Talk Elections

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/04/schweitzer-goes-where-dems-have-gone-on-romney-121114.html

Is it insensitive? Yes. Is it true? Also yes.

I think the Democrats have just found their nominee for 2016!

Go Schweitzer!

I wasn't expecting any Democrats to highlight the weird and sinister religion that Romney belongs to, so this is a pleasant surprise. Not sure it's good politics, though.

FF.

Romney's religion shouldn't be an issue in this election.  Its not right to attack someones religion, it's not American to attack someone's religion, and it's not a winnable issue in this election. I now have one less candidate to consider voting for in the 2016 primaries.

I didn't think he'd be the sort of person you would be majorly in favour of. That's partly because he's someone I really like.

He didn't attack him for his religion. He attacked him for his hypocrisy.

Nor is "polygamous commune in Mexico" (ie Americans going to Northern Mexico to both profit from and exacerbate general lawlessness there in the period) much of a salespoint with Mexicans, either.

I'd agree that it's not a winnable issue, unfortunately, but why on earth shouldn't someone's religious beliefs be open to criticism? Presumably they have at least some influence on how someone thinks and behaves.

This doesn't sound like an off the cuff comment to me. I have a hunch that Schweitzer's comment was planned, either by the Obama campaign or the DNC. They're using him as a surrogate to bring up the topic. Obama can denounce it and steer clear of any backlash while the issue still circulates and brings it into a national conversation.

Wow.  If it weren't for Schweitzer's position on marriage equality, maybe I'd actually be supporting him.  Maybe.

Schweitzer is pretty left wing for Montana. He tried to pass single payer last year with GOP state legisatives that are typical GOP when it comes to the issue of health care. He's also pretty libertarian as well, opposing gun control and the Real ID Act of 2005, which makes him good fit for the state without going all DINOish at the same time governing.

I am sure you all would b singing a different tune if some one brought up Obama's association with Ayers or Rev Wright...accusing of racism and bigotry. I am surprised that you all find it ok to attack a man's faith...

I look forward to the day you lose votes for saying you believe in nonsensical myths

Well, to be fair, that already happened...four years ago. And who said that every democrat approves of it? It looks like a lot of us don't. But the fact of the matter is that this kind of campaigning exists in every cycle. Democrats have usually been at the other end of it (i.e. Dukakis, Kerry, Obama). It was particularly nasty for Dukakis- being asked whether he would support the death penalty if his wife were raped and murdered, very sleazy stuff. Or the ridiculous rumor that Dukakis didn't support the pledge of allegiance. It looks like Mittens might be the one having to fight off brazen attacks this time.

I can't say I approve of it, but I can't help but say to myself, "what goes around comes around..."

I don't know why it's not okay to attack someone's faith. Surely a person's religion informs their worldview and ideology as much as anything else. Bush would have been much less of a total disaster if he weren't a fundamentalist Christian, for example.

Who attacked anyone's faith? He merely explained why his father being born in Mexico probably won't be used by the Romney campaign to gain support among Hispanics.

I respect that- but I respect consistency. When Newt says undrstanding Kenyan colonial mindset is important to understand Obama's father's worldview he is attacked as racist... this is very similar but is embraced

Actually, he did go into a little rant after that about how "polygamy" is far less accepted than "Mormonism" by the swing voter.
And of course, you'll find polygamy in the family history of many Mormons and all the Mormon gentry.

I think that for anybody to use this statement against either Schweitzer or Obama would be bordering on Talibanism.

But that's not what Gingrich said:


Anyway, while his statement isn't quite as ridiculous and inappropriate as Newt's, I do think that Schweitzer's comment was out of line, if only because there's not much reason to believe that Romney's grandparents are the key to understanding his Mittness. I don't care about his grandparents; I do care about the religious beliefs that the man actually holds.

For the record, I believe that a candidate's religious beliefs should be subject to scrutiny, and I agree with what greenforest states in his characteristically caustic way. Or at least, that would be ideal. As it stands, a large chunk of the electorate insists that candidates demonstrate that they are bona fide religious. Skirting the issue entirely is a practical necessity for the irreligious/non-religious.

Schweitzer's type of language has no place in the public debate, and it's sad that no one will call him out on it; especially Harry Reid who is a Mormon, but once again it is all a result of the Democrat's M.O. Attack others, but when the shoe is reversed, call foul.

He's just analyzing the election.

Besides, weren't some of Obama's Kenyan ancestors polygamists?

His father was a polygamist.

seems reasonable of the democrats, that sounds painful

There is probably not one human being alive today who did not descend from polygamists. If The Media is going to attack Obama, they must attack everybody.

What does this have to do with anything? Also, how is Brian Schweitzer so "awesome" for insinuating Mitt Romney is a polygamist? 

Mitt Romney's religion thinks that polygamy is wrong. I don't see how what Schweitzer said is an attack on Mitt Romney's religion.

A lot of people think what Schweitzer said, they just don't say it. I don't think it should be made an issue on the campaign trail, but Schweitzer's opinion is very representative of many. He didn't even attack Romney, just made an observation about church background and such.

This is kind of like the time The Media went after John Kerry because he mentioned during a debate something about gay marriage and Dick Cheney's daughter. Anyone remember that?

The Media just went ballistic on Kerry, even though he didn't say anything negative about gays or the Cheneys.

Dem hypocrisy at it's finest. How about Schweitzer defends the crap bigots threw at JFK for being a Catholic in the 60's?

What goes around comes around. Maybe you righities should've thought of this when you were suggesting Obama was a secret Muslim communist Nazi from Kenya.

"And God had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. And thus saith the Lord God; I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities." (2 Nephi 5:21)

I know they've "changed their stance" since then, but that just proves Mormonism isn't taken seriously by it's own followers.

Oh, that's already the case, depending on how loudly its said.

With the Democrats, apparently two wrongs DO make a right.

This is politics, it's not about decency, it's about winning. You can have all the good ideas in the world but it doesn't mean sh**t unless you win. Every serious person involved in politics knows this.

Usually I wouldn't approve of such attacks, but considering it's Brian Schweitzer, the greatest man that ever lined, I will agree with this.

LOL, but this part struck me:

I wonder if Mitt Romney'll promise the same to the President.

Entirely inappropriate. There was a perfect response: Romney's dad was from an isolated anglophone community, culturally entirely unconnected w/ the rest of Mexico and, thus, is not at all Hispanic for any real purpose. This is, in fact, true: no Hispanic Mexican would recognize Romney as one, nor would be more likely to vote for him based on his father's place of birth, so bringing that up is pure demagogy.

The marriage customs of his ancestors, though, are no more relevant here than the marriage customs of Old Testament are for the Jewish politicians - or else we'd have to worry about Abraham's relationship w/ Hagar.

The party of Al Smith shouldn't be doing that.

Even though I recognize that Schweitzer's insinuations here are abhorrent, I can't bring myself to care because Mormonism is truly a vile cult that isn't worthy of my defense.

That was a stupid thing of Schweitzer to say.  Romney can't control where his father was born.  

The Governor of Montana has gone down a point or two in my book.

This, basically. I still support Schweitzer, but his comment was incredibly inappropriate and really stupid, also offensive to me and my faith. I understand why he made it, but he could have worded it better.

And honestly, whatever my fellow liberals/moderates/etc say about my faith can never be as vicious as the religious right, since not only do the religious right say the same thing, but their theological ancestors (i.e, the fundamentalist preachers in the mid 1800s) are the ones who drove Mormons out to Utah in the first place. So it's not that offensive to me, as a Mormon progressive.

Uh, no, it's the Brian Schweitzers of the world whose actual biological ancestors did that, and Methodists and Baptists are not the same thing.

Isn't this a bit like if a Republican Governor of Florida insulted Jews?

In the context of the question Schweitzer was asked, what if Romney starts to pretend he is a Hispanic on the basis of his ancestors sojourn in Mexico, then pointing out why they were there would be fair game.  Not that there is any evidence that the Romney camp will be so dense as to make such a foolish claim.

However, Schwitzer could and should have been more subtle.  Here's a better way to answer that absurd hypothetical.

"Governor Romney isn't really a Hispanic.  His great-grandfather had decided he didn't love the United States any more, so he left it for Mexico.  His grandfather then brought his family back to the United States because he didn't love Mexico any more."

Oh, what I meant was that those who murdered, attacked, and ranted against Mormons in the 1800s were in effect, the religious ancestors of the religious right today, by virtue of both being intolerant towards towards non-their-specific-brand-of-Protestantism. I wasn't saying anything about anybody's literal ancestors, just the kinds of people they indirectly draw their bigotry from.

I wasn't saying anything about any specific religion, just that the anti-Mormon preachers in Missouri and Illinois (the Missouri ones especially, since they literally pillaged and raped the Mormon settlement of Far West) draw upon similar kinds of bigotry to the rhetoric that the ultra-zealous fringe religious right does today. The ones today are non-violent, but they have the same attitude towards Mormonism; they think it's a dangerous cult that must be stopped.

I see nothing wrong with it - he was just giving some true political analysis.

The really interesting thing about this, to me at least, is that a simple comment about Romney's ancestry is immediately described by both sides as an 'attack on faith', which popularizes a link between Mormonism and polygamy when the LDS church is surely still attempting to distance itself from this aspect of its past.  I mean, if merely pointing out that Romney's father was born into a polygamist commune is an attack on the Mormonism of today, how easy is it going to be for the average, uninformed voter to shake the association?

I still can't get over the fact that in 68 Romney's dad ran for President but he was born in a polygamous commune in Mexico and no one made a deal. lol

What a slime. What does Romney's fathers place of birth have to with him or his beliefs? Or even his father's beliefs? And if Brian seriously thinks this will be an issue with swing voters he is obviously not intelligent enough to be in public office.

People cared more about his opposition to Vietnam (before it was cool to do so). Plus, he didn't really trumpet his faith like candidates do today. I doubt most people knew that George Romney was a Mormon born in Mexico (to two US citizens, by the way).

Besides, Nixon was the one responsible for engineering Romney's downfall (if I recall correctly, Romney was the frontrunner before Nixon did his thing), and as a Quaker, Nixon was probably a bit hesitant to target Romney on grounds of religion when a much easier line of attack was provided by Romney's "brainwashing" comment.

Massive FF.

If only Schweitzer were so open about what the vast majority of his constituents think of Obama. If we want to talk about history, let's consider the Democratic Party: Using or abusing a certain group of people/voters one way or another since the 19th century, long before Mitt's father came to America.

If we want to talk about religion, I'll take Mormons any day over Rev. "God Damn America" Wright.

Times were different in 1968.  That there were still Mormon polygamous sects was not widely know, so polygamy was seen as something of the past.  Plus not only were the evangelicals less active politically, they weren't clustered in one party as they are today.  However there were some who argued that George was not a natural-born citizen because of the circumstances of his birth.  His parents were US citizens, but not US residents at the time of his birth.  George was not subject to the jurisdiction of the US when born, so you could argue that when he was born he did not meet the 14th Amendment definition of citizen, and hence was a naturalized citizen instead of a natural-born citizen.

How? Did he say Romney would sweep the Mexican polygamist demographic?

I don't understand what all the hullabaloo is all about. Seems like manufactured indignation by Republicans more than anything.

All he as doing is expressing a view that most political analysts agree with: that the Romney campaign will be reluctant to use the "My Dad is from Mexico" pitch because of the polygamy connotations.

And given the fact that the Romney campaign has generally not been pushing it demonstrates that they likely agree with him to.

I wouldn't attack Romney over what his grandparents did/believed.

Mitt Romney himself, however, did belong to a church that prohibited black priests, while he was not only alive but well into adulthood...

This bolo tie bronco bustin' rootin' tootin' cowboy I see is also a narrow minded Mormon basher slyly bringing up the polygamy issue in a way he hopes nobody will see through his bigoted little ploy.

And BTW, why is a Church allowed to be so heavily involved in politics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prop_8#Religious_organizations) yet be immune to criticism?

The LDS Church continues to wage a war of bigotry on millions of Americans. Well guess what... Karma is a bitch.

Well guess what...

there is a world of difference between bashing ones' particular faith or religion and standing up for a moral principle. 

The Mormon church is a religious organization but it is also a political machine. It's at least as open to criticism as the whole Jeremiah Wright thing. What were your thoughts on the Jeremiah Wright thing?

Yes, standing up to bigotry and discrimination is a must.  It is important that we as Americans point out the rude and discriminatory statements of others who dare to imply that you can tell a lot about a person's character from their lifestyle.  Statements of love and not at all judgmental about a person's lifestyle like this for instance:


As you all can see the honorable Winfield has gone out of his way not to bring up Governor Brian Schweitzer's culture highlighted in the bolded words while also condemning attacks on Mormonism.  What a great, loving, and altogether non-judgmental poster and a great example of a human being to us all.

Can someone please sticky this thread?  The hypocrisy by both sides could prove extremely amusing in month or two.

And what, pray tell, is so upsetting about  bolo tie bronco bustin' rootin' tootin' cowboy?

Any cowboy would be proud to be described as such.

These, my friend, with the possible exception of bolo tie, are terms used commonly, and might I say in a positive light, in western movies and documentaries about cowboys.

My friend, did I say anything about it being bad?

NONSENSE!  I was merely praising your openhearted need to point out that Brian Schweitzer was a cowboy who also had the misfortune to make polygamy jokes about Morons Mormons.  Because it is not at all culturalist to point out that somebody is of a certain culture when making a point about people who judge other religions.

It takes a truly great man to not skip over such details that are indeed important to judging how somebody will naturally perceive things they do not understand.  It is scientific truth after all!

Winnie be praised!

 

Might I say that the Mormon Church has always stood up for and stood by America, in good times and bad.

Note, I am not saying one thing about Obama's faith.  He says he is a Protestant Christian, and that's good enough for me, no questions asked.

But Schweitzer didn't bash any faith. He pointed out that Mitt Romney won't be using his father's birthplace to appeal to Hispanic voters because of the polygamy connotations, because polygamy isn't exactly approved of in American society. That's electoral analysis, and probably a spot on one at that.

And standing up for a moral principle? Hah! I'm sure Lilburn Boggs said something similar. ::)

Never, in my wildest imagination, did I ever think that anybody on this forum would ever outdo Kalwejt in the sarcasm field, but I believe Mechaman has just topped that.

Fair enough.

I will also concede that LDS has never, ever been in any way anti-American. Its patriotism is unimpeachable, as is its commitment to what it sees, often/usually correctly, as the needs of its members. I may have a problem with other things and think that they're legitimate bases for criticism, but I'd never deny those basic facts.

As a Mormon Democrat, thank you for that. I do detest either side insulting my church (though yeah, we've done a lot of questionable things, including Prop 8).