The Decline and Fall of Mitt Romney [Bryan]

If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I've been pretty tough on Mitt Romney. I did not really rejoice, though, when I saw that he had suspended his race. For all his apparent faults, he was probably the best Republican candidate out there. I believe that, at bottom, he is a decent -- if somewhat shallow -- man and that he would have run a competent, drama-free White House. I hope that next time he runs, he figures out that his strength is as a technocratic centrist manager, and not a fire-breathing right winger. He would have been a much more compelling candidate had he not tried to get cozy with the evangelicals, the neoconservatives, and the unitary executivists.

Hearing his final speech, however, I worry that he has not really learned this lesson. He said, for example: "If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Sens. Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror." So electing a Democratic is surrendering to terror? Sheez, Mitt. Harping on national fear and division is not the way to become a real leader.

I think Romney's decline holds certain lessons for us Mormons. I think it is undeniable the Romney's religion played a part in his lack of success among conservative voters. It wasn't the only factor, to be sure, but it was one factor.

Here is one message we Mormons should take: The Religious Right is not our friend. The fear, animosity, and rancor they display toward secularists, Muslims, gays, evolutionists, feminists, pacifists, liberals, immigrants, and so forth, are also often aimed squarely at Mormons. If they are our bedfellows on political issues, perhaps we may want to rethink the company we keep.

At the same time, the secular left revealed its own shortcomings. I saw Romney's religious beliefs ridiculed in many of the left-leaning blogs I frequent. Now, I do believe that there are parts of Mormon history and contemporary practice that deserve sustained criticism (Mountain Meadows, the Priesthood ban, overwhelming Mormon support for wars, and so forth). Much of the criticism I saw was uninformed, however, or presented in the most unsympathetic way possible. I would have expected better from them.

Part of the problem here, though, is that we Mormons on the whole are often not very thoughtful about our religious beliefs. We think there are easy answers to every question. We do not study our religion deeply and, by policy, keep everything at its most simple (simplistic?) level. We are afraid of doubters and questioners. We do not think very much about how our religion should coexist with other religious groups (or nonreligious groups) that all disagree vehemently about basic moral issues. Among ourselves, we think we are hot stuff and we love the way many of our stories and theologies make us different. Yet, at the same time, we get offended when people call us out on this and claim that we actually are different, mysterious, secretive, odd, or non-Christian. We celebrate our differences in private, but seem embarrassed by them in public. I think some nonmembers sense this disconnect, and I can't really blame them for not trusting us because of it.

My advice to Mormons: We should learn to be less defensive about our differences, but also learn to defend them in sophisticated ways. For example, some Mormon leaders have indeed taught that "Jesus and Satan are brothers" (in some sense) just as Mike Huckabee said. How can we turn this shocking statement into a compelling narrative about our belief in the power of freedom and agency, rather than denying it, dismissing it as only a "minor doctrine," or affirming it without an accompanying interpretive framework that gives it power and meaning? We have a lot of work to do if we want people to take Mormonism seriously. Right now, we as a people are a mirror image of Romney -- nice, clean cut, and competent, but also image-obsessed and shallow.