If Romney becomes leader of the republican party?

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If Romney becomes leader of the republican party is this good or bad for the Mormon church

 
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_Hoops
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Re: If Romney becomes leader of the republican party?

Post by _Hoops »

sock puppet wrote: ... a Romney nomination will further marginalize the Republican Party ...

?
_Hoops
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Re: If Romney becomes leader of the republican party?

Post by _Hoops »

EAllusion wrote:Great long-term. Once Romney becomes the nominee, the Republican propaganda machine will get behind him full force. And once that happens, fundamentalist evangelicals will be exposed to defenses of Mormons and Mormonism as an acceptable part of the big tent from sources they are heavily influenced by.

Laughably simplistic. But maybe that's the nature of discussion boards. I wonder, do you even know any republicans or evangelicals?
_EAllusion
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Re: If Romney becomes leader of the republican party?

Post by _EAllusion »

Hoops wrote:Laughably simplistic. But maybe that's the nature of discussion boards. I wonder, do you even know any republicans or evangelicals?

Well, I am working on the campaign of a Republican candidate for president, so I guess I know a few.

And yes, I'm pretty confident my statement is correct. Once a candidate has sealed the nomination, Republican propaganda sources like Fox News will get fully behind Romney. They did with McCain despite McCain not being a traditional favorite of movement conservatives. Part of this is necessarily going to include making sure evangelicals disaffected with his Mormon status don't stay home on election day because of this. Fundamentalist evangelicals make up about 25% of self-identified Republicans and as a group are overwhelmingly Republican. They are disproportionately influential in determining the tenor and content of Republican messaging. They also are by far the largest group to hold religious antipathy towards Mormons. That group viewing LDS as part of the "tent" will be a boon to LDS. There is also very powerful evidence that right-wing media and Republican leadership holds a significant amount of sway over self-identified Republican opinion. Witness the massive shift in conservative religious opinion on the acceptability of torture for a modern example of how that can happen because of the particulars of contemporary political events.

It will be helpful to Mormons for Romney to be the nominee because it will help media that is influential on evangelicals better persuade them to be accepting of Mormons. Partisan loyalty will provide an assist. I stand by that.

If you think that religious opinions on outside faiths can't change simply because of political shifts, look at conservative evangelicals relationship with Judaism. It wasn't that long ago it was highly anti-Semitic. Now they are rabidly pro-Isreal and anti-semiticism has become a marginal thing.
_The Dude
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Re: If Romney becomes leader of the republican party?

Post by _The Dude »

EAllusion wrote:Well, I am working on the campaign of a Republican candidate for president, so I guess I know a few.


Huntsman?
"And yet another little spot is smoothed out of the echo chamber wall..." Bond
_sock puppet
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Re: If Romney becomes leader of the republican party?

Post by _sock puppet »

EAllusion wrote:Once a candidate has sealed the nomination, Republican propaganda sources like Fox News will get fully behind Romney. They did with McCain despite McCain not being a traditional favorite of movement conservatives.

My impression is that Fox News did not get behind McCain. Fox News held its nose re McCain, only slightly liking preferring him over Obama. When it looked by mid-September '08 like Obama had overtaken McCain in the polling, Fox News ratcheted up its anit-Obama rhetoric, but I don't recall much pro-McCain.

O'Reilly, Hannity, Hume, and a few others on Fox News have been in the tank for Romney since 2007, and they yet are.

74-75% of likely Republican primary voters prefer almost anyone but Romney. Whichever flavor of the month. Gingrich is building slow momentum in the background, reminiscent of McCain at this time in 2007.
_EAllusion
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Re: If Romney becomes leader of the republican party?

Post by _EAllusion »

Gary Johnson, Dude.

.5% or bust!
_Jason Bourne
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Re: If Romney becomes leader of the republican party?

Post by _Jason Bourne »

sock puppet wrote:Boy, if Mormons think GBH was a deer in the headlights when Larry King asked if Mormons believed God was once a man like we are now, just wait until they see how TSM ducks questions like that. It could come across like this.


TSM does not do interviews. He has not done one since his first new conference when he became church pres.

I think if Romney is president it will make little difference for the Mormon Church.
_Jason Bourne
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Re: If Romney becomes leader of the republican party?

Post by _Jason Bourne »

EAllusion wrote:They also are by far the largest group to hold religious antipathy towards Mormons.


I think there are actually many EVS behind Romney and more will get behind him if he is the nominee. Course some never will. So I think your conclusion is incorrect other than perhaps the work religious. The group that holds the most antipathy towards Mormons is the seclular left. The Bill Maher types.
_sock puppet
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Re: If Romney becomes leader of the republican party?

Post by _sock puppet »

Jason Bourne wrote:
sock puppet wrote:Boy, if Mormons think GBH was a deer in the headlights when Larry King asked if Mormons believed God was once a man like we are now, just wait until they see how TSM ducks questions like that. It could come across like this.


TSM does not do interviews. He has not done one since his first new conference when he became church pres.

I think if Romney is president it will make little difference for the Mormon Church.

The media will just drill down to lower levels of LDS leaders until they get interviews, and the gems will just roll off of their tongues, playing over and over in the news loops.
_EAllusion
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Re: If Romney becomes leader of the republican party?

Post by _EAllusion »

I think there are actually many EVS behind Romney and more will get behind him if he is the nominee. Course some never will. So I think your conclusion is incorrect other than perhaps the work religious. The group that holds the most antipathy towards Mormons is the seclular left. The Bill Maher types.


There are many evangelicals who don't have a problem with Mormons or enough of a problem to dissuade them from supporting Romney. It just so happens that when you want the largest non-exotically constructed demographic of people who will describe themselves as distrustful of Mormons, that's where you need to look. That's clearly due to the influence of seeing Mormonism as a religion subversive to "true" Christianity. Depending on how you are defining it, the "secular left" doesn't fair as well because it's a smaller group and contains a lot of people who are apathetic (perhaps because they don't single out Mormons in particular) about the matter. I've seen a few polls on this. I'll try to hunt one down later.
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