Mitt Romney

Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney addresses supporters as he campaigns in Maryland. Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images

The Mitt Romney whom many Americans see today is often depicted as wealthy, wooden and out of touch with the working class. To some, he seems gaffe prone, detached, even distant.

But that's not the man Boston Mormons knew in the late 1980s and early '90s, when many saw him as an eloquent speaker, a compassionate counselor and a creative problem-solver, generous with his money and quick to help any in need.

Are the two guys related?

Photo by Jeff Fusco/Getty Images

FRC President Tony Perkins and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson. Photo by Jeff Fusco/Getty Images

Does Rick Santorum's Southern surge also herald the return of the Religious Right?

Last January, the titans of Christian conservatism were widely dismissed as irrelevant, at best, after 150 of them gathered for an evangelical "conclave" at a Texas ranch and anointed Rick Santorum as their champion -- only to see him finish third in rock-ribbed South Carolina a week later, well behind Newt Gingrich and even their least-loved candidate, Mitt Romney.

Now, however, with Santorum on an roll after big primary wins on Tuesday (March 13) in Alabama and Mississippi, those born-again bigwigs and their allies may be having the last laugh.

"People have been writing the obituary of the pro-family, evangelical movement for 25 years -- and they're always wrong," said Ralph Reed, head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and the architect of the Christian Coalition in the 1980s.

Sandi Villarreal 3-14-2012
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A supporter of Newt Gingrich outside church in Florida. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In Tuesday’s Mississippi and Alabama primaries, about eight of 10 voters identified as evangelical, locking in victories for former Sen. Rick Santorum, and proving once again the importance of the evangelicals in the election.

Presidential hopefuls are again battling it out to be the God candidate, but the tide of the so-called “evangelical vote” seems ever-shifting. Santorum—a Catholic—is doing better to court most evangelicals, while former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney — a Mormon — is beating out Santorum among Catholics. And according to a recent poll, Republicans in the Deep South are still questioning whether President Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Religion matters.

But what does the “evangelical vote” even mean anymore? And can any one candidate really claim it? Even with Santorum’s win Tuesday, a significant number still fell into Romney’s column — and that’s just among Republican evangelicals. Obama was able to draw some evangelical support in 2008 and could garner more in November.

the Web Editors 3-13-2012

 

"Mainly it seems the media is just annoyed that it took this guy to get people to listen...'I mean, we're handsome, we're on TV. Why won't Rhianna retweet our stories on Kony?'"

the Web Editors 3-07-2012
Chart by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

Chart by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

New analysis by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, based on National Election Pool exit polling conducted during the Super Tuesday GOP primaries, shows that Mitt Romney continues to struggle among the GOP’s white born-again/evangelical voters. He did win the evangelical vote in two of the seven states where exit polling was conducted: Massachusetts (where he served as governor); and Virginia (where neither Santorum nor Gingrich were on the ballot). In four states, Romney received significantly less support from evangelicals than from non-evangelical voters — continuing the pattern seen in previous caucuses and primaries.

Daniel Burke 3-06-2012
Girl working on math homework. Image by Cheryl Casey/Shutterstock.com.

Girl working on math homework. Image by Cheryl Casey/Shutterstock.com.

Strapped for cash and staff, Rick Santorum has enlisted a ragtag but politically potent army to keep his campaign afloat: home-schoolers.

Heading into today's Super Tuesday, Santorum was urging home-schoolers to organize rallies, post favorable features on social media and ring doorbells on his behalf.

"Santorum has been very aggressive in reaching out to the home-schooling community, especially in the last month," said Rebecca Keliher, the CEO and publisher of Home Educating Family Publishing.

Drawing on his experience as a home-schooling father of seven, the former Pennsylvania senator has also sought to rally enthusiasm by pledging to continue that course in the White House.  

"It's a great sacrifice that my wife, Karen, and I have made to try to give what we think is the best possible opportunity for our children to be successful," Santorum said during a March 1 campaign stop in Georgia. "Not just economically, but in a whole lot of other areas that we think are important — virtue and character and spirituality."

Daniel Burke 3-04-2012
Rick Santorum greets nuns at a Knights of Columbus rally, Feb. 24. Getty Imagesa

Rick Santorum greets Catholic nuns at a Knights of Columbus rally, Feb. 24. Via Getty Images.

Mitt Romney has trounced Rick Santorum, an ardent Catholic, among Catholic voters, but Romney's support among evangelicals has wavered thus far in the GOP presidential primary, according to a new analysis of exit poll data.

Though he won evangelicals in two states, in general Romney has performed 15 percentage points better among non-evangelicals, according to an analysis released March 2 by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. 

Exit poll data is available in seven of the 11 states that have held primary contests to date, according to the Pew Forum. More detailed religious affiliations are available in six of those states.

White evangelicals formed more than a third of all GOP primary voters in each state except for Nevada (24 percent) and New Hampshire (21 percent). Romney, a Mormon, won the evangelical vote in those two states, and nearly tied for first in Arizona and Florida. But he lost the evangelical vote badly in three states: Michigan, Iowa and South Carolina.

Somewhat surprisingly, Santorum has not won the Catholic vote in a single state in which data is available, according to the Pew Forum.

Thomas Burr 3-01-2012
LDS Temple, Salt Lake City. Photo by Joe Y Jiang/Shutterstock.com

LDS Temple, Salt Lake City. Photo by Joe Y Jiang/Shutterstock.com

WASHINGTON — The founders of the Republican Party saw Mormons as their enemies. And the first Mormon leaders didn't have much nice to say about the GOP, either.

You would never know it now — one recent poll showed three-quarters of Mormon faithful lean toward the GOP — but the two groups had an acrimonious start, fueled largely by the early Mormon practice of polygamy.

As Mitt Romney presses his bid for the Republican nomination for president, many Americans don't realize how his Mormon faith played an important role as foil in the early days of the GOP — and how its first candidates catapulted to power in part by whipping up anti-Mormon sentiments.

Elephant image via Shutterstock

Elephant image via Shutterstock

The unofficial results are in and it looks like former governor Mitt Romney won the Michigan primary with 41 percent of the vote. Many commentators believe that this win indicates a recovery of momentum for the Romney campaign.

There are now unconfirmed reports that building off the popularity of President Obama’s rendition of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” Mitt Romney has been working on a cover of Katy Perry’s "Hot n’ Cold" to sing for GOP primary voters.

Not to be outdone, Santorum, Gingrich, and Paul pull a few tricks from their sleeves too.

 

Dave Murray 2-28-2012

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Mitt Romney’s position on the Detroit auto bailout and health care plan have been blasted, but a pollster suggests one issue not often discussed on the campaign trail this year could end up costing him Tuesday's Michigan primary victory: his Mormon faith.

EPIC-MRA pollster Bernie Porn said the former Massachusetts governor’s faith hasn’t been as big of a topic as it was when he sought the nomination in 2008.

But Porn said on WGVU’s “West Michigan Week” that his polls show that 7 percent of the Republicans tallied said they wouldn’t vote for Romney because he is a Mormon – and the actual number might be higher.

With a race that could be decided by less than 5 percent, that could be a problem for Romney, he said.

Jack Palmer 2-08-2012

It was an eventful night in the GOP primary race last night, with some surprises in the results.

See the best of the reaction to what happened right here:

In The New York Times, Rick Santorum’s trifecta of victories was called “another twist to an unruly nominating contest that has seen Republican voter veering among candidates and refusing to coalesce behind anyone.”

Former Senator Santorum’s victory has been put down to the voting preferences of “evangelicals and Tea Party adherents”, who make up a significant percentage of the electorate in all three states. One pundit noted that when it comes to voting:

“evangelicals, they get out. Cold, wind, rain or snow, they get out.”

Omid Safi 2-07-2012

It seems like every day we hear from another politician saying that “we are ready to attack Iran if necessary," or from another pundit full of hot air telling us why we should invade Iran right now.

The presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, has said that he would support “something of a surgical-strike nature, to something of a ‘decapitate the regime’ nature to eliminate the military threat of Iran altogether.” President Obama has said:   “Every option is on the table.” All of these conversations typically go along the lines of emphasizing how Iran poses a serious and immediate threat to the United States.

As was the case in the conversations leading up to the 2003 Iraq war, there is much heat, and not a whole lot of light.

Debra Dean Murphy 2-03-2012

“The poor will always be with you,” Jesus once said, and for centuries his followers have struggled to understand what he meant.

Or maybe not.

“The poor will always be with you” — especially if you’re not poor — seems straightforward enough: Look around, people ! The poor (and their problems) are very much with us!

Viewed through this kind of realpolitik lens, this verse (and the Bible generally) pose no real interpretive challenges to our reading or our living. The world, regrettably, is simply thus. The poor, alas, will always be with us.

President Obama connected his faith with his policies toward the poor at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday (2/2/12), a subtle but sharp contrast to remarks made by presidential hopeful Mitt Romney the day before. 

"Living by the principle that we are our brother's keeper. Caring for the poor and those in need," Obama said before an audience of about 3,000 at the Washington Hilton. These values, he said, "they're the ones that have defined my own faith journey."
   
Specifically, Obama said, they translate to policies that support research to fight disease and support foreign aid. His faith, he continued, inspires him "to give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy."

the Web Editors 2-01-2012

Searching For The Common Good In Political Discourse; Afghans Fear Downturn As Foreigners Withdraw; Romney: "I'm Not Concerned About The Very Poor"; Reducing Poverty Will Help Bring About The Kingdom Of God, Bishop Says; Introducing The Ifactory; Get Off Our Butts! (OPINION); Saudi Oil Minister Calls Global Warming “Humanity’s Most Pressing Concern”; Linebacker’s Faith Pulls Him Through Tough Spot; National Prayer Breakfast Gets A Rival: The People's Prayer Breakfast.

Duane Shank 1-26-2012
Brigham Young, Mormon leader and Western pioneer. Via Wiki Commons.

Brigham Young, Mormon leader and Western pioneer. Via Wiki Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brigham-young.jpg

With Mormonism frequently in the news, do you wish you knew more about its beliefs and practices?  Cathy Lynn Grossman has a good basic summary, and a comparative chart to Christian denominations.

Joshua Witchger 1-25-2012

Art in the streets and in the windows of dirty cars, photography hot spots around the world and how it's bringing healing to victims of sexual abuse, Leonard Cohen, David Lynch, Mitt Romney, and a guide to discovering what type of worshipper you are.      

the Web Editors 1-24-2012

Obama To Take On Economic Anxiety In Election-Year State Of The Union, Amid GOP Attacks; Black, Latino Students Perform At Levels Of 30 Years Ago; Obama Offends The Catholic Left; Evangelicals And Romney: Should Theology Matter?; What’s Up With The Arab League?; "Self Deportation": It's A Real Thing, And It Isn't Pretty; Who Are Boko Haram and Why Are They Terrorizing Nigerian Christians?; 2011 Annual Letter From Bill Gates; Florida GOP Debate: Immigration Proposals Anger Protesters; An Occupy Prayer Breakfast: There Is Enough For Everyone!; Violence Spikes In Key Afghan Regions.

Carrie Adams 1-13-2012
Mitt Romney. Illustration by DonkeyHotey via Wylio

Mitt Romney. Illustration by DonkeyHotey via Wylio

We’ve been watching the shifting evangelical vote in the primaries thus far, and NPR just took another look at it — from the King Makers on their way to Texas to try and find the Anti-Mitt. It’s not a question of if they can do it, but can they do it in time? S

outh Carolina is quickly approaching and their timetable is getting shorter and shorter.

And if they can, will it even make a difference for today’s evangelical voter?