Over at The American Scene, Ross Douthat asks:
Is America ready for a Latter-Day Saint as President?
The Latter-Day Saint in question is Mitt Romney, who's now being floated as a potential Republican nominee in 2008.
My answer -- why not? In an age of hyphenates and cafeteria-religionists, it's going to happen sooner or later that candidates will fall outside of the officially-anointed "mainstream." Mormons today, JuBus tomorrow.
And those candidates will be accepted -- if, and it's a big if, they're direct and sincere about what they believe, and why they believe it. Sincere conviction and direct speech are so rare -- and so valued -- that they trump any particular religious affiliation. The candidate who says, "I'm a Mormon and this is what I think, and this is how I observe -- what about you?" will do better than the one who says, "Well, I go to church occasionally but I have beliefs that extend outside of church, which are sort of like the ones in church but not entirely, and I know that other people have other beliefs, which I try to understand except it's hard to understand..."
I'm not really talking here about religious affiliation -- I'm talking about good communications practice. Stand up as an individual human being, with particular viewpoints, and people will respond. Try to be multiple things to multiple people, and they won't -- because at that point you don't sound like a person, you sound like a corporation.
Case in point -- Rudy Giuliani as a communicator. Giuliani was at his best when he was at his most direct and particular. "More than we can possibly bear" -- his answer to a question about casualty count on the evening of September 11 -- is an example, one sentence that says, "we're approaching this on a human level and on that level, you're asking the wrong question." Can you imagine a fear-driven corporate officer, or a poll-driven candidate, answering that way?
Even more telling -- and now, let's bring this back to religion -- was Rudy as Yankee fan. He never made any bones about rooting for the Yankees. It was his background, it was his childhood, it was who he was. A lesser communicator -- and we've had plenty of them -- would have hedged. "There are two great teams in this great city, and what matters is that the people of this great city have a great team, and whoever wins we're all winners..." No, none of that. I root for the Yankees. Get used to it.
I, a Met fan, always respected him for it.
So, Milt and the Mormons and the JuBus -- bring it on.
Just stand up and tell us who you are.
UPDATE: I should add, for those who are wondering, that I'm by no mean endorsing Romney or his positions. My point is that the electorate will be more tolerant of a wider range of views than the punditocracy likes to think, and that in general, the electorate prefers plain speaking to corporatespeak. How the electorate feels about particular views is another matter -- but that's as it should be. There's bound to be opposition to Romney -- but I don't think most of it will be the result of his Mormonism as such.
FURTHER UPDATE: More here.
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