Romney Needs to Explain His Faith

With so much additional coverage now that he's a front-runner in terms of fundraising, Mitt Romney shouldn't wait much longer to delineate how and why his LDS faith will or won't impact on his ability to serve as President. Given a coming onslaught of publicity about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he can't afford to hang back much longer and hope American voters will ignore his membership in a church they know so little about.

A major PBS documentary (The Mormons) will air in two parts on April 30th and May 1st, taking a four-hour look at the nation's fourth largest religious denomination. Its director said her intent is to shatter all the stereotypes and clear up the ignorance that surrounds this church. And then there is the less-than-flattering feature film, September Dawn. Due out May 4th, it stars Jon Voight and deals with an embarassing and tragic chapter in the history of the church: the Mountain Meadows Massacre. While the former televised documentary is likely to be quite a bit more even-handed and accurate than this Hollywood depiction, PBS can never hope to get the size of audience that a violent feature film can...particularly when said film is tied to 9-11 the way this one has been.

So what should Romney do to maintain control of the message? (After all, in politics, it's always a good idea to get your own story out before everyone else does.)

As proposed in an Op-Ed piece in today's New York Times, since the former Massachusetts governor is scheduled to give the commencement address at Pat Robertson's Regent University in May, it would provide a perfect opportunity to outline his faith before an audience of conservative evangelicals:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/opinion/09woodward.html?ex=1333771200&en=097454d4ea769eea&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Up to now, he has been hesitant to do just that, thinking (and perhaps rightly) that a presidential candidate's personal faith should have no bearing on his/her ability to function in the White House. But with all polls indicating that Americans are far less likely to vote for a Mormon than for a woman or an African American, he needs to speak out and convince them that his faith should pose no barrier...otherwise, he cannot hope to be elected.