Posted By James Besser
Responding to the rise of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in the Republican presidential sweepstakes, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen had a provocative column yesterday on the growing focus on religion in American politics in general and the 2008 presidential race in particular.
Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, has talked more openly about the connection between his faith and his politics than any other current candidate. Cohen writes that if he wants to keep doing that, he should “tell us how your religious beliefs, your rejection of accepted scientific knowledge, will not impinge on your presidency.”
Cohen offers a backhanded defense of former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney, whose Mormon faith continues to be a problem in his effort to win over the GOP’s important religious right faction.
Romney’s turnabouts on issues like gay rights and abortion are a kind of virtue in today’s political world, Cohen writes.
“If anything, Romney is the anti-Huckabee. There is not the slightest hint that his religion has constrained his politics in any way. You name the issue and he's been for it and against it -- gun control, abortion, gay rights. Call this what you may, it is proof that Romney is not enslaved by any dogma.”
Read Cohen’s interesting, controversial column here.
Romney’s Mormonism is also the subject of alleged “push polls” in Iowa and other early primary and caucus states.
Push polls are bogus public opinion surveys commissioned by one candidate that ask a lot of questions about a particularly controversial aspect of an opposing candidate. The goal isn’t to get statistics but to remind voters of something the sponsoring candidate doesn’t dare to raise publicly.
Push polls have been used against Jewish candidates in the past, including Jill Docking, a Democrat who ran against Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) in 1996. Calls from pollsters in that race reminded voters that Docking was Jewish.
In Romney’s case, pollsters asked voters if they knew he was a Mormon and that he had served as a Mormon missionary.
In the past two presidential elections, the Anti-Defamation League has campaigned against the growing emphasis on personal questions of faith and religious practice in campaigns; looks like the group has its work cut out for it in 2008.