Mitt Romney: Governor of Massachusetts, native son of Michigan, Utah defender of the faith and progeny of polygamous family connections of the Mormon past. Mitt may end up as the Republican nominee due to his deep connection to the Mormon Church and their clannish commitment to each other in the primary season. One thing is easy to surmise, the Mormon Church wants the Mitt presidency and will apparently wield its considerable influence to attain this long standing goal, the Presidency of the United States. See how after the fold...
This has been a goal of the Mormons since Joseph Smith, Mormon Church founder ran for US President in 1844. Source Source
Mormons tend to be Republican. Mormon Church leaders ARE Republican. Now there will be some in the comments section who will discredit this idea as not so, but the evidence is mounting again. I say again because this political connection to the Republicans goes back to 1896 when Utah became a state. Reed Smoot was elected to the US Senate and the Protestants in Utah attempted to have his seating blocked in the Senate because of his polygamous practices in violation of the Edmunds Act. So important was his seating to the Mormon Church, that Mormon church President Wilford Woordruff perjured himself before the Senate Committee investigating these charges concerning the church practices of polygamy post 1890 (the date the Mormons claim to have abandoned polygamy). Source Mitt Romney is tightly connected to top Mormon leaders and sometime by direct family relationships.
The Mormon Church has learned its lessons along the way as well. The Church now takes a decidedly back room approach to politics may be as a result of the 1936 "New Deal" Election for FDR. How did Mormon Leadership deal with the 1936 election?
"Church attempts to influence Deseret News readers have sometimes backfired. During the 1936 presidential campaign, Church President Heber J. Grant (who detested the Democrats’ New Deal policies) had another member of the Church’s First Presidency write an unsigned editorial accusing Franklin D. Roosevelt of ‘knowingly promoting unconstitutional laws and... advocating communism,’ among other things. The editorial outraged Mormon voters. Many saw the conservative hand of the Church presidency in the editorial; over seventy percent of the letters sent to the First Presidency office soon after its publication condemned the editorial. One historian noted that over 1,200 Latter-day Saints canceled their subscriptions to the Deseret News because of the editorial. It had clearly caused a backlash, and a few days after its publication, 69.3 percent of Utah’s votes went for Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (see D. Michael Quinn, J. Reuben Clark: The Church Years, p. 75)."
- John Heinerman and Anson Shule, The Mormon Corporate Empire, p. 38
Blow ups like this where it became obvious that the political interests of the rank file Mormon were not in sync with the General Authorities are black eyes that the Church wises to avoid. The answer: take politics back to the back rooms – the same back rooms that protected and fostered polygamy. Back rooms filled with high church leadership, stake presidents and volunteer adjunctive organizations like the Freeman Institute to reshape thinking. Source
Additional reshaping by controlling history and political thought within the church by purging academics with alternative views at BYU and paying millions to a world class forger that claimed to have a letter that Joseph Smith received revelations from a salamander.
Not until the election of Eisenhower did the top church hierarchy take a prominent national role when Apostle Ezra Taft Benson and closeted John Birch Society loyalist become the Secretary of Agriculture. Years later Benson would offer the following opinion:
"In February 1974 Apostle Ezra Taft Benson was asked during an interview if a good Mormon could also be a liberal Democrat. Benson pessimistically replied: ‘I think it would be very hard if he was living the gospel and understood it.’"
- John Heinerman and Anson Shule, The Mormon Corporate Empire, p. 142
This well publicized comment made at BYU reverberated through Utah in the midst of freshman liberal Democratic Congressman Wayne Owens (and Mormon) running for the Senate seat left vacant by Wallace Bennett. In a close race, Owens was defeated by future spacemen and Mayor of Slat Lake City, Jake Garn. Many attributed Benson’s comment as a leading reason for the defeat of Wayne Owens. This impacted me in a big way. In 1972 I worked on the McGovern Campaign in Utah and opposed the Vietnam War. In 1973, I went on a Mormon mission only to learn Benson did not believe that I was not a good Mormon – well as it turns out Benson was right.
As a committed liberal I just went on supporting liberal causes and working for Democrats. In 1976, I was working for Scott Matheson for Democratic candidate for Utah Governor. On October 23, 1976, eleven days before the election, the Mormon Church decided it opposed the Equal Rights Amendment a positioned supported by Matheson. On October 25, 1976 Vernon Romney (a second cousin to Mitt through a polygamous family relationship and high church official Marion Romney Source) ran anti ERA advertisements in a desperate attempt to win the election against the popular Democrat. I always thought it was so uncanny that the Republican Romeny had "an ad in the can" ready to promote the surprizing political "morality" position on the ERA. Seems he may have had some inside knowlege from Uncle Marion.
Also in that election (as an aside but not to be underestimated in importance), carpetbagger Orrin Hatch and his tool evil minion Mac Haddow, (both from Homestead, Pennsylvania) recreated the Republican Party in their image through the use of church phone directories and a campaign of American exceptionalism – a theme and core belief of the Mormon faith. For those of you from Utah, can we ever forget Elaine Hatch’s cookie recipe and screed against the Panama Canal "give-away"? Brilliant
So now comes Mitt. The Mormon Leadership has successfully, through the years reconfigured their political message and methods to achieve business success and connection, right wing viewpoints on the constitution and reshaped the delivery of the message though paid lobbyists in the Utah Capitol (as if that were even necessary) and extreme American jingoism. The back room of Mormonism is commanded and controlled by moneyed interests and Mitt is oneof them and the target for these millionaires. A very good article in the WaPo captured the essence of the fund raising effort:
It is the rare presidential candidate who comes to Idaho to raise money, but there was Mitt Romney last month, packing more than 100 people, at up to $2,300 a head, into the Crystal Ballroom in Boise....
snip
There was no great mystery why Romney was in town. The former Massachusetts governor is a Mormon, as are about one-quarter of Idaho residents, including Ipsen and many others who turned out for the lunchtime event. The fundraiser was bracketed by two others in the Mountain West: one in Las Vegas and another outside Phoenix. At both of those events, Mormons made up at least half the crowd, organizers said. Altogether, the two-day swing brought in well over $1 million for Romney. ...
Mormons are fueling his strong fundraising operation, which this week reported raising $21million, the most of any Republican candidate. Source
This is such a great article, I really encourage you to click the link and read it completely. The article captures in brief why the Mormon Church can deliver the nomination, in my opinion.
MORE
But based on the fundraising he conducted before this year, Romney's other sectors of support are likely to be dwarfed by the backing he is receiving from LDS members. Wealthy Mormons giving to Romney's PACs include the Marriotts, the Bethesda, Md.-based hotel family, who have given more than $390,000; the family of Jon Huntsman Sr., the owner of a major Utah chemical company, which has given more than $170,000; and the family of Utah Jazz owner Larry H. Miller, which has given $100,000.
Also giving heavily have been thousands of rank-and-file church members. After Romney last fall sent direct-mail solicitations to Republicans nationwide, his two biggest state-level PACs received 319 checks from Utah, ... a third of the total number of checks he received in the year's final quarter. In the same period, he received seven checks from Massachusetts, where he has lived more than 30 years.
Seven checks from Mass.?! OMG this is incredible and when looked at comparatively to Utah the only conclusion is that Mitt is the Mormon Candidate as "annointed" by the Mormon Leaders. Finally, Alec MacGillis recounts another telling story in this important article that demostrates the truth of this statement;
Romney's campaign edged against these boundaries last fall when Kem Gardner (and a former DEMOCRATIC candidate for Governor and big time former State Democratic Party contributor), a Utah developer whose family has given $140,000 to Romney's PACs, set up a meeting in Salt Lake City with a church apostle, a Romney consultant and one of Romney's sons. Documents obtained by the Boston Globe showed that the apostle, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland (and former controversial President of BYU), suggested promoting Romney via the alumni association of the business school at church-owned Brigham Young University, a group with 5,500 members in 40 chapters.
Days later, two deans from the business school sent an e-mail rallying support for Romney to 150 members of the school's advisory council and 50 chapter leaders of the alumni association, the Management Society. Because it is legally part of church-owned BYU, the society is also prohibited from backing candidates. After the Globe reported on the efforts in October, church leaders disavowed any campaign on Romney's behalf.
This is not an anti Mormon diary. Mormons individually and collectively are entitled to be as political as they wish. This is an anti Republican diary. Mormon Leaders are Republicans even tough they wish to disclaim a party allegiance as seen by President Hinckley’s interview with Larry King,
"The Church does not become involved in politics. We don’t favor any candidate. We don’t permit our buildings to be used for political purposes. We don’t favor any party."
- Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, Larry King Live, television program, Sept 8. 1998
The Mormon leadership disclaims it allegiance to assure the followers that they are objective and inspired. If the Leaders admitted their allegiance then they are nothing more than a "spoke on the wheel" to an external organization when it is the "hub" they need to be and convince their members of, as well. This is done by saying one thing but doing or being another.
So Cheney’s commencement address to BYU is nothing more than a homecoming and ...
If Larry King were a Senate Committee it would simply be perjury again.