Romney's Poll Numbers

According to a Fox News Poll taken between September 25th and September 27^th, Mitt Romney leads Texas governor Rick Perry 23%to 19%. This comes at a very turbulent time in the republican nomination campaigning season with self-proclaimed “dark horse” candidate Herman Cain obtaining an astonishing 17% in a recent Florida Straw poll. Romney was the lone front runner in the republican race before Rick Perry entered. Over the past month, Perry was able to build a massive amount of momentum rallying conservative evangelicals to support his socially conservative position. However, recent debates between the republican candidates set Perry and Romney apart from the rest. More recently, comparatively poor debate performance from Perry has helped Romney regain his initial lead.

The neck and neck race between Perry and Romney serves to highlight differences between the campaign dynamics of each candidate. Perry’s campaign is focused around cultivating support from the core of the Republican Party, Evangelicals, Protestants, and other socially conservative demographics. Romney, by contrast, has taken the more centrist position of the two candidates. While Perry’s prayer rallies have helped him garner support from evangelicals and protestants, Romney’s Massachusetts healthcare legislation may help him appeal to a very large demographic with very distinctive set of ideological beliefs.

Perry may appeal to the 23% of American’s who declare themselves Evangelical protestants, 85% of whom voted for McCain in the last election (all statics according to Fowler’s Religion and Politics in America), but RomneyCare theoretically gives Romney an advantage in wooing the 25% of Americans who define themselves as catholic. As Fowler notes, “unlike the majority of evangelicals, though white Catholics are not reliably republican because they reflect the distinctive catholic ideological blend of conservatism on abortion and other socio-moral issues and progressivism on other matters, such as health care, social safety nets, and environmental protection” (Fowler, 91-92). Perry may have an advantage in the evangelical demographic, a significant portion of whom, according to Gallup, would refuse to vote for a Mormon candidate, but Romney has the advantage of being pro-healthcare in the conservative catholic demographic.

This more moderate stance may be a reason why Romney consistently outpolls Perry in a race between the republican candidates and Obama.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/149612/voters-considering-romney-obama-perry.aspx

Romney and the Separation of Church and State

Mitt Romney addressed the issue of separation of church and state during his presidential campaign in December of 2007. Romney’s position on the issue can be summed up by the following excerpt from his speech (http://www.thebostonchannel.com/r/14789305/detail.html), “I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from ‘the God who gave us liberty.’” Romney’s speech was delivered in order to serve 2 purposes. Firstly, Romney needed to assure the public that as president of the US, he would not favor any specific religious denomination over another. Second, Romney needed to assure religious conservatives that despite his insistence on separating church from state, he would not implicitly combine the state with secular atheism. It is in this sense that we can consider Romney’s position somewhat of a mix between accomodationist and separatist.

As a devout Mormon, it was apparent that Religion played a significant role in Romney’s personal life. During the 2008 presidential campaign, it became clear that Romney’s religious affiliation with the relatively small church of the LDS would need to be addressed in order to quell the concerns of the electorate. One of these concerns is elaborated on by Fowler’s analysis, “the LDS church is political in several senses… Mormon leaders encourage involvement in politics and foster a setting where conservative values and politics are a way of life.”

Similar to John F Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1960, Romney’s presidential campaign was subject to questions about how personal religious affiliation should influence the actions of the president of the United States. And just as Kennedy “adopted a neutral stance toward religion in his role as chief executive” (Religion and the Presidency of John F. Kennedy, Carty), so too did Romney state that “no religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion.” Thus, Romney hoped to dispel rumors that his Mormon religious identity would dominate political decisions.

Despite their advocacy for the separation of church and state, both Romney and Kennedy were staunch supporters of the principles of civil religion. During Kennedy’s stint as president during the cold war, advocacy for civil religion and the encouragement of the expression of religious beliefs was seen as a tool to further distinguish the freedom and plurality of religious practice in the US from the blanket uniformity of atheism in the USSR. By contrast, Romney’s more modern support for the incorporation of civil religion is used as a tool to support the “great moral principles that urge us all on a common course.”

Romney's Religion: Is it an Issue in 2012?

Mitt Romney's childhood narrative is not unlike that of any typical devout Mormon follower. Romney was born in 1947 to a devout Mormon family in Detroit. Like his forefathers, he spent time as a Mormon missionary, dedicating nearly 30 months of his life to preaching Mormon beliefs in Paris. He was so successful that he was soon promoted to co-president of the mission, overseeing 175 followers. Romney even transferred from Stanford to the renowned Morman University of Brigham Young and graduated at the top of his class. Throughout his life, Romney has tithed millions of dollars to charity, predominately charities sponsored by the LDS.

However, despite the prevalence of religion throughout Romney's childhood and his continued observance in adulthood, Romney's campaign platform is completely secular. For example, on Romney's campaign website his faith is not mentioned at all. Furthermore, in an interview on Fox News Radio, his response to the question of whether or not religion will play a key role in the 2012 election is simply that he has already “put the issue to bed” and that he a “conservative business man” who can turn the economy around.

Romney’s answer to this question is representation of the political calculations made by him and his campaign staff. Though Romney says his religion is no longer an issue, a June Gallup poll revealed that 22% of people would refuse to vote for a Mormon presidential candidate. Clearly he and his campaign staff agree that even though American’s preach freedom and religious tolerance, in practice, one’s religion can be a major campaign liability. In order to win the republican presidential nomination, Romney must run as a secular conservative business man.

The reason Romney’s religious appearance remains crucial is that a key voting bloc of the Republican Party, evangelical Christians, has the power to determine which presidential candidate receives the nomination. In order to avoid alienating these constituents, Romney must continue to distance himself from the LDS.

http://thehill.com/video/campaign/182133-romney-mormon-religion-isnt-the-most-important-issue