| This article is part of a series about Mitt Romney |
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2012 Presidential campaign |
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The public image of Mitt Romney explores the popular image of 2012 Presidential candidate Mitt Romney who has served as a business executive and Governor of Massachusetts. Romney's popularity has grown since his 2008 campaign for President of the United States. Included is a discussion of Romney's personal and political image as well as his values and affiliation with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with attention given to Romney's 2008 "Faith in America" speech.[1][1]
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The New York Times described Romney's persona in 2011 as that of "a cautious chief executive who is uneasy with off-the-cuff remarks, unnatural at chitchat and spare with his emotions."[2]
Romney is the son of George W. Romney (the former Governor of Michigan) and Lenore Romney. He was raised in the affluent Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, went to public elementary schools and then from seventh grade on attended the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, a private preparatory school from which he graduated. He then attended Stanford University for a year before serving as a missionary in France. After returning the the states, he transferred to Brigham Young University from which he received his undergraduate degree, and thereafter earned joint Juris Doctor/Master of Business Administration degrees from Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. Mitt Romney, recognized as being highly educated and handsome, is known for his business acumen as CEO of Bain Capital.[3] Romney served as Governor of Massachusetts from 2002 to 2006. His book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness published in 2010 highlights his vision for America. Romney is generally regarded as an American conservative.
Romney was widely praised for his successful efforts with the 2002 Winter Olympics[4] including by President George W. Bush, and it solidified his reputation as a turnaround artist.[5] Harvard Business School taught a case study based around Romney's successful actions.[6] Romney wrote a book about his experience titled Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games, published in 2004. The role gave Romney experience in dealing with federal, state, and local entities, a public persona he had previously lacked, and the chance to re-launch his political aspirations. Indeed, he was mentioned as a possible candidate for statewide office in both Massachusetts and Utah, and also as possibly joining the Bush administration.
Romney formally announced his first candidacy for the Republican nomination for President on February 13, 2007, at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.[7] In his speech, Romney frequently invoked his father and his own family and stressed experiences in the private, public, and voluntary sectors that had brought him to this point.[7][8] He said, "Throughout my life, I have pursued innovation and transformation,"[8] and casting himself as a political outsider, said, "I do not believe Washington can be transformed from within by a lifelong politician."[9] Romney's choice to launch his first Presidential campaign in his native Michigan at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn served as an emblem of support for American ingenuity. Mitt Romney received an endorsement from conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh in February 2008[10] and Ann Coulter in January 2008.[11]
Romney's popularity has grown significantly among registered voters. In June 2011, an ABC News poll showed Mitt Romney leading 49-46 in a match up against Barack Obama among registered voters.[12] In battle ground states, polls in June 2011 showed a close match between Romney and Obama.[13]
Mitt Romney's religious background has been extensively covered by the mainstream media, especially in connection with his 2008 presidential campaign.[14] Mitt Romney is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, members of which are commonly known as Mormons or LDS (Latter-day Saint).
In addition to missionary work in France in the 1960s under the tutelage of Wesley L. Pipes, Romney has served as a bishop, and has also been a stake president in his church.[14] In accordance with LDS doctrine,[15] as bishops and stake presidents are lay positions in his church, Romney received no compensation or money for his years of service in those positions. Also in accordance to his religious beliefs, Romney abstains from alcohol and smoking.[16][17][18]
Mitt Romney's great-great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt, was among the first leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the early 19th century. Marion George Romney, his first cousin, once removed, was one of the church's 12 Apostles. Romney's paternal great-grandparents practiced plural marriage, and went to Mexico in 1884 after the 1878 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Reynolds v. United States that upheld laws banning polygamy.[19] Subsequent generations of Romney's paternal lineage have been monogamous, and none of his mother's Mormon ancestors were polygamists.[20][21] Mitt Romney's father, George W. Romney, was a patriarch of LDS Church. Romney's wife, Ann, converted to Mormonism before they were married in 1969.[22]
Romney has expressed his faith in Jesus Christ as his "Lord and Savior" openly to evangelical Christian groups.[23] He has received support from evangelical Christians.[24][25]
Mitt Romney's delivered his "Faith in America" speech on December 6, 2007, at the George Herbert Walker Bush Presidential Library, with an introduction by then President Bush. The speech, which was widely regarded as evoking that of Senator John F. Kennedy's September 1960 pledge not to allow Catholic doctrine to inform policy, discussed the role of religion in American society and politics.
While the speech was perceived as a response to Huckabee's mercurial rise in the polls in late November within first caucusing Iowa, soon to cast ballots on January 3 (in which likely caucus goers are deemed to be over 40-per-cent evangelical), with commentators opining that Romney hoped it would effectively answer the media's longtime pre-occupation with the hurdle manifested by Romney's faith, Romney's campaign billed the speech as extolling American freedom of worship while helping to satisfy public curiosity about how Romney's strain of religious devotion would inform presidential governance. After the speech was delivered, Romney's advisors told reporters, off the record, that Romney had said that through this speech he wanted to address his "comma problem": the common practice to put next to his name in media reports, "(comma) who is a Mormon (comma)."
Romney's speech gave primacy to the American Constitutional right of religious liberty, which produces cultural diversity and vibrancy of dialog. He called for public acknowledgments of God such as within Holidays religious displays. Romney said, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.".[26] He cited a religious nature to historic abolitionists' campaigns, the campaign for American Civil Rights, and the contemporary campaign for the Right to Life. Romney advocated maintenance of a separation of Church and State, stating that he, as president, would decline directives from churches' hierarchies, including that of the LDS church.
Romney said while there are those who would prefer he indicated he holds his LDS faith merely as a tradition, actually he believes in his faith and tries to live according to its teachings, and while sacraments and confession of Romney's "church's beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths," he still holds Christ "the Son of God and Savior of mankind." Romney declined to address further the specifics of his Mormonism, implying that any compulsion to do so would counter the Constitutional prohibition of a religion test for political office. Mitt Romney wrote the speech himself.[27]
In the speech Romney said, "I saw my father march with Martin Luther King." Some weeks later, the Romney campaign, when asked for the specifics, indicated this to have been an NAACP-sponsored procession in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, led by George W. Romney. However there are conflicting accounts as to whether King was present at this march.[28][29]
In an interview with Newsweek, Romney said, "I don't think I defined religious liberty… it includes all, all forms of personal conviction.… The people who don't have a particular faith have a personal conviction. I said all forms of personal conviction. And personal conviction includes a sense of right and wrong and any host of beliefs someone might have. Obviously in this nation our religious liberty includes the ability to believe or not believe."[30][31]
Contrasting media coverage, Mormonism was not an issue in his father's presidential campaign in 1968. Possible reasons include: he dropped out before it could become one, the candidacy of John F. Kennedy (a Catholic) had neutralized the religion issue, and religion generally was not a major stump issue.[32][33] During the Boca Raton debate of January 24, 2008, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams asked Romney: "Governor, we've got [a poll...] in the morning that says... 44 percent of respondents say a Mormon president would have a difficult time uniting the country...."
… to which Romney replied:
"You know, I just don't believe that people in this country are going to choose their -- their candidate based on which church he or she goes to. I just don't believe that. "And you know, polls ask people a lot of questions, and my faith isn't terribly well known around this country, but I don't think for a minute the American people are going to say, you know what, we're not going to vote for this guy for a secular position because of his church. I just don't believe it. "I think when the Constitution and the founders said no religious test shall ever be required for qualification for office or public trust in these United States that the founders meant just that. And I don't believe for a minute that Republicans, or Americans for that matter, are going to impose a religious test when the founders said it's as un-American as anything you can think of. "And so I believe that I'll ultimately get the nomination. I can't be sure of that, but I'm -- I'm pretty confident. And I believe in a head-to-head with Hillary Clinton the differences in our perspectives on how to get America going again and how to get us on the right track are as different as night and day. She takes her inspiration from the Europe of old, Big Brother, big government and big taxes. I take mine from Republican ideals: small government, small taxes, individual freedom. I believe that free American people are the source of America's greatness. "And so I don't think you're going to see religion figuring into this race after people have had a chance to get to know all the candidates."[34]
Romney's "Faith in America" speech, delivered in December 2007, addressed the matter.[35] In it, Romney said he should neither be elected nor rejected based upon his religion,[36] and echoed Senator John F. Kennedy's famous speech during his 1960 presidential campaign in saying "I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law."[35] Instead of discussing the specific tenets of his faith, he said that he would be informed by it and that, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."[35][36]
One academic study, based upon research conducted throughout the 2008 primaries, showed a widespread lack of knowledge among voters about Mormonism that tended to be resistant to factual information that would correct mistaken notions about the religion.[37] The authors reasoned that for Romney religion has become an item of interest for voters.[37] Another study, analyzing a survey conducted during January 2008 found that voters had selectively internalized the notion of religious equality, and in particular not extended it to Mormons, thus making Romney's run more difficult.[38] Those authors concluded that, "for a Mormon candidate, the road to the presidency remains very rough ... The bias against a Mormon candidate is substantial."[38]
The June 13, 2011, issue of Newsweek magazine featured a Romney-themed cover based on the popular Book of Mormon Broadway musical, and dubbed the summer of 2011 "The Mormon Moment".[39][40][41] Analysts expect Romney's Mormonism to become an issue again in the 2012 campaign.[1]
In December 2007, one in four voters would less likely vote for a Mormon. Only 49% know a "great deal" about the Mormon religion. 53% hold a favorable view on the religion, 31% believe Mormonism is not a Christian faith.
In February 2011, Romney made a comment downplaying his religion as a political factor in an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan.[42]
In June 2011, according to the Pew poll, a substantial majority of respondents — 68 percent — say a candidate's Mormon affiliation doesn't matter to them, while 25 percent say they would be less likely to support an LDS candidate and another 5 percent be more likely to support.[43]
Polls in 2007 and 2011 indicated that about a quarter of Republican voters, and a quarter of voters overall, said they were less likely to vote for a candidate who was a Mormon.[44][35][40]
In polls of Republican voters taken during the 2008 presidential primaries a quarter of Republican voters expressed that they would be "less likely" to vote for a presidential candidate who is Mormon.[32][46] Among other criticisms, some evangelical voters view the LDS Church as a cult.[47] However, some social conservatives and evangelicals criticize Romney for not being Mormon enough, regarding social policy.[48][49] He has avoided speaking publicly about specific church doctrines, and has pointed out that the U.S. Constitution prohibits religious tests for public office.[32] Declining to discuss details about his religion also reduced the risk that doctrinal differences will alienate evangelical Christian voters.[48] Romney instead addressed religion in general, saying that as president he would "need the prayers of the people of all faiths," and that he would "serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States."[32]
Mitt Romney was the third U.S. presidential candidate of the Mormon faith to have a high likelihood of achieving a major political party's nomination. The first of these three was Romney's own father, George W. Romney, a progressive on Civil Rights who was the savior of American Motors Corporation. George Romney, while Governor of Michigan, ran for president in 1968 as a popular alternative to Richard M. Nixon for the Republican nomination.
The second was Mo Udall, the liberal Arizona congressman. He gained considerable support throughout the 1976 primary race as a rival to Jimmy Carter, who campaigned as a devout evangelical. During the latter part of Udall's campaign, Udall faced criticism from black activists concerning the fact that the church stated as Udall's religious affiliation, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, barred blacks from holding its lay priesthood. (This policy was changed in 1978.) In response to this criticism, Udall withdrew nominal affiliation with the denomination in 1976.
Differing from Udall, Mitt Romney is a social conservative. Paralleling Udall's rivalry with the outspokenly evangelical candidate Jimmy Carter, one of Romney's chief rivals in 2007 was also a self-professing evangelical and former Southern governor, Mike Huckabee.[50]
Romney is a proponent of contemporary monogamous, heterosexual marriage:[51]
| “ | There is nothing more awful, in my view, than the violation of the marriage covenant that one has with one's wife. The practice of polygamy is abhorrent, it's awful, and it drives me nuts that people who are polygamists keep pretending to use the umbrella of my church....My church abhors it, it excommunicates people who practice it, and it's got nothing to do with my faith. | ” |
Some church commentators have noted that polygamy among early Mormons resulted from more women in Utah than men. Census figures for the period, however, report equal numbers of men and women.[52]
The question of whether Mormons are considered "Christians" remains a sensitive issue, with possible political implications.[53][54][40][41] As such, analysts expect Romney's affiliation with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to become an issue again on the campaign trail.[1] In lieu of Romney's potential 2012 nomination, director Adam Christing is set to release a historical documentary entitled "A Mormon President: Joseph Smith and the Mormon Quest for the White House", which explores whether America is ready for a Mormon president.[55][56] In regards to that question, a June 2011 Pew Research poll, found that one out of every four American voters said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate if he or she were Mormon.[40]
When asked about his faith's view on gay rights in a June 2011 interview with CNN's Piers Morgan, Romney stated:
"I'm not a spokesman for my church, and one thing I'm not going to do in running for president is become a spokesman for my church or apply a religious test that is simply forbidden by the Constitution, I'm not going there. If you want to learn about my church, talk to my church." [40]
Rick Santorum was asked if Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney will have problems in the race as Mormons. Santorum answered,
"I hope not." He continued, "I hope that people will look at the qualities of candidates and look at what they believe and what they're for and look their records and then make a decision."[57]
Joe Biden said;
"I find it preposterous that in 2011 we're debating whether or not a man is qualified or worthy of your vote based on whether or not his religion ... is a disqualifying provision," Biden told an audience at the University of Pittsburgh. "It is not. It is embarrassing and we should be ashamed, anyone who thinks that way," he said in a response to a student's question about how his own religious faith affected his philosophy of government.[58]
A video voter guide released in January 2008 by James Dobson's Focus on the Family reviews Romney favorably. Within the video, a public policy expert for the group, Tom Minnery, states his contention that Romney "has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith." Minnery bases this contention on the quote from Romney's December speech on faith where Romney said "religions differ on their beliefs about Christ" and "each religion has its own unique doctrines."[59][60]
Minnery said he had spoken with the Romney campaign after posting the video and his contention was not contested nor was he asked for a retraction: "We've got a good relationship with them." Meanwhile campaign spokesman Kevin Madden referred to Romney's faith speech to answer media inquiries as to whether the candidate believes himself a Christian.[61]
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