his faith, Romney's time as a young missionary during his two and a half years in France was apparently pivotal. In a new book, "The Real Romney," Boston Globe journalists Michael Kranish and Scott Helman write that, "Having begun his mission with what he called thin ties to the faith, he became a stalwart believer."

In South Carolina, where about 60 per cent of Republican voters are evangelical Christian Protestants, Romney, a former bishop in the church, faces an electorate that, in many cases, considers Romney's faith apostasy.

It's possible that Romney will overcome this and other hurdles and become the Republican nominee in next November's presidential election. But unless the U.S. economy is at that time in a deep depression, he will lose to President Obama.

Secular people who don't care about any of this are more likely to be Democrats anyhow, whereas the evangelical backbone of much of the Republican Party will, in large numbers, find Romney's faith too hard to ignore.

They won't vote for Obama either, but they'll stay home in large numbers. (Of course African-American evangelicals will vote for Obama.)

In a sense, for many voters, bigotry (objecting to Romney due to his religion) will trump racism (opposing Obama because he is African-American) when they go to the polls.