A Mormon machine: Mitt’s mistake?

October 23, 2006

With Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) running for president, it’s not at all surprising that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) would be excited about a church member being a top-tier candidate. That said, as a legal, moral, and even spiritual matter, the church and the presidential campaign can’t be the same thing. It’s not altogether clear Romney and LDS remember this.

Last week, the Boston Globe reported that Romney’s campaign has begun coordinating with the church on a behind-the-scenes mobilization plan, involving church leadership, BYU, and Romney’s political action committee. On the record, everyone involved denied any scheme was underway. Behind closed doors, however, a picture of legally-dubious coordination emerges.

Despite repeated denials by the Mormon Church and Governor Mitt Romney’s advisers, e-mails from a key Romney consultant state that the leader of the worldwide church was consulted on an effort to build Mormon support for the governor’s potential presidential bid and that a key church leader has been involved in mapping out the plan. One e-mail also describes Romney’s personal involvement in the planning.

The Globe reported Thursday that Romney’s political team had quietly discussed the plan with officials from the church and church-run Brigham Young University and that Gordon B. Hinckley, president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was made aware of the effort and had no opposition.

A church spokesman said last week that it was nonsense to suggest church leaders were working in any way to aid Romney’s political campaign, adding that Hinckley did not know of the Romney initiative to build a nationwide network of Mormon supporters. But a Sept. 8 e-mail from Romney’s Utah-based political consultant, Don Stirling, states that Hinckley and James E. Faust, the church’s third-highest ranking leader, knew about the effort from another church leader, Jeffrey R. Holland, who had been in close consultation with Romney operatives about it.

An email between the CEO of a church-owned book company recounted a meeting with Romney’s son Josh and Kem Gardner, a major backer of Romney’s, in which church leaders were “designated” certain roles in the campaign.

Oops.

This is a problem for a few reasons. First, the emails obtained by the Boston Globe suggest the campaign and some church officials have been, shall we say, less than honest about possible coordination. With the emails in the newspaper, earlier denials are more than embarrassing; they’re damaging to the credibility of everyone involved.

Second, there’s the non-inconsequential matter of federal tax law.

The problem with the plan is that it relies on the active participation of officials at the church and at BYU, both tax-exempt entities. As the Globe reported, “The president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gordon B. Hinckley, has been informed of the effort and expressed no opposition…. Jeffrey R. Holland, one of 12 apostles who help lead the church worldwide, has handled the initiative for the church and hosted a Sept. 19 meeting in his office in church headquarters with one of Romney’s sons, a paid political consultant for the PAC, and one of the governor’s major donors. On Oct. 9, two deans of the Marriott School sent an e-mail from a BYU e-mail address asking 150 people to join them in supporting Romney’s potential candidacy.”

Continued the Globe, “Asked if he thought the use of church and university resources for political purposes posed a potential conflict with federal law on tax-exempt institutions, Romney said: ‘That’s for them to describe. I don’t have anything to add from what they have already said on that.'”

Gotta love Romney’s attitude — the church is flouting IRS regulations, but that’s not his problem.

And third, it’s not doing Romney any political favors. Mormons are one of the nation’s largest growing faith groups, but there are lingering concerns about the church, particularly among evangelical Christians.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy made it clear that he supported a clear separation of church and state, and told voters that his Catholic faith was independent of his political and professional life. In 2006, Mitt Romney’s campaign is meeting behind closed doors, trying to get his church to help boost his chances?

Carpetbagger- Ssssssssshhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Darn, don’t break these stories until closer to election time! I don’t want to have a perfectly shreddable candidate not receive the Republican nomination in 2008! I mean, God forbid they actually came up with a non-corrupt candidate…

  • Barak Obama has a better shot at getting the GOP nomination than Mitt Romney does. This going to be one of those media driven candidacies that goes absolutely nowhere once the GOP rank and file weighs in.

  • Nothing will fire up the fundies like a Mormon who does not realize the importance of teh seperaton of church and state. I can’t wait to hear the Dobsons and the Fallwells rant and whine about the Mormon church’s involvement in Romney’s campaign.

    From what I understand, the church is used to getting its way in Utah because the majority, who are all members of the church) look the other way. I doubt teh other 49 states will look as kindly on this.

    McCain vs Romney vs Warner. Hawks vs 1/4 of teh religious nuts vs the redneck racists. Should go well for the GOP.

  • Wow…the possibility of the IRS stripping the Mormons of their tax-exempt status is…well…like I said, “wow.”

    I cannot believe that they would be so STUPID as to concoct this plan from their HQ facilities, not to mention bringing BYU into the picture. Apparently, the mo’rons (that blasted “m” key keeps slipping) lack the ability to appreciate the potential fiduciary liabilities to their “movement….”

  • As a “jack-mormon*” (akin to a “recovering catholic”), I’m not surprised at all. The church is a political machine as much as anything. I lived in the heart of Salt Lake City for eight years, part of that time as a “good mormon boy”, from when I moved there in my teenage years and before I came out. (Trust me, you don’t really want to come out in SLC, or live there, if you can help it.)

    The church is a typical xtian cult that does everything it can to control your beliefs, actions, ideology, etc. But then again, I think any organized religion is a cult, doing the pretty much the same thing.

    I hope this whole thing blows up in his face, and the the mormon church goes down in flames with him.

    *NOTE: I do not capitalize any references to deity or organized religion(s) unless it is at the beginning of a sentence.

  • If I may naively ask, what would the LDS church hope to gain by having a member in the White House? Apart from some sympathy for Utah’s arguments for counting overseas missionaries come the 2010 census, there aren’t any. None that can be spoken of openly, of course.

  • Gott mitt(R) uns?

    I can understand that candidates have to claim to be “Christians”, but when they go the extra mile and are fringe Chrisitians it raises the alarms. The Mormons don’t exactly have a good rep as an open and honest organization.

    This gives Mitt one strike for extremism one strike for conspiracy and one strike for being a Republican. You know what that means. Throw the bum out.

  • But how inspiring the White House would look topped with an uplifting statue of the Angel Moroni blowing his horn.

  • Mitt’s attitude reminds me that there should be a solicitation law for politicians who try to get non-profits to cross the line against politicking.

  • And this is different from the Catholic Bishops putting out slanted election flyers (referencing Abortion, Euthenasia and Stem Cell Research but not Executions?) or any Evangelical Minister supporting Boy George II from the pulpit exactly how?

    That Mitt though, he is an idiot. To say he has no concern about his church losing its tax-exempt status because of what he’s asked it to do…

    I’ve got to go with DDD on this. Mitt can’t win the nomination or the election. Hillary and Barack have better chances. And now I think that is deservedly so.

  • This partly explains why Mitt likes to send (other folk’s) children on “missions” to Iraq…

    Comment by koreyel

    LOL Aw jeez I can picture them riding their bicycles door to door in Baghdad.

    Although they would probably send their Samoan converts to do their fighting for them.

  • Let’s all hope and pray that Mitt is the GOP candidate in ’08. I’ve been watching him here in the Commonwealth for the last three years, and let me tell you, a greater stiff there never was born. His pansified country club pedegree and spray-hardened hair helmet will not fly in the south. He’s a complete and total wuss. A corporate suit from the Ivy League. A fan of doubles tennis and yaughting, the uptight son of a Senator.

    Besides, the fundies will see right through him. This was a guy who said he would not restrict abortions in Massachusetts. Who said he would not oppose gay marriage. The sheen will come off.

  • How about the “other side”?

    The Globe has gone too far with their editorial this morning. They follow-up lousy reporting that was filled with unfounded accusations with a “return and repent” editorial guided to Romney himself and the LDS Church . . . both who are the blameless groups in this whole affair.

    My takes are here (reverse chronology)
    http://iowansforromney.blogspot.com/2006/10/boston-globes-pious-view-on-religion.html
    http://iowansforromney.blogspot.com/2006/10/globe-really-digs-in-now-sinks-to.html
    http://iowansforromney.blogspot.com/2006/10/globe-digs-in-speculative-accusations.html
    http://iowansforromney.blogspot.com/2006/10/follow-up-on-globe-article-theyre.html

    Keep attacking Romney . . . you better get used to it. He’s going to be your next POTUS.

  • “Keep attacking Romney . . . you better get used to it. He’s going to be your next POTUS.” – Jeff Fuller

    You smoking boy?

    Why in God’s name would Iowans want Mitt Romney to be President? Have you so demeaned your own region that you would want a North-Eastern Republican’t?

  • Well damnit, if any black tie wearing biker Aryans come to my door pushing their religion and Romney I will drape their bruised and battered bodies over Gideon’s trumpet atop the local Morman Temple. (Those of you who live in/near DC may know it as the Surrender Dorothy building.)

    Maybe Mitt the Mutt figures if it worked for Shrubya, it will work for him. Uh-uh. Sorry. Like it or not, CLDS is still regarded as too odd by most folks. Can you see the Daily Show going to work on this? They could show two blond guys standing in an open door. The caption “Mitt wants to put a pair of these on every door step in America.”

    Faretheewell political aspirations.

    In addition, until recently, CLDS openly and proudly discriminated against African-Americans (and perhaps other brown types). Unless Mitt has a plan to keep every non-Mormon from voting, he can hang it up right now.

  • Why in God’s name would Iowans want Mitt Romney to be President? Have you so demeaned your own region that you would want a North-Eastern Republican’t? Lance – Post #15

    Most of christendom doesn’t trust the mormon church or its adherents. Hell, the evangelicals don’t think catholics are xtian, why should they think that mormons are xtian, especially since they don’t believe that jesus is god, but only the son of god??

    Mitt as prez?? Wishful thinking for the mormon church–just another group wanting to impose their theology on the rest of the world.

  • Interesting (perhaps unrelated) factoid. President Bush met with the Mormon Church leaders a few weeks ago. Actually have a photo on White House website (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/images/20060831-1_g015517-515h.html

    The meeting was more likely related Brigham Young University’s punishing physics professor, Steven E. Jones, for his scientific analysis of steel from the World Trade Center that showed signs of Thermite…an explosive used in demolition. They placed him on leave within a couple days of the meeting with Bush. Interesting coincidence.

    But hey, maybe they had time to chat about Romney, too.

  • An interesting back and forth. Where do I start?

    First, any mormon political candidate pinning his hopes to a mormon-dominated campaign would be absolutely insane. Any lucid advisor would tell Romney that. That is the first obvious faux-pas in the Globe mini-series. Sorry for all you in Salt Lake but Utah is not the center of the Universe, and the LDS church holds little clout outside that state. Having lived there myself I don’t ever remember the LDS church becoming involved in politics beyond defending the purchase of land to maintain the downtown core of Salt Lake from becoming a shanty town around its head offices. That caused a lot of political back and forth because the church wanted to keep the land open to the public as a flower garden or something, but wanted to inhibit people from lewd behavior and probably protesting.

    Second, the emails in the Globe are all written by one person. Don Stirling, who, as he and the Romney camp admit, got over the tips of his skis with his comments and assertions. There are no “back and forth” emails anywhere to indicate dialogue. It’s only Stirling penning his thoughts, hopes, requests and “pipe” dreams. So from what I’ve read, the denials from the LDS church do not contradict anything except this Stirling guy’s own comments that he has since retracted. He will probably soon be demoted to a minor role within the Commonwealth PAC after this weighty mistake.

    Third, the Globe tacitly implies that this is an IRS violation already in progress but we have no evidence that:

    1. Romney is a Candiate for anything.
    2. The LDS Church has advocated anything on behalf of Romney’s PAC. All we have are two BYU (a separate non-profit university) deans that foolishly sent out support letters, and were then reprimanded by the school’s general counsel.
    3. The meeting with Jeffrey Holland about the possible use of the Management Society Chapters (chapters that are not affiliated with the LDS church or BYU, but are entirely separate) as a grass-roots campaign network, constitutes church endorsement, nor could it as they are arms length institutions.
    4. The Deseret Book Company (a wholly church-owned publishing company) offered, committed to, or agreed to endorse any political candidacy, despite the email that Stirling sent to Dew asking for her support.

    On the subject of the separation of Church and State, this is even more comical considering that the provision was never intended to keep church out of government, but entirely the other way around, to keep the government out of churches. We all know that Reverends Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton effectively used their religious status as bulwarks to mounts political campaigns, and I applaud them for that.

    Here, the LDS Church is not exercising its constitutional right to endorse anything or anyone, but it could if it wanted to, it would just have to change its charter as a non-profit organization. I don’t think that it would do that for any candidate, and I think that a church that counts Harry Reid and Jim Matheson as well as Orrin Hatch and Mitt Romney as members is large enough in its scope so as to not to want to endorse one political party over another.

  • Oh for pity’s sake, I know the denial by the “church” was pro forma, but give people a little credit for believing the obvious.

  • Here, the LDS Church is not exercising its constitutional right to endorse anything or anyone, but it could if it wanted to, it would just have to change its charter as a non-profit organization.
    Comment by sloagm

    Yeah, or have it changed for them by the IRS. That’s what we’re talking about here. They gave up their “constitutional rights” by becoming a non-profit. They seem to be trying to circumvent that.

  • Ds>Rs: see items 1 through 4 of sloagm’s post on the supposed endorsement. I think that was covered there. The intent of my comments that you reference was just explaining that it is not unconstitutional for a religious body to support a candidate, it is only forbidden on a tax level, which I fully understand, and which you point out as well. I do not believe the LDS church is complicit on either level. On the other hand, if Mitt were a candidate when the two BYU deans sent out those letters BYU could have possibly come under scrutiny. However, due to their independence as tax-exempt organizations that would not likely flow back to the LDS church.

    ET: Please elaborate on “the obvious.”

  • sloagm
    by obvious I guess I meant that of course the Mormon church was going to get involved, isn’t it the trend today for the religious hierarchy of whatever faith, to get behind politicians they support?

  • ET – I suppose that’s true, but most of the groups I think you may be referring to exist as political entities unto themselves. You may be referring to groups like the “Christian Coalition” or the “Moral Majority.” On that front, these groups have become extremely powerful political organizations, and their hierarchies often overlap with prominent religious figures. To my knowledge the LDS church has never advocated, supported, or solicited for these political groups or any other political group, nor does the church have (to my knowledge) any officer participating in one of these politically motivated organizations. I’m certain that these groups and the mormon church have had similar opinions on some social issues, but the political groups have a much broader political agenda. After all, that is the reason they exist.

  • More like a moron machine, am I right?

    Sorry.

    I know I should resist the easy ones, but…

  • Mormon mythology holds that a time will come when the constitution of the United States will hang by a brittle thread and the fathers of the church (or maybe the sons, I forget which) will rise up to save it. So they’ve been waiting 150 years on that one. But much as the constitution has taken some pretty serious body blows from this president and his pet congress, looking at their approval ratings in Utah I somehow doubt the Mormons’ definition of “hanging by a thread” and “saving” have much in common with mine here in this century.

  • All those things that the Baptists were afraid of in 1960 with John F. Kennedy are Fears Grounded In Fact with a Mormon candidate. The Mormon church is a totalitarian theocracy, and there is no way in hell that Romney or any other candidate from dog catcher on up can be “independent” of the church without risking excommunication.

    The Church doesn’t even have to do anything overt to support Romney’s candidacy. Every Mormon in the country knows their duty come election day without being told a thing.

    This is one case where the fundamentalists are right – even if for “wrong” reasons – the theocratic autocracy is enough to make this organization more dangerous than any bunch of bozos on the Religious Right.

  • Tom must be suffering from an excess of sacramental Kool Aid. Harry Reid isn’t likely to be voting for Mitt, nor will anyone else, regardless of religious affiliation, who disagree with Mitt’s pandering to the religious wrong.

  • Tom and the other self-satisfied people on this page need to research more and indulge their conspiratorial fanstasies less. The LDS Church has just this year told the media and Church members that, despite what some individual members might think, it is desireable to have affiliations with both major US political parties represented among Church membership, that voting as a bloc is discouraged (except for a few key issues, such as protecting marriage, gambling, etc), and that even implying Church endorsement of a political candidate (or potential candidate, in the case of Mitt Romney) is forbidden. The Church’s biggest concens lie outside the US, with huge growth in developing countries, and getting its hands dirty in a US presidential campaign is the last thing Church leaders would ever want. Get a clue. This Globe story is all smoke and no fire.

  • People like me who favor separation of church and state often are ridiculed for claiming that it protects the church as well as the state. But this is a, and perhaps the, perfect example. If the LDS Church crosses the lines bounding the legal behavior of certain kinds of tax-exempt organizations, *it*, and not necessarily the candidate, suffers the legal and financial penalties.

  • Well this guy http://www.absoluteproofthebook.com says he has absolute proof that the book of mormon is a fake. I have searched and found one review of a mormon who said it convinced him it was a fake. He is also offering $100,000 to Mitt Romeny if he can “prove his work wrong”. There is no way Mitt is going to get away from his Mormon connection. I am sure this kind of thing will just be the beginning.

  • I do know quite a bit about the Mormon Church and the way they operate. The Mormon Church was in the middle of this. They have been involved in this type of thing in the past, three times of which I have personal knowledge.

    There are some things that scare me about Romney’s connection to the Mormon Church. First is their desire for blind obedience. Here are a couple of quotes from their current leaders:

    “Obedience is a fundamental law of the gospel. It is not only the demonstration of our faith but also the foundation of our faith. Unquestioning obedience to the Lord indicates that a person has developed faith and trust in Him to the point where he or she considers all inspired instruction — whether it be recorded scripture or the words of modern prophets — to be worthy of obedience.”
    – Elder Robert Oaks, “Believe All Things,” Ensign, July 2005, page 30

    “On this occasion I am not going to talk about the good or bad of Prohibition but rather of uncompromising loyalty to the Church.” “How grateful, my brethren, I feel, how profoundly grateful for the tremendous faith of so many Latter-day Saints who, when facing a major decision on which the Church has taken a stand, align themselves with that position. And I am especially grateful to be able to say that among those who are loyal are men and women of achievement, of accomplishment, of education, of influence, of strength-highly intelligent and capable individuals.”
    – President Gordon B. Hinckley. “Loyalty,” April Conference, 2003.

    Now the oath of loyalty that he has made to the Mormon Church:

    It is that you do consecrate yourselves, your time, talents and everything which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the Kingdom of God on the earth and for the establishment of Zion.

    To my knowledge, they have not called on him to fulfill his committment, but there is no question about where his committment lies.

  • Mitt would have to totally clarify how he sees himself. Does he see himself as a god who is supposed to rule the earthly scum? Does his holy underwear ever wear out. This is a religion that is so secretive you cant have your relatives to the wedding. Can he really govern just ordinary people who live on this earth?

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