Romney defends Mormon strategy
Tax questions raised on church discussions

Boston Globe/October 20, 2006
By Michael Levenson and Scott Helman

Daytona Beach, Florida -- Governor Mitt Romney vigorously defended a plan yesterday by his political advisers to develop a network of Mormon supporters for his potential presidential bid, while a former Internal Revenue Service commissioner said discussions among Romney operatives and Mormon Church leaders about the initiative could violate the church's tax-exempt status.

Asked about yesterday's Globe report that Romney's team had quietly consulted with officials from the church and church-run Brigham Young University on building a list of Mormon backers nationwide, the governor said it was only natural that he would reach out to as many donors as possible as he eyes a run at the presidency in 2008.

"Clearly, I'm going to raise money from people I know, and that includes BYU alums, people of my church, people of other churches, Harvard Business School graduates," Romney said in an interview, as he and Governor Jeb Bush of Florida campaigned for a Republican candidate for Florida's chief financial officer.

Romney's comments suggest that the fund-raising initiative, which his political advisers dubbed Mutual Values and Priorities, or MVP, remained an active effort. On Tuesday, one of Romney's top aides, Spencer Zwick, said the MVP program had been abandoned.

The Globe story described discussions that have taken place during the last two months among Romney's political operatives and church leaders about building a grass-roots political organization through the roughly 40 US alumni chapters of BYU's business school, the Marriott School of Management. Representatives of BYU and Romney's political action committee, the Commonwealth PAC, have also been soliciting help from other prominent Mormons to build the program.

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, the Globe reported. 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.

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."

Romney also downplayed the significance of the meeting in Holland's office, which, according to documents reviewed by the Globe, was at least the second meeting between Holland and the Romney camp at which the initiative was discussed.

"We have meetings in church buildings of all faiths all the time," he said. "Schools, churches, that's part of the political process."

A candidate for office, under federal law, can hold meetings in religious facilities as long as the facilities extend the same opportunity to other candidates.

However, for tax-exempt nonprofit organizations like the Mormon Church and BYU, federal law prohibits any advocacy on behalf of a particular candidate or party. IRS spokeswoman Peggy Riley declined comment yesterday.

The church told the Globe earlier this week that it has a position of strict neutrality on political matters and is not supporting the governor. BYU's general counsel instructed the BYU deans last week to halt their effort to boost Romney's potential candidacy. The church released a statement on its website yesterday reiterating its position.

"In light of articles appearing in the media, we reaffirm the position of neutrality taken by the church, and affirm the long-standing policy that no member occupying an official position in any organization of the church is authorized to speak in behalf of the church concerning the church's stand on political issues," the statement reads. Michael R. Otterson, a church spokesman, declined to elaborate.

Donald C. Alexander, who headed the IRS from 1973 to 1977, said yesterday that the collaboration among Romney's political team and leaders of the church and school could run afoul of federal law.

"The massive effort described in your article is, if not over the line, I think much too close to the line," he said. "I think individual Mormons can and probably will support the governor, but they should support the governor as individuals, not in their capacities as having responsibilities for a church or for a university."

Alexander, a tax lawyer in private practice, said that if such an effort continues, "This could create a real problem for some fine institutions.

"Those that are so eager to see Mr. Romney elevated to the presidency should go through the front door and do the right thing rather than get the institutions into possibly deep trouble," he said. ". . . I think their enthusiasm has outrun their judgment."

Thomas A. Troyer, a tax lawyer in Washington, D.C., and a longtime specialist on tax-exempt organizations, said the discussions among Romney operatives and leaders of the church and BYU warrant a deeper look.

"There's certainly some smoke there, more than smoke, and it deserves further scrutiny, further investigation," said Troyer, a former member of the IRS commissioner's Advisory Group on Exempt Organizations.

But, Troyer added, "You'd need more specific, factual information about possible violations to get the IRS involved."

Milton Cerny, a retired lawyer who formerly oversaw tax-exempt groups for the IRS, had a different take, saying the actions of the church and BYU did not appear to violate federal law, because Romney is not officially running for president.

"You don't have an announced candidate," said Cerny, who lives in Virginia. "These are committees being formed to see whether the individual could be a viable candidate or not."

In Daytona Beach yesterday, Romney, speaking to about 50 Republicans outside a GOP campaign office, cracked a joke about the Massachusetts media.

"There are two factions of reporters where I come from in Massachusetts," he said. "We have the Hillary-loving, Ted Kennedy apologists -- and we have the liberals."

The audience erupted in laughter and applause. Romney also heaped praise on Jeb Bush, calling him the best governor in America. "There's no question about that," he said.

Later in the day, when Romney appeared with Bush at an event for congressional candidate Vern Buchanan, at an airplane hangar in Venice, Fla., he received a standing ovation from about 200 Republicans.

Romney mingled, signed autographs, posed for photographs, and sang an impromptu Irish blessing with a barbershop quartet before refusing to answer any more questions from the Massachusetts reporter.

"Hi, on our way," he said as he brushed past to a waiting van.

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Romney's disconnect

By Brian McGrory,
Globe columnist
March 17, 2006

For the past three years now, I've often thought there was something odd about Mitt Romney, something funny, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. At 9 a.m. Monday, I finally figured it out.

I know the time because Romney told me. He didn't tell just me; he told the 300-plus members of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce who were gathered in a hotel ballroom to listen to his speech and ask a few questions from the floor. Romney looked at his watch and announced, ''It's 9 o'clock," meaning it was time for him and everyone else to get on with their day.

And right then and there, like dawn breaking over Marblehead, it came to me. Mitt Romney, among many other things, is a classic control freak.

Put it this way: Politicians, at least good ones, don't remind audiences of the hour. They don't abruptly stop conversations. They follow the same basic script: An aide steps in and announces, ''We're going to have to wrap up." The politician ignores the aide to make a little more small talk. The politician bids a reluctant farewell, as if the thought of leaving such a wonderful group is almost unbearable to take.

Not Mitt. He answered one final question and quickly exited the stage to the typically tepid applause that he hears all around Massachusetts.

This might be a minor point,except for the context. Our perfectly coiffed and impeccably manicured governor is about to wade into the most unkempt and unruly event in American politics, a presidential campaign. It will require him to endure badgering Iowan farmers, off-key school band performers, potential contributors who assume he has all the time in the world.

A campaign will require him to turn over huge swaths of his beleaguered life to a handful of aides, no micromanaging allowed. It will require him to seek tranquility at the core of a constant storm, to love the place you're in,if you can't be in the place you love.

Can Romney do this?

Monday morning, as he strode into his second event at the Westin Copley Place hotel, television correspondent Jon Keller called out, ''What's the good word, governor?"

Romney could have responded with a lot of clever things, but here's what he said instead: ''Beautiful day." He said this as he brushed past a few reporters without making eye contact, then added a couple of strides later: ''Nice and warm outside."

Thank you, Harvey Leonard.

As he exited, a reporter called out one final question, but Romney kept walking, awkwardly, head down, until he reached the salvation of a side door.

In fact, he's become the master of the protected exit and the back stairs, the better to avoid unruliness. During a political appearance in Tennessee last weekend, he was the only potential presidential candidate not to regularly engage reporters.

Which is a shame. There is much to like about this governor. He can be uncommonly thoughtful and occasionally eloquent,and his earnestness is often refreshing. He will never be corrupt.

And yet his personality demands the kind of structure and order that will prove impossible in a presidential campaign, at least not in a successful one. Perhaps overthinking his father's downfall, he seems consumed by panic that he will say the wrong thing.

Romney has never asked my advice, but here it is anyway: The voters don't want the kind of prim, prompt, and programmed politico that he strives to be. They don't want candidates always searching out the door, glancing at their watch, staring blankly at people as they shake their hands.

They want someone who can flow with the moment, rather than obsessively try to control it. They want to see give-and-take and back-and-forth and the ability to ad lib. They want candidates able to linger rather than lurch.

In other words, Mitt, relax. The biggest thing you have to fear is victory, unlikely at best.

 

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BOSTON GLOBE

Romney shifts tone on gay adoption
Says couples have a 'legitimate interest'

By Scott Helman,
Globe Staff | March 14, 2006

Governor Mitt Romney, who frequently tells Republican audiences that every child has a right to have a mother and father, acknowledged yesterday that same-sex couples have ''a legitimate interest" in adopting children.

Romney said he would file a ''very narrow" bill aimed at letting Catholic Charities, the social service arm of the Boston Archdiocese, and other religious groups exclude same-sex couples from their adoption programs if including them violates religious tenets. But he also noted that gays and lesbians have a right to adopt.

''I know that there will be some gay couples who will say that this could be discriminatory against us," Romney told reporters after an unrelated press conference at the Westin Copley Place hotel. ''Except that there are many, many other agencies that can meet the needs of those gay couples, and I recognize that they have a legitimate interest in being able to receive adoptive services."

The comments were softer in tone than those last week, when the governor said nothing about the legal basis for gay adoptions as he announced his plans to file the bill. Romney, who is gaining more exposure with Republicans as he lays the groundwork for a possible presidential campaign in 2008, has sought to strike a balance between his opposition to same-sex marriage and his role as the executive officer in a state where such marriages are legal.

Romney, particularly in out-of-state speeches to GOP audiences, often attacks the Supreme Judicial Court for its November 2003 decision legalizing same-sex marriage, which made Massachusetts the first state to do so. In an appearance Friday at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Memphis, an important early event for presidential hopefuls, he reiterated his position that ''Every child in America has the right to a mother and a father."

Romney has come under fire in the past for the way he has expressed those sentiments. Last year, gay-rights supporters accused him of belittling gay parents after he told a Republican audience in South Carolina, ''Some are actually having children born to them."

Criticizing an effort to use gender-neutral language to describe parents on birth certificates, he also said last year: ''It's not right on paper. It's not right in fact. Every child has a right to a mother and a father."

At other times, though, Romney has stressed that his opposition to same-sex marriage is not rooted in discrimination.

''Americans respect all people. We also recognize that there are many settings where children are raised," Romney said at a 600-person GOP fund-raiser a year ago in Michigan, citing grandparents and same-sex couples as examples. ''But we choose to recognize one setting as the ideal."

Catholic Charities decided last week to end its adoption program because the group could not reconcile church doctrine, which holds that gay adoptions are ''gravely immoral," with the state's antidiscrimination laws.

On Friday, hours after Catholic Charities' announcement, the governor branded the antidiscrimination law a ''threat to religious freedom" that ''put the rights of adults over the needs of children" and said he would file legislation to grant religious groups an exemption.

Yesterday, the governor offered his first comments about his proposed bill, which he said his legal staff was still drafting. He said he didn't know when it will be filed, but that he hopes it will solve the dilemma facing the church and the state.

''So we're looking for a way to bring together the free practice of religion and the needs of the children, and at the same time recognize the right under the law in Massachusetts for gay couples to be able to have adoptive services," he said, adding, ''I believe, on balance, that our responsibility to the children comes first."

Romney's communications director, Eric Fehrnstrom, said later that the governor was simply describing the state of the law.

''By granting religious institutions a narrow exemption to the law, no harm will be caused to any gay person because there are plenty of adoption agencies in Massachusetts that will service their needs," Fehrnstrom said in an e-mail.

Still, Romney's advocacy of such a bill may end up being little more than political rhetoric. Spokeswomen for both House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi and Senate President Robert E. Travaglini said last week that their respective chambers would be loath to reconsider the state's antidiscrimination laws.

Gary Buseck, legal director for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said Romney is wrong to suggest that state law is somehow at odds with the welfare of children.

''What the law is doing is creating the largest possible pool of parents," he said.

The Globe reported last month that the state's four Catholic bishops were planning to ask the state for permission to exclude same-sex couples as adoptive parents because of the Vatican's stand against gay adoptions.

Romney said that his legal staff concluded he could not unilaterally provide exemption from state law and that any change would have to be made legislatively

 

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Faux Pas at Fox? Old News at The Globe?
Mormon Relics Stalk Romney Everywhere

By RB Scott
3/14/2006 ( Update)

Recently when Fox TV anchor Chris Wallace attempted to plumb the depths of Mitt Romney's Mormon beliefs, the prospective candidate grew restless, as he often does when pressed about religion. This time he parried with a line worthy of Jack Kennedy.

"America has a political religion…people who are elected … [take] an oath to abide by a nation of laws and the Constitution, above all others." Amen!

Romney should sharpen the sound bite and stay on message. Like it or not, questions about Mormon dogma will hound him wherever he goes, as they always have.

The scrutiny may be warranted given Romney's service as a regional ecclesiastical church leader. He is not your "ordinary" true believer like Presidents Kennedy and Carter.

It is, however, odd that reporters like Wallace, Jewish by heritage, seem unashamed to badger Mormons about arcane beliefs. The chief beef is the "one true religion" claim. Tied for second are the church's non-traditional-Trinitarian definition of God, its experiments with plural marriage, and the policy that once excluded Blacks from the priesthood.

A few weeks back an op-ed piece in The Boston Globe, written by the estimable John H. Bunzel, past president of San Jose State University and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, said the policy the church abandoned in 1978 could come back to hurt Romney.

Trouble was, the premise for Bunzel's claim was verbatim quotes he lifted (without attribution) from a Los Angeles Times story written nine years ago. Bunzell presents one of the quotes this way: 'It's the linkage to Cain that so distresses Mormon African-Americans today,' says California attorney Dennis Gladwell, who has been working with church leaders calling for change."

In the ensuing nine years, California Attorney Gladwell, once a senior partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, retired and moved to Utah. He is not working with church leaders on anything. "I have not talked with Mr. Bunzel or The Boston Globe," Gladwell said from his home near Ogden.

"The matter was fully resolved when President {Gordon B.] Hinckley told [CBS}Mike Wallace that the practice and various doctrinal explanations resulted from misinterpretations of scripture by early leaders of the church."

"No, I have never talked to Gladwell," Bunzel acknowledged by phone. "The Globe asked me about the quote and I said: 'Well, I can't find the source offhand, but I know I didn't make it up."

The Globe said it lacks the resources to check op-ed pieces. "They are the opinions of the authors" said Nick King, the editor who handled the Bunzel column. "We assume authors - especially former university presidents -- understand the importance of fact checking. Sometimes we get burned."

While denying that the matter was being studied and dismissing the need for a fresh renouncement, Temple Square cautioned that Hinckley is an "out-of-the-box thinker who has surprised us all before."

The church is aware that some members continue to believe the collateral theories taught by early leaders like Brigham Young, who proclaimed that black skin and loss of priesthood was the "mark" placed on all descendants of fratricidal Cain.

Others speculated the restriction was punishment for being less valiant in the war in heaven. Many of Young's harsh sidebar comments - one sanctions death as a punishment for both participants in an interracial marriage - are particularly vexing.

The internet seems to nurture and give currency to recidivist theories despite the 1978 renouncement and Apostle Bruce R. McConkie's sweeping dismissal: "Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young ... or whomsover has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world…"

It has been two years since the death of Marjorie Pay Hinckley. Her husband, the energetic, "out-of-the-box"-thinking Mormon president, Gordon Bitner Hinckley, is now bearing down on his 97th birthday. He has been in remarkably robust health; but, his recovery from recent laparoscopic surgery to excise a cancerous blockage from his colon is not going well.

Romney may be one of many Mormons praying for at least one more surprise from the change agent who has led the church for the past 11 years. To them, a fresh illumination from Hinckley can not come soon enough.

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Another Take: Is America ready for a Mormon president?
And will the church's teaching on blacks be his undoing?

By John H. Bunzel | Boston Globe February 19, 2006

ED NOTE: John H. Bunzel, a past president of San Jose State University, is a senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

A RECENT Gallup poll shows that even among Republicans, 7 in 10 voters are more likely to support a candidate in 2008 who disagrees with the Karl Rove-George Bush plan of creating a long-term Republican era that panders to the religious right and drives away many moderates.

Many Republicans believe that Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, though still considered a long shot, could emerge as the ''dream candidate" they will be looking for: an attractive social conservative in one of the bluest of blue states (he opposed the Supreme Judicial Court's legalization of gay marriage) whose CEO-style leadership will please the party's conservative base while not alienating middle-of-the-road voters.

Knowing that today's front-runner, possibly John McCain, won't necessarily be 2008's front-runner, they think Romney has a good chance of beating him in the early eastern GOP primaries.

But Romney has a problem. He is a Mormon, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which, as Washington Monthly's editor Amy Sullivan points out, makes him unacceptable to evangelical voters who make up 30 percent of the Republican electorate. Their hostility to Mormonism is not some vague prejudice that some Americans have. It's a ''doctrinal thing," based on their conviction that Mormonism ''isn't just another religion," but a ''cult" that they claim is ''false," ''blasphemous," and a threat to the Christian religion.

But Romney has an additional and perhaps even more serious problem. As taught by Mormon prophets from Brigham Young's day to the late 1970s, blacks have been regarded as ''not equal with other races," an inequality (to quote Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie) that is ''the Lord's doing based on his eternal laws of justice." Mormon theologians have justified this racial bias by asserting that the black race is descended from Cain, who was cursed and marked (supposedly with a black skin) and whose descendants continued to bear the mark and the curse.

In 1978, the ban against African-Americans in the Mormon priesthood was dropped, along with long-standing church doctrines that were used to bolster claims of black inferiority. However, critics of the church maintain that although the ban has been removed, the doctrine has not changed. ''It's the linkage to Cain that so distresses Mormon African-Americans today," says California attorney Dennis Gladwell, who has been working with church leaders calling for change. ''It places their spiritual lineage in shambles, since they are alleged descendants of a man who has come to symbolize evil on the same level as Lucifer himself."

One should not be surprised if -- or when -- the media press the governor on other issues, polygamy for instance, which the Mormon church no longer condones, and Romney says little more than that his belief in Jesus Christ and serving one's neighbor and community are widely shared values.

But didn't John Kennedy in 1960 prove that religion has nothing to do with a candidate's political qualifications to be president? Yes -- for Catholics. However, 46 years later, a public declaration of one's personal religiosity is now required of all presidential candidates as evidence that they live by a deep-rooted moral yardstick confirmed by their religious faith.

This resurgence of religion underscores a powerful force in recent presidential races -- namely, the rise of values politics framed as moral issues. One message is clear: Those whose religious faith is perceived as sincere and ''real" will have demonstrated the strength of character necessary to lead our country.

Little wonder that since the 2004 elections, the Democrats -- acknowledging that the Republicans have been far more successful in winning over religious and faith-friendly voters -- have been developing religious outreach programs, hiring faith advisers, and training candidates on how to ''talk the talk" that will attract more church-going voters.

At a time when the Bush-led Republican Party has made a presidential candidate's personal religious faith a test of his or her moral stature and authority, this very test could disqualify Romney in the eyes of many Republicans as the core tenets of his faith are circulated to bring out sharply the strong opposition of Mormon theology to Christian doctrine.

Or, to put it in evangelical terms (as Sullivan has done), ''It might be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for Mitt Romney to win the Republican nomination."

 

LET THEM DRINK FORMULA....

Romney to undo ban on formula
Breast-feeding was goal of rule

By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff | February 18, 2006

Governor Mitt Romney wants new mothers in Massachusetts to continue receiving traditional parting gifts when they leave the maternity ward: a bag filled with infant formula, coupons, and other goodies paid for by the formula companies.

In December, the state Department of Public Health decided to restrict the gift bags, believed to be the first effort in the nation to limit the giveaways, which the agency said encouraged mothers to give up on breast-feeding.

But Tuesday, the department will consider a request by the governor to rescind the ban on formula in the gift bags.

''We're not disputing the health benefits of breast-feeding, but we think that new mothers should make that choice," Romney's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, said yesterday. ''If they choose to bottle-feed, they should be supported in that decision."

Medical studies have shown that breast-fed children are less likely to suffer gastrointestinal illnesses, respiratory ailments, and ear infections. Research has also demonstrated that women who nurse have lower rates of breast and ovarian cancer and may reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes.

The governor's request must be formally approved at a meeting Tuesday of the Public Health Council, an appointed board that must approve the policies of the Department of Public Health. The chairman of the council is the state's public health commissioner, Paul Cote, a Romney appointee.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Health said that the agency and governor ''decided that there needs to be a broader policy discussion around this issue" and that ''new mothers will continue to be able to receive free formula for their babies at hospitals."

The decision to reverse course on the ban constitutes a significant backtracking by the Department of Public Health, which since the late 1980s has adopted increasingly stringent rules to support breast-feeding.

The cochairman of the Joint Committee on Public Health, Representative Peter J. Koutoujian, said the governor's move demonstrates a lack of trust in the public health authorities he appointed. ''This is something where the governor should not be stepping over his own public health commission," said Koutoujian, a Waltham Democrat. ''Certainly, marketing is something about which I've been concerned for many years. This is the perfect instance of marketing from literally cradle to grave."

The decision on infant formula marks the third time in two months that Romney's office has inserted itself into policy-making at the Department of Public Health.

In December, the administration ordered the agency to require all hospitals to provide emergency contraception. Initially, Romney had supported the agency's decision to allow private hospitals to opt out of a requirement to provide the morning-after pill if they had moral or religious objections.

And the administration used the public health agency to introduce in January a new abstinence education curriculum in Massachusetts schools.

Champions of the ban on gift-bag giveaways said that allowing companies to peddle their products on maternity wards poses a risk to the health of mothers and newborns.

''This has nothing to do with freedom of choice; of course, women are free to feed their babies however they would like," said Dr. Melissa Bartick, chairwoman of the Massachusetts Breast-feeding Coalition. ''What the marketing does is undermine that choice by setting them up for breast-feeding failure."

The governor's office said it had received three phone calls and three letters opposing the ban and one e-mail in favor of it. One of the letters in opposition came from an industry coalition, the International Formula Council.

In a statement released last night, the Atlanta-based trade group called Romney's move ''sound public health policy" and said that ''mothers should be allowed full access to all available information on infant feeding options." Fehrnstrom said there had been no meetings between the governor's office and formula makers.

Bartick said breast-feeding advocates could see no see social agenda evident in Romney's move.

''Corporate interest is really the only political constituency here," said the Cambridge internist.

The Massachusetts Hospital Association has generally been supportive of a ban on gift-bag promotions by formula companies, said Paul Wingle, spokesman for the hospital confederation. Some medical centers in the state adopted the limits before the Department of Public Health action.

''Most clinicians are saying breast milk is the first and best option," Wingle said. ''So if on the other hand, they're giving mothers incentives to try formula, there are crossed signals in that practice."

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Michigan could use an education leader like Mitt Romney

Sunday, February 12, 2006, The Detroit News

Nolan Finley, Editorial Page Editor

M assachusetts leads the nation in the percentage of adults with college degrees. At 48 percent, its rate is more than twice that of Michigan's.

Yet Gov. Mitt Romney knows that half isn't good enough.

He's put on the table an aggressive plan to increase the number of college graduates and guarantee that every child is prepared for success.

He's also putting his own political capital behind the plan, personally lobbying the Legislature and his residents.

"What allows us to compete as a state is our highly educated workforce," Romney, son of the late Michigan Gov. George Romney, said in a recent visit to Metro Detroit. "We can't afford to slip."

Compare Massachusetts to Michigan, where Gov. Jennifer Granholm talks a good game about making education a priority, but isn't willing to roll up her sleeves and make it happen.

Romney offers real reform

A new poll from EPIC-MRA finds that three-quarters of state residents believe schools have either not improved, or gotten worse under Granholm's tenure, even though she claims her commitment is to education.

While other states are gearing up to meet the education challenges of the 21st century, Michigan's children are failed by a shortage of leadership.

Romney is not tinkering around with the margins of school reform.

He is proposing innovative initiatives that would remake the schools into academies that prepare students for real jobs.

High-achieving Massachusetts students are already awarded full college scholarships to state schools, part of Romney's plan to keep the best and brightest at home.

Soon, he hopes to reward the most talented teachers, allowing them to earn up to $15,000 in annual bonuses for teaching tough courses and teaching them well.

He is making a statewide push to emphasize math and science skills. High school students will link early with businesses for hands-on training and will get wide access to college courses.

Recognizing the role of parents in fixing schools, Romney wants parenting workshops in failing school districts that will teach parents how to help their children and teachers.

His goal is for Massachusetts students to not only lead the nation in performance, but to consistently rank among the best in the world.

Nothing he's placed on the table is out of reach for Michigan. But nothing will happen here until the political leadership treats the education deficit as the crisis it is.

It's worth noting that Romney, a Republican, is pushing his plan through a Democratic-controlled Legislature.

He may not get all he wants. But he is relentless in his message that an already smart Massachusetts must get even smarter.

Michigan needs a comprehensive plan for fixing its schools. It may even need to invest more money in education.

But more than anything, it needs someone like Romney to step up and lead the charge.

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Separation Anxiety

By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, February 1, 2006; Page A23 The Washington Post

The early glimmerings of presidential separation anxiety, 2008-style, were on display at an event here last week with Mitt Romney, the not-yet-announced but oh-so-obviously-running governor of Massachusetts. When it comes to President Bush, Romney seems to have chosen distance over embrace, clarity over subtlety.

Running to replace a retiring president of the same party inevitably entails a fine calibration of competing interests: embracing the departing administration vs. establishing independence; hewing to the policies of the incumbent vs. charting a different course; pleasing the loyal base vs. alienating the up-for-grabs voter.

When the retiring president is unpopular, achieving the proper political balance can be an even more precarious undertaking.

Speaking at a gathering sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor -- it was lunch, but Romney not only didn't eat a bite, he also didn't sit down, the better to address the crowded room -- the governor opened with a lengthy disquisition on his operating style.

He was relentlessly analytical, Romney kept saying; he liked -- nay, he demanded -- to be challenged by his aides: "I don't want to hear just one side of the argument." Forget the Harvard Business School CEO-style delegator; meet the Harvard Business School case-studier.

Though he blandly demurred when asked whether he was contrasting himself with Bush, the governor might as well have hung a sign over his head pointing to the White House several blocks away and reading, "I'm Not Like Him." No one would have slam-dunked me on weapons of mass destruction.

Likewise, on matters of substance -- Iraq, the Medicare prescription drug bill -- Romney wasn't shy about distinguishing himself from Bush. Indeed, he edged about as close as he could to saying that the administration had messed up and that President Romney would have done better.

So far in the run-up to the 2008 campaign, the chatter about how to separate the candidate from the president has focused on the Democratic side: How will Hillary Clinton, if she runs, remove herself from, or wrap herself in, the aura of Bill?

But as Romney's comments show, it will be at least as fascinating to watch Republican candidates dancing with Bush -- clasped uneasily at arm's length, wary about getting too close but also careful not to let go entirely. Because while his poll numbers may be dismal overall, Bush retains, by an overwhelming margin, the loyalty of conservative Republicans -- that is, the Republicans who turn out in primaries.

Eight years ago the twin challenges faced by Vice President Al Gore were to reap the benefits of Clintonism without being loaded down with Clinton's baggage and to establish his autonomy from an administration in which he had served for eight years.

In the 2008 election, none of the not-yet-candidates faces the conundrum of a sitting vice president required to finesse his relationship with the incumbent. Yet Republicans in 2008 have to grapple with the fact of a similarly polarizing -- but far less popular -- president of their own party. They confront a restless electorate, even to some extent a restless base -- one that still supports Bush but that has been holding its nose over some Bush policies (the Medicare drug bill, deficit spending) and has been waiting to exhale.

The test for these candidates will be to sell themselves as a sort of new, improved version of the GOP brand -- without alienating those who are satisfied with the current model. Voters, or so the candidates hope, may not be prepared to try an entirely new type of laundry detergent, but they do seem ready for something more than a little different.

And so, there was Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, on NBC's "Meet the Press" last weekend -- looking like he was counting the days until he could stop being shackled to the president and going so far as to say that, in hindsight, Bush should have put more troops on the ground in Iraq at the outset. Virginia Sen. George Allen distanced himself from the president over Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. Of all the 2008 possibilities, Arizona Sen. John McCain (R-Iconoclast) may have the most latitude when it comes to Bush: He can run on Being John McCain.

It's possible that Bush's political woes will evaporate, or at least lessen, as the presidential election gets closer. How Republican presidential candidates will position themselves vis-à-vis the president will depend in large part on the party's performance this November and on things such as the state of the economy, the course of the war, a possible terrorist strike.

For now, though, the closest analogue to 2008 could be a half-century ago, when another unpopular president waging a controversial war was leaving the White House without a vice president running to succeed him. Historian David McCullough writes in his biography of Harry Truman about how the Democratic nominee in 1952, Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson, was "frantic to distance himself from Truman."

So far, at least, the 2008 candidates aren't showing anything like that kind of alarm. But they're clearly starting to calculate the optimal degrees of separation from the president they hope to succeed.

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Health Care Plan Has Conservatives Quaking

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/pipes200601260811.asp

Unhealthy in Massachusetts
The Romney plan doesn’t cut it.

From The National Review On-Line
January 26, 2006, 8:11 a.m.

By Sally C. Pipes

Republican Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is trying to accomplish in his final year in office what Democrats can only dream of these days: boosting government spending on and regulation of health care and requiring individuals to purchase government-designed policies. Romney’s plan, which is backed by such liberals as Sen. Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.), is being pitched as a compact between citizens and the state.

Thanks to state-imposed regulations requiring companies to charge the same rates to the sick and the healthy, individual health insurance is not always a good deal in Massachusetts, at least for those who are young and healthy. The result: Many people elect not to purchase health insurance, unless it’s provided at work at a deep discount or as a hidden cost.

The latest numbers count more than 460,000 Massachusetts residents as uninsured, which is less than 10 percent of the state’s population. It would be wrong, however, to think of these people as clamoring for health insurance. More than 100,000 of them, it turns out, are already eligible for Medicaid; they simply haven’t made the effort to sign up. Another 168,000 live in households with incomes greater than $55,000, and would presumably purchase health insurance if they saw it as a priority. The remaining 200,000 are the classic working poor — people for whom health insurance is not affordable. It’s this group that elicits near universal sympathy when it comes to health insurance.

The gutsy attack on this problem would be to figure out its real cause. It’s the price of insurance that prevents many from purchasing it, and the price is directly related to the government regulations that decimated the private market by prohibiting companies from charging fair prices for their products. Deregulation of the insurance market is required.

That’s not Romney’s approach. He started off in 2004 offering something for nothing: the state would design a cut-rate health-insurance plan and create a new bureaucracy, the Health Insurance Exchange, to administer it. The Exchange would offer a limited policy, but would still include such things as mental health — and it would surely grow under pressure from interest groups. The state would redirect some current spending on health care and the feds would kick in $100 million. Individuals would be required to purchase the product or lose their standard deduction on state taxes. Romney soft-peddled the mandate hammer, calling it a “personal responsibility system.”

Romney originally promised to deliver a new bureaucracy, new meddling in health markets, and an indirect tax increase on uninsured citizens. The good part, however, was that he promised no new state spending on health care, and he even threw in a tax cut. A year later, he’s promising to earmark $200 million to get the legislature to agree on his plan. As for the tax cut, that’s been reduced and slated for after he leaves office.

In a nutshell, then, the Republican presidential hopeful is pouring political capital into creating a new state health-care bureaucracy, further regulating health insurance, forcing individuals to spend their money on a government designed product, and increasing spending by $200 million. It’s not hard to see why liberals such as Kennedy are excited about his bravery. They recall what such acts of courage did for another Massachusetts governor with presidential ambition, Michael Dukakis.

Romney’s foray into health policy betrays a fallacious assumption that should not go uncorrected. Conservatives who believe in free markets simply cannot accept the rhetoric equating morality and compassion with universal third-party health insurance coverage. In the United States, we have already achieved universal access to health care through a variety of public and private systems — often derided as a “patchwork system” by those who long for a single statist solution — through private insurance, public insurance, publicly funded free health care clinics, and uncompensated care at hospitals and doctors’ offices. Americans without health insurance consume, on average, $1,253 a year in health care services, with the bulk of the bill picked up by someone else.

Accepting that everyone living in the United States needs formal third-party coverage will inevitably lead to government health care. In a free society, there will always be people who choose not to purchase third party insurance, either because they don’t think it’s worth it, or because they are shortsighted. The only way, therefore, to achieve universal third-party coverage is either through single-payer health care — i.e. putting everyone on Medicaid — or by mandating that people purchase health insurance. Both are losers.

Conservatives mostly understand the problems associated with the direct government provision of products and services — poor quality, shortages, high taxes, and shoddy service. What they must also understand is that forcing an individual to purchase health insurance is merely a rest stop on the journey to the same destination.

The best way to make health insurance available to the greatest number of people is to make sure that it can be provided at the lowest possible prices. Instead of abolishing the government regulations that have raised the cost of health insurance in Massachusetts, Governor Romney has proposed that the government should pay for the health insurance of the very people for whom the government made health insurance unaffordable.

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Latter-day President?
A Mitt Romney candidacy would test the religious right.

BY JAMES TARANTO
Saturday, December 31, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST, The Wall Street Journal

BOSTON--Mitt Romney insists he has hardly thought about running for president: "That's a decision you make way down the road." With the 2008 election 1,039 days away, that's fair enough. But I'm guessing he'll run.

I first met Mr. Romney in September at New York's Monday Meeting, a conclave of right-leaning movers and shakers who gather to hear politicians from around the country make pitches for support. This month, after it emerged that the backing Mr. Romney sought was not for re-election as governor of Massachusetts, I visited him at the Statehouse here. "I will accomplish in my term the objectives that I set out to accomplish, or some will be rejected and I wouldn't get them done in the second term anyway," he tells me. "There's no reason to hang around and warm the chair, taking advantage of the perks and fun of office, if the agenda is complete." What he doesn't say is that there's also no reason for a governor to risk defeat if he has his eye on the White House.

The governor's office is equipped with a fireplace, making it a rarity in 21st-century politics: a smoke-filled room. Mr. Romney, a devout Mormon, abjures not only tobacco but also alcohol and coffee. A 58-year-old Detroit native, he is a businessman-turned-politician like his late father, George, who was chairman of American Motors Corp. before serving six years as governor of Michigan. George Romney ran for president in 1968 but famously withdrew after attributing his support for the Vietnam War to "brainwashing" at the hands of U.S. generals.

Mitt Romney had a successful career in management consulting and capital management, culminating with a stint as CEO of Bain & Co. In 1994 he made his first political run, challenging Sen. Ted Kennedy. Even that year's Republican tide was not enough to drown Mr. Kennedy, who won 58% to 41%. Yet Mr. Romney's showing remains the best of any challenger Mr. Kennedy has faced. Mr. Romney got high marks for turning around the debt- and scandal-plagued organizing committee for Salt Lake City's 2002 Winter Olympics, and in 2002 he defeated Democrat Shannon O'Brien to become the Bay State's fourth consecutive GOP governor.

Mr. Romney could be an attractive presidential candidate. His sunny disposition puts one in mind of Ronald Reagan--he laughs easily and smiles almost continuously. He is a governor, as four of the past five presidents were; but he can claim more international experience than most state executives. In addition to his work on the Olympics, he has served on the federal Homeland Security Advisory Council, chairing its working group on intelligence and information sharing.
Massachusetts, the only state George McGovern carried in 1972, is an unlikely place to find a Republican presidential candidate. The last Bay State Republican to seek the presidential nomination was Henry Cabot Lodge in 1964; the last to win it was Calvin Coolidge 40 years earlier. All 12 members of the state's congressional delegation are Democrats, and Republicans who win office here tend to be liberals like former senator Edward Brooke and former governor Bill Weld.

Not Mr. Romney, whose views put him well within the mainstream of GOP conservatism. A self-described "fiscal hawk," he takes credit for staving off tax increases, no mean feat given that the Democrats have a veto-proof legislative majority. When he took office, the state had a $3 billion budget deficit. "We held the line on taxes, we did not borrow more money, and instead we cut back on state programs," closing the gap. He hopes next year to persuade the Legislature to cut the top income tax rate to 5% from 5.3%.

He praises George W. Bush on the war: "The president is right to point to an international jihadist movement aimed at the collapse of the United States," he says. "He has gone after that threat in the right way and with great energy and vigor, and I applaud the fact that he has taken it on very seriously and has not considered it just a criminal action but instead a war action, which requires a military . . . response."

Asked if he disagrees with prospective rival John McCain's proposal to ban "cruel, inhuman and degrading" interrogation of terrorists in U.S. custody, he demurs: "I'm not a senator; [I] haven't looked at his act." When I persist, he says, "Would you like me to do an analysis of that for you?"--a rare flash of sarcasm, albeit delivered with a smile.

His views on social issues--about which more in a moment--seem ill-suited to this ultraliberal state. But his ability to win election in Massachusetts may give him a crossover appeal in blue states, just as Bill Clinton was able to carry some half a dozen states where John Kerry wasn't even competitive.

Mr. Romney's background as a businessman leads him to think of government in pragmatic terms. "I tend to be more analytical than I think the average politician [is]. I tend to look for a lot of data, and don't reach conclusions based on . . . political doctrine, but instead based on analysis. . . . I look at each issue and try and evaluate what I think the right answer is."

It's a bit reminiscent of Michael Dukakis's pronouncement in 1988: "This election is about competence, not ideology." But the comparison is misleading. A Massachusetts liberal can take ideology for granted, whereas a Massachusetts conservative actually does have to collaborate and compromise in order to get things done.

Mr. Romney says his business experience helped prepare him to deal with an opposition legislature. "People imagine that when you're a chief executive officer, you snap your fingers, and everybody bows." In fact, a CEO has to appeal to multiple constituencies: boards, shareholders, customers, subordinates who covet the corner office. "You're in a position of give-and-take that is more akin to public life than you might imagine. I'm in a state where my legislature is 85% Democratic. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that that means if I'm going to get anything done, it's going to have to be done on a collaborative basis." This may be a refreshing message to voters weary of the bitter partisanship of Washington politics during the Clinton and Bush presidencies.

Could Mr. Romney win the Republican presidential nomination? Three early primaries look promising: New Hampshire, where he is well known from governing the state next door; Michigan, where his family name has cachet; and Arizona, which has a large Mormon population. But these are not enough--as Sen. McCain, who won all three contests in 2000, can attest.
A crucial question will be whether Mr. Romney's religion is a handicap. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is indigenous to America, but many Americans view it with suspicion. In a 1999 Gallup poll, 17% of those surveyed said they would not vote for a Mormon for president, far more than said the same of a Jew (6%) or a Catholic (4%).

In 1994 Sen. Kennedy made an issue of the LDS Church's tardy embrace of racial equality (it did not allow the ordination of blacks until 1978). "I don't think that's the reason I lost to Ted Kennedy," says Mr. Romney, and he's surely right. In any case, Mr. Kennedy doesn't seem to have any problem today answering to a Mormon Senate leader, Harry Reid.

Mr. Romney also says religion wasn't a problem for his father: "When he was running for president . . . he was the front-runner. His faith just didn't factor in. . . . His statement on Vietnam--that put him under, but certainly not his faith."

The trouble is that much of today's anti-Mormon sentiment is found on the religious right, a constituency that looms much larger in the GOP now than it did in 1968, or than it ever has in Massachusetts. Ask a conservative Christian what he thinks of Mormonism, and there's a good chance he'll call it a "cult" or say Mormons "aren't Christian."

Yet on the issues, Mr. Romney is largely in tune with the Christian right. "I am pro-life," he says, though he's not an absolutist. He favors a return to the status quo ante Roe v. Wade, when states decided abortion policy. In 2002, recognizing that Massachusetts is an "overwhelmingly pro-choice state," he campaigned only on a promise to veto any legislation changing the state's abortion laws, including a proposal, which Ms. O'Brien endorsed, to reduce the age of parental consent to 16 from 18. The Legislature never passed that measure.
Some question whether he is antiabortion enough to satisfy his party's base. But George W. Bush has made similar nods to political reality--"I'm a realistic enough person to know that America is not ready to ban abortions," he said in 1999--and few dispute the president's pro-life credentials.

Mr. Romney is a scathing critic of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's 2003 decision imposing same-sex marriage: "We've got a liberal activist court . . . and I have now seen firsthand the perils of a court that decides to substitute its values for that of the founders." The governor has backed efforts to undo the ruling by amending the state constitution, most recently through a signature campaign. He also has enforced a 1913 law making it illegal for out-of-state couples to wed in the Bay State if they cannot legally do so back home. "It's basically kept Massachusetts from being a Las Vegas of same-sex marriage."

How would he overcome anti-Mormon prejudice if he seeks the presidency? He doesn't answer directly, but cites his experience in Massachusetts: "As people got to know me . . . they accepted me for who I am, and religious doctrines didn't make much difference to them."

In the end, there's probably not much Mr. Romney can do about the "Mormon problem" other than put his faith in the American tradition of religious pluralism. "I think our nation needs people of faith in public service," he says. "My policies in the public sector are not a mirror image of any church's doctrines. But of course the respect I have for American values flows from the faith that I have." If Mr. Romney runs for president, it may test the proposition that the religious right is an issues-based movement as opposed to a sectarian one.

Mr. Taranto is editor of OpinionJournal.com.

 

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Sunstone Magazine
November, 2005

CAN THE THOROUGHLY MODERATE MITT
NAVIGATE THE RIGHT ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE?

By RB Scott

Here he goes again.

W. Mitt Romney has already proved that a Mormon Republican can be elected governor of the nation's most liberal state. Now he's off on another mission impossible to win over the hearts and minds of Christian conservatives who control the Republican Party and historically have not thought highly of Mormons like himself.

If he beats the odds again, he could well become the next President of the United States. If he is less persuasive, he could wind up as a capable and attractive running mate. Either way, the party gets a very smart leader at the top of the ticket or an agreeable number two man who always plays by the rules he likes to help shape.

But you never know what brass knuckle politics will dish: any day now Vice President Dick Cheney could suddenly hightail it out of Washington to his hideout in Wyoming (pick your exit strategy: weakening heart, looming indictments, fresh compromising pictures of him with his Halliburton pals). The President would go looking for a Mr. Squeak E. Clean replacement and remember that Romney's nearing the end of his first term as governor, has a rather spectacular history of bailing-out troubled organizations, not to mention saving lost souls - neither are in short supply in Washington these days. And, well, you get the picture.

If serendipity strikes Mitt again, he could be sitting just a heart beat away from the nation's corner office, ready to head out on the campaign highway as the anointed heir, savior of the party, in control and in charge of those radical neo-conservatives. Just the way he would prefer it.

This is not some incredible "Wag The Dog" scenario. Brilliantly serendipitous things happen to good people like W. Mitt Romney. So, pay attention.

For now, as he surveys the formidable obstacles that lie ahead, Romney must be experiencing what Yogi Berra did right before he uttered his most famous malapropism: "It's deja vous all over again." The most daunting obstacle of all is still his religion, the Mormonism Senator Edward M. Kennedy shamelessly, but effectively, swung at Mitt's kneecaps back in 1994.

Back then Romney was downright scornful of propositions that his religion would be up for election as much as he was. Ultimately, his sense of what's fair in politics cost him an upset victory over America's most celebrated politician. Once the well oiled Kennedy machine recovered from the shock of trailing in the early polls, it played the Mormon card so relentlessly and cynically that even the leader of Boston Catholics, Cardinal Bernard Law got indignant and reminded that the lessons John Kennedy taught the country about a man's religion "has been lost on President Kennedy's youngest brother, but salvaged by Mister Romney."

Law's stirring protest was of little lasting consequence as Romney was forced to react almost daily to potshots that his religion was racist, then sexist, then backward, then clannish with designs on ruling the U.S. if not the world, and still preaching the eternal efficacy of polygamy.

Fast forward to 2005. Enter stage far right: The new Romney who gets it, who fights back when attacked, as he ably demonstrated in the 2002 gubernatorial campaign. This new Romney gives offense to some if it wins support from the many. Recently he flatly refused to modify his call to wire tap Muslim mosques and keep tabs on some Muslims in the U.S. Why? In part, because it appealed to the hearts and minds of the people in the red states who kept George Bush in the White House.

And, it resonated with religious extremists everywhere who believe a holy showdown between Muslims and Christians is inevitable if not imminent.

It has been nearly four decades since Mitt's father, George W. Romney, the immensely popular governor of Michigan, had a lock on the Republican nomination until he proclaimed "I was brainwashed about Viet Nam." We will never know whether Mormonism would have dogged him had he won the nomination, but probably not. In 1968 moderate Rockefeller Republicans like George Romney were flying high, having just wrested control of the party from the clutches of strident Goldwater conservatives.

Today a different brand of zealot - the acolytes of the Christian Right - rule the moderate party of Romney senior and Nelson Rockefeller. But Mitt would rather switch than fight them. Sort of. "I'm a red state kinda guy" and "I've always been pro-life" he proclaims a bit disingenuously.

The truly peculiar, perhaps surmountable, problem for Romney is this: those most ardent in their self- righteous scolds -- the kind foisting "abstinence only" and "intelligent design" dogmas onto the public schools - are often the very ones who rant that Mormons are the heretics, slickly deceptive and dangerous anti-christs foretold by the prophet Isaiah and others.

If you are unfamiliar with this new breed of unChristian, drop by an "open house" for virtually any new temple. You'll see them carrying placards bearing hateful messages condemning Mormon teachings and sacred practices. Or, join a public LDS-oriented internet discussion group. Sooner and later and often these well-trained Christian soldiers will attack and disrupt and taunt, avoiding thoughtful discussion at all costs.

"For me the shame is that Mitt is running now when the Republican party has been co-opted by the far right with its extreme and very narrow agenda," says Helen Claire Sievers, a Democrat and long-time personal friend who has worked with Mitt on many church leadership assignments over the years. "The challenge for him, both politically and ethically, is to get the Republican nomination, because I think his centrist philosophies of fiscal responsibility and genuine social compassion will position him well with the general American electorate."

"Mitt showed so much promise when he began this quest a dozen years ago - very, very smart, principled, committed" said another long-time admirer who would like to vote for Romney in 2008 "if he doesn't become your typical politician, willing to do whatever it takes to win the election."

Romney's promising start included supporting the formation of the non-partisan Concord Coalition -- dedicated to fostering sound social and fiscal policies -- led by the late Senator Paul Tsongas, a Massachusetts senator, Democrat and one-time Presidential candidate, and other thoughtful leaders of both political parties. Until he began focusing his sites on the White House, Romney's politics were right down the middle, drifting slightly left on social issues, veering right on fiscal policy - a freshened and appealing version of his father's politics.

As a church leader he was equally moderate and pragmatic, even a careful change agent from time to time. Local members do not recall a single member who was excommunicated or disfellowshipped while he served as president of a stake that probably has as many religiously rococo and fiercely independent academics, writers and thinkers as any in the church. He eschewed using church councils to settle ethical and money disputes between members, encouraging them instead to press their claims in civil court.

When marital breakups beset the bishops and high councilmen who served under him, Romney refused to accept their de' rigueur resignations because such would have suggested, incorrectly in his opinion, that the church viewed divorced members as second class citizens.

According to Dr. Kathleen Flake, Assistant Professor of American Religious History at Vanderbilt University and chronicler of Utah Senator Reed Smoot's influence on the public perception of Mormonism in the early twentieth century, that while Romney does not speak for the church, he could be considered the next key figure in a sustained, if ill defined and uncoordinated effort to reassure America that they have nothing to fear from Mormonism. This effort is as old as Mormonism itself, but as the church has grown so has the need for such assurances."

As if reading from the same script, in parallel timing with Romney's political emergence in 1994, the gregarious and media savvy Hinckley took to the airwaves to dampen down arch teachings that had long rankled fundamentalist and Trinitarian Christians alike. After an interview in Time Magazine wherein President Hinckley cast doubt on whether church doctrine teaches that man can become as God is, a friend asked what I made of Hinckley's and Romney's efforts to soften the sharp edges of Mormonism. I buried my tongue in my keyboard and replied: "If you listen to Mitt and GBH long enough, you might conclude that Mormons are really just Episcopalians who wear funny underwear."

Romney's recent slide right and about-faces on choice, stem cell research, same sex civil unions, and "morning after" birth control measures may be as satisfying to some traditional Mormon and Christian conservatives as they are disappointing to believers who took pride in the refreshingly inclusive approach Romney brought to the pressing social issues of the day. In essence he seemed eager to apply the gospel of agency-- - "teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves"- to the process of developing responsive and fiscally-responsible public policies.

As the Senatorial campaign got underway in 1994 many Latter-day Saints in Massachusetts (and elsewhere too, no doubt) were especially pleased that one of their own, a chosen son, was poised to be a leading peacemaker in the polarizing abortion wars and in the emerging and potentially equally divisive gay civil rights movement.

It was not lost on them that Romney laid out his nuanced views that favored choice and civil unions while he was yet serving as stake president. Were his words harbingers of a sea change at Temple Square? Surely no sitting stake president, particularly one with Romney's sense of propriety, would publicly diverge from standard church policies before sharing his views privately with The Quorum of Twelve Apostles and The First Presidency. Just a year or so earlier, the church-owned Brigham Young University had terminated the contract of Cecilia Konchar Farr, a young English professor (now chair of the English Department of Catholic-run College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota) espoused qualified support for "choice."

If open-minded members of the church were pleased that Romney was willing to cautiously break new ground back in 1993, they too were stunned by his recent dramatic about-faces. They still want to believe that the unflinching, pragmatic leader who emerged in 1993 was the "real Mitt" even if they worry his tempered "pro-choice" endorsement then was more an expedient reaction to political reality than it was a vision borne of serious study, thoughtful reflection and sincere prayer.

Ditto, the church's reaction, or lack thereof. The results of a private poll conducted before Mitt announced for office made it quite clear: no candidate for state-wide office who opposed a woman's right to choose would ever be elected in Massachusetts. Period. The poll results were shared informally with the brethren.

At that time, a senior church official close to the First Presidency, said that some members of the Quorum were dismayed at Romney's position on abortion even if they understood it was consistent with the doctrine of agency. They realized it would serve no purpose to quibble --the greater good was to get him elected, give him a fair shot at realizing the victory his father booted forty years earlier."

Pause for moment. Imagine it is 1994 and you are one of those Christian Right zealots. You already believe that the Mormon position on abortion is too squishy. Now one of its most visible members announces he's "pro choice" and the church takes no action. Ditto "morning after" treatments." In 1994, Romney championed them, reasoning that they could render obsolete the need for most abortions. If he has had a change of heart since then, he's not admitting it. So would his recent rush right make you wary? Would you be confidant he wouldn't rush left when it was convenient?

Even long-time friends understand how hard it is to get a handle on the Real Mitt. "The fact is, he always tells the truth. He is extraordinarily precise about what he says and how he says it, "said a former associate who worked with him at Bain & Company. His assessment is shared by many, many friends of Romney's in Boston who admire and know him well, but are distressed that politics have forced him to compromise what he stands for, at least for the moment.

The former Bain associate continued: "If you were to go back and parse the actual sentences he used in 1993 to define his support for the right of women to choose, I'll bet you'd discover his position today hasn't changed that much. It just seems that way. Like Clinton, Romney expects that you know the answers to important questions are always complex. Therefore, it's important to carefully define and understand what 'is is.'"

Perhaps that is why conventionally conservative columnists profiling the attractive Romney often gloss over his apparent flip flops on key issues like abortion, same sex unions and casino gambling. The most boggling flip of all was his ardent support for stem cell research in 2002, research that could lead to effective treatments for his wife Anne's multiple sclerosis, to outright opposition in 2005.

For some conservatives it seems enough that he is a fiscally conservative leader who has a reputation for rescuing failing ventures, has a moral compass that points "true north" and solid core values. Who cares if their origins are Catholic, Jewish, Presbyterian, Baptist or, egad, Mormon?

As recently as 1999 apparently 17 percent of the electorate did care and said they wouldn't vote for a Presidential candidate who was Mormon. The recent heated response to Newsweek's cover story commemorating the 200th birthday of Joseph Smith suggests that bitter anti-Mormon sentiments are still alive and well in the land. The challenge to Romney is to demonstrate clearly that stacked against Hilary Rodham Clinton, an enigmatic and inscrutable Mormon like him looks pretty darn competent and is a better alternative than the charge former mayor of New York City, or the straight-talking populist Senator from Arizona and former prisoner of war, or the African-American woman who runs the State Department.

Right now he faces the toughest decision of his life. It is not one he can put off for long. As if to underscore his personal angst, as he has done in the past he sought advice from the man he admires most in this world: Mormon President Gordon Bitner Hinckley. The conversation eventually turned to whether a run for the Presidency would be good for him and the church. The specifics of the conversation are, of course, known only to people who were there. However, Romney left with the clear impression that the upbeat Mormon prophet was not worried one whit about additional scrutiny a Presidential campaign might focus on the church and its teachings, but was emphatic about steering wide of any and all partisan political involvements. "The choice to run or not must be yours and yours alone," he reportedly advised, firmly but kindly.

So there Mitt stands, all dressed up with lots of places to go and no electronic Global Positioning System to get him there. He needs to warm the engines now if he is to run for re-election in Massachusetts in 2006, an election recent polls suggest he could lose decisively.

Or, he needs to devote all his energy to winning his party's Presidential nomination, a goal that may ultimately prove unattainable, very costly and personally compromising.

Or, he can hedge along the way, conclude that the stars have aligned to make him better suited for the job a heartbeat down the hall from the nation's corner office.

Perhaps the most promising prospect after all is the hope that Dick Cheney will retire soon to Wyoming and that good things will continue to happen to nice boys like Mitt Romney, as they always have.

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Salt Lake Tribune
October 9, 2005

MITT, MUSLIMS AND MORMONS:
A TIME FOR CALM, A PLEA TO LEAD

RB Scott

BOSTON, Mass. -- Inevitable presidential candidate and current Massachusetts Gov. W. Mitt Romney's threat to wiretap mosques and monitor Muslims won support from his party's right wing. But it left some fellow Latter-day Saints and others wondering if he had lost his grasp of constitutional law not to mention the history of his own church's frightful encounters with government informants and harassment.

Because Romney once led a Mormon ecclesiastical precinct, roughly equivalent to a Catholic diocese, some worried he spoke for the church, too. By all accounts, he did not. The relationship between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the 30,000-strong Muslim community in Utah is solid -- empathetic, cooperative and respectful.

On Sept. 14, he said, "How about people who are in settings -- mosques, for instance -- that may be teaching doctrines of hate and terror? Are we monitoring that? Are we wiretapping?"

Not long before Romney's explosive comments to the conservative Heritage Foundation, the Mormon stake he once led hosted an interfaith dinner intended to strengthen ties between Muslims, Jews and Christians. Because of the goodwill generated that night, Dr. Sepi Gilani, a surgeon and former board member of The Islamic Center of Boston, was particularly dismayed when she read reports of Romney's alarming words a few weeks later.

"Either they show the depths of his ignorance about us, or his willingness to use fear to polarize people," she said.

Wary moderate supporters see Romney's "expedient" side re-emerging as he nears announcing what everyone knows: He wants to be president in 2008. Currying favor with powerful neo-conservatives led him to flip-flop on "choice," "same-sex civil unions" and stem-cell research, and to veto a bill approving the so-called "morning-after pill" (his veto was overridden by a unanimous vote of the legislature).

Romney's expedient side surfaced back in 1994 when he skirted the abortion issue as deftly as Bill Clinton: "Not my choice, but every woman has the right to choose."

Sympathetic Mormons supported his muse then that the "morning-after pill" might be balm for abortion war wounds. They even understood when he claimed "civil unions" would ensure rights for gay citizens while protecting traditional marriage. But, they muttered "oh, please" when he unnecessarily supported building Native American-owned casinos near Cape Cod.

While the polls made it plain -- no candidate who opposed abortion could win in Massachusetts -- some sympathizers thought Romney was just a little too eager to compromise. A Catholic father of eight groused: "I'll vote for Romney, no matter what. But, I wish he would drive a stake in the ground and be himself. I know what Mormons believe. But, I have no idea what Romney stands for."

Illusive, evasive and virtually unknown Mitt Romney gave Sen. Edward Kennedy the scare of his political life in 1994.

Eight years later, hailed nationwide as the savior of the 2002 Winter Olympics, he undermined incumbent Republican Gov. Jane Swift's candidacy so decisively that she scratched before the convention.

Now Romney crassly plays to fearful Americans who fret that home-grown terrorists are religious fanatics praying at the mosque rather than the dispirited, irreligious angry young men they often are, drinking whiskey in a strip club on the "cheatin' side of town."

That's why the governor's rhetoric confounds another Salt Lake native, Dr. Christopher Blakesley, who went to church with Romney when they were students in Boston. Now an expert in international criminal law and terrorism, he holds a professorship at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and is the J.Y. Sanders Professor Emeritus at Louisiana State University Law Center.

Blakesley wonders "Is wiretapping mosques really what Mitt believes, or is he willing to prostitute his beliefs for the nomination?"

A professor at a prominent university near Boston, a former Utahn who has known Romney for years warns: "Mitt's recent flip-flops on key issues are foolish pandering. He seriously overestimates the support he or any Mormon would ultimately receive from ultra-right Christians."

Thomas Duncan of Provo, who served with Romney when the two were missionaries in France, worries, "If Mitt gets serious about wiretapping mosques, how long will it be before the press figures out that Mormons were once at odds with the government and swore oaths in church that outsiders thought promoted terrorism?"

Duncan refers, in part, to a series of distorted dispatches from adversaries and paid informants that persuaded President James Buchanan to send federal troops to Utah in 1857.

Before siccing snoops on Muslims, like they once were turned on Mormons, the governor should listen to Mahmud Jafri, a member of the Dover (a wealthy Boston suburb) Republican Committee, contributor to both Romney campaigns and founding member of the Islamic Masumeen Center of New England: "His comments saddened Muslim leaders. Why wiretap and spy while we pray? We've already pledged to submit transcripts of all our services and proceedings in our mosques and centers."

Like the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee, America needs a uniter, not a divider. It would be refreshing if the governor divined what polls will eventually tell him and decided right now, on his own, to stand for something.