And….? Your point….? Does that mean he should not be President because he is inactive? Should church members not vote for him because he is not a TBM? Better a spiritual person who values diversity than a flip-flopper.

I’m kind of surprised he answered that question that way. I think he’s still a member and could have said so, but he chose to say “That’s tough to define” which really isn’t accurate. He’s either a member or he isn’t. But he may be uncomfortable saying he is a member when he is not attending much, and maybe he’s not doing other things that we think of as being characteristic of members. I think that will influence whether Mormons feel inclined to vote for him, but I doubt he’s thinking of the LDS vote as a necessity.

Romney, as a former stake president, will trump Huntsman’s perceived activity – or lack thereof – to garner whatever TBM vote is relevant to the Republican primary. However, Utah will vote for whichever Republican (including Huckabee) wins the primary, so any “activity” comparison between Romney and Huntsman is not relevant to LDS voters in the general election.

Good on Huntsman for boycotting the piety Olympics.

ESO,

Good point. How much Mormon is too much Mormon for the GOP? I am guessing that any Mormon at all is too much, but we will find out soon.

Geez, Michael, chill out. It’s an interesting point is all. We’re called Mormon Mentality not inactive but spiritual Mormon Mentality. Get a grip. Nobody said he shouldn’t be president because of it. I said he shouldn’t because something about him bothers me. He comes across a weinie, sort of.

Well, he does.

And Chino, in this vein, I think he’s actually distancing himself in order to be elected, I think he would do whatever it took. I’d never attribute high “avoid piety” motives to him.

I have no idea what he’s trying to do or say, but if I was in a similar spotlight asked the same question by a journalist, I might be reluctant to offer up my personal spiritual beliefs as well, in order for the press to deconstruct them any way they liked. How many other candidates get their private religious feelings scrutinized? Bush never had to submit to such a thing, and Obama nor McCain did either.

The last go around with Mitt Romney, I was fascinated how the pop musician Brandon Flowers could say more informative and interesting things about his religion and his place in it as a little aside than Romney could with a whole speech on religion. This little episode with Huntsman and Time magazine looks like the same thing. Huntsman is desperate to not say something Mormony that will alienate 98% of the country, so instead he confuses the hell out of the reporter. Then, a random John lays out in plain language Huntsman’s very simple and common situation. Ah, politicians. No point expecting too much from any of them.

This statement probably raised his popularity over Romney’s with a sub-section of the GOP, and it will only hurt him with and even smaller sub-section.

As for myself, I’d pick Huntsman over Romney in a minute, whether he went to last weeks temple night or not. I don’t care how often either one of them goes to church, I care about their politics, and right now I like Huntsman’s moderate politics a lot more than Romney’s “I’ll be whatever you want me to be” politics.

Mcq, he’s never had to be. His dad paid for everything. And jjohnson, I guarantee Huntsman would never answered that question that way when he was running for governor.

I’m not necessarily a Romney supporter but I don’t think his expressions of faith are for practical purposes. I don’t care what religion the governor of Utah is but I wasn’t impressed with Huntsman.

Maybe, bottom line, politicians are never genuine. They never say or do anything from their heart. It’s all calculated. I think Huntsman’s reply was calculated to set him off from Romney. I don’t think he’d be a good president.

jjohnsen,

The guy before him was a woman (how soon we forget) and the guy after him was his own fault.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised by his performance as governor.

I actually think that Huntsman is a typically slimy politician. I am sure he is inactive which is really no big deal. The folks over at BCC are twisting themselves into knots trying to come up with a way that Huntsman represnts some strain of Mormonism. I think he is just not that active. He never would have answered that way prior to potentially running for president like Annegb said. I really don’t care if he is active or not as far as voting for him is concerned. I don’t think I have ever had the opportunity to pull the lever for a LDS candidate in my entire life having lived outside of the Corridor my whole life. Huntsman will never win the GOP nomination cause he is a RINO. I actually don’t think Huntsman could have won a GOP Primary in Utah after his time as Gov.

I have never had any reason to question Romney’s LDS credentials. But again how does that help me when evaluating a candidate in a GOP primary? I am a big believer in the records of candidates. Mit and Obama are virtually the same on Healthcare. I do not see Romney winning the GOP primary because of this.

bbell,

Look at the margin by which Huntsman won his second term as governor and tell my that Utahns wouldn’t vote for him. His performance in a statewide general election makes Romney’s performance in the GOP Primary in Utah look unimpressive.

I like James Mansfield’s take and I think he’s right. Brandon Flowers knew how to talk about his Mormonism (not at length, but direct and to the point) and he wasn’t ashamed or afraid to identify himself as LDS. I think a (Rolling Stone?) reporter was suggesting he was formerly Mormon and Brandon Flowers immediately responded and said that he is Mormon, not formerly Mormon. I think he mentioned that he sometimes does certain things that Mormons aren’t supposed to do, but that he’s working on it. Something to that effect. And that was it.

Also, Brandon Flowers has a son named Ammon. This guy is cool and comfortable and candid with his Mormonism. I like that.

I’m a little surprised that LDS politicians who are trying to be president are squishy about their religion. You are or you aren’t. Just say what you are for crying out loud.

Harry Reid might be my favorite LDS politician. He just seems to be more upfront and forthright. At least that is my impression. He won’t be running for president anytime soon – but it could be fun if a scenario arose in which he did.

I don’t know what to make of the Republican party any more. It seems to have lost its identity, character, intellect and sense of humor. Ronald Reagan and William Buckley are long gone and they’ve been replaced by Palin. So many shrill, stupid voices. Mormons should shake off the Republican party. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying Mormons should become Democrats either.

People, let’s get a grip here.

It would be impossible for Romney to win an election in Utah, not because he is too liberal but because his father was born in Mexico.

Until Mitt produces his long form birth certificate, his candidacy is unconstitutional. If you don’t believe me, just ask the patriots who are running the show for the Utah GOP right now. They’ve spent most of the last two years exploring this burning question.

Huntsman a weenie?

Bbell,

Irrelevant. He wouldn’t make it to the primary. The far right would torpeedo him in the moronic convention. Were he in a primary though he would win by a wide margin.

One of the things to remember about the powerful “religious right” in this country is they chose their candidate based on ideology (and electability) and not actual, personal behavior of the candidates. Case in point: they walked away from a true “born again” Christian in Jimmy Carter to embrace a non-church attending (but “spiritual”) actor in Ronald Reagan, who they hoped would sell their agenda.

I also don’t think that evangelicals shy away from LDS candidates because they fear the president will become a puppet of the prophet. They don’t know that much about us. They just know that we don’t believe in the “trinity” the same way they do and that we “practice” polygamy (ya, I know, but at least the “horns” stereotype is pretty much gone).

That said, I liked Huntsman as a governor and preferred to think that his answer was based on an honest reflection of his current status and belief system. It’s actually pretty gutsy to say something like that when you’re the son of a Seventy and the grandson of a member of the Twelve (at least I believe that David B. Haight was his grandpa). You know if he would have inaccurately portrayed himself as an “active” Mormon when that wasn’t the case, someone would have done an expose’ on his disingenuousness.

Mommie Dearest,

Please tell us what it is this tells us about us as members. I’d love to know.

So far I see a wide variety of reactions which as not easily digested into something unflattering about those having reactions.

at least the “horns” stereotype is pretty much gone

I think they were hanging on to the stereotype until I got mine removed. That happened last week. Seriously. (And I think one of them might be growing back.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutaneous_horn

Huntsman’s ambiguity isn’t being done for the benefit of Mormons. He is calibrating how to tell Republican Christians that Mormonism plays a limited role in his life without sending out the message that he doesn’t care about religion generally.

Last Lemming,

I was going to demand pictures, but I did a very regrettable google image search and have repented. Nearly lost my lunch.

and the term is “less active” – sheesh you call yourselves Mormon…

“John [sic] Hunstman” skirts an interesting issue, also raised at Joanna Brooks’ Ask a Mormon Girl. What are the internal divisions within mormondom?

I think that Joanna gets it wrong when she says that TBMs (a loaded term) see it in black and white, you’re Mormon or you’re not. I disagree. I think they (we?) see it as:

Temple recommend holder – You get the most _wonderful_ callings. :)
Active – you get to teach Primary or youth sunday school – lucky
Less active (semi active?) – you’re in the library when you show up
inactive – ranges from scouts on weekday evenings if you have a child in it to nothing
Jack Mormon – records aren’t in the ward – your a member of record (in SLC) but you’ve managed to keep such a distance that your records don’t follow you when you move
former mormon – you consider yourself to no longer be a member but got baptized at 8 and haven’t bothered to tell SLC that you’ve left
ex-mormon – you’ve had your records removed one way or another
non-mormon – you’ve never been baptized

I’m sure there are others. The point is (again) that Mormons have a pretty large set of jargon for this. Like the old “Eskimos have 100 words for snow” saying, Mormons have a lot of ways to describe one’s Mormoness. But these terms are all nonsense to outsiders. So Huntsman tried to describe where he’s at to the wider population rather inartfully. This is going to be a tough task as outsiders neither know or care about these various divisions. It will be interesting to see how/if this proceeds.

“Mit and Obama are virtually the same on Healthcare.”

I’m not a huge Romney fan, but how can you honestly say that? One gets up and says, “I’ll repeal Obamacare”. The other says, “Let’s keep it and add to it”.
Do you believe Mitt will seek to repeal Obamacare if elected? If not, you are at least consistent in your words. Otherwise, you eating up the meaningless propaganda — I say it’s meaningless because clearly it has no bearing on what either will do. One says repeal, the othe says keep. That’s not virtually the same.

Now you may argue that the Mitt of several years ago is virtually the same as Obama today. Except you forget that even Obama disagree with with Obama before he agreed with Obama (mandate). And not to mention, there is a world of difference providing a consulting like solution to a state that meets its needs and enforcing that solution on every other state when a majority (of states) are screaming they don’t want it.

And that is the difference as I see it, and the reason why Mitt is getting burned. He really was a consultant in MA. He came to the state, said I know how to get things done, I’m going to try to do what’s best within the vision that the state of MA has for itself. Seeing what they wanted to do, he came up with the best solution for that state. Well, “best” is not correct. Even he acknolwedged when he signed the bill it had issues and would need to be worked on. But I think Romney’s approach to politics has always been very consultant like.

He looks to his customer, seeks to understand them, and tries to provide them with the best possible solution for their needs. Amd sometimes is core convictions show through his policy perscriptions more than others. If you want to know what those convictions are, ask him.

Jjohnson, I haven’t liked a governor since Matheson. I think Herbert’s a crook and a creep. Melanie, I meant to me Huntsman comes off spineless. It could be a personal bias, I just think he’s a spoiled weak rich boy.

#22, arj, best explanation of Mitt Romney I’ve ever seen. You nailed what bothers me about him.

#36, Mommie Dearest, you’re terrific but I hate that whole “this says more about you than the subject argument.” Again I say, we’re members of a Mormon blog discussing a Mormon (possible) candidacy for president. If we were members of any other religion blogging presidential candidates, the subject would be discussed. It’s relevant to character.

THAT being said, let me clarify that activity in the church isn’t relevant at all to character. But a president needs to let people know who he is. Honesty is pretty important. Also rare. I think he was being dishonest. Because he was trying to distance himself from the church. If he said, I’m a Jack Mormon because…..oh, I’m lazy, I don’t believe everything, etc. maybe that would be the truth. But then he alienates some group of people. I hate politics. I just like carping.

Arj, good succinct analysis.

Chris, interesting.

Sure it did…

Huntsman doesn’t have a chance in the Republican presidential primary, unless he plays the same games like McCain did in the previous election. He knew the system and played it, with the help of Huck the spoiler, with political acumen that I believe Huntsman doesn’t possess. I believe that Mitt will fail this time around specifically because of the healthcare issue; strong contender, but he is done. It wasn’t so much an issue last time because Republicans thought (hoped) that a large healthcare bill wouldn’t have a chance because efforts on a national scale failed in the past.

Huntsman, on the other hand, has more than a Mormon problem. Despite what many say here, the fact of the matter is he has to get past the Republican primary before the general electorate. Recent voting events should show that moderates like Huntsman are not in favor. True, there are Republican primary rules that can open up the field to the general voting public. However, the conservatives are angry at both Democrats and Republicans and ready for a fight. Moderates (and that includes Romney if for no other reason than his healthcare issue) are seen by many as traitors (or RINOS as Republican conservatives call them). The real question isn’t if Huntsman can win the general election, but if conservatives or moderates are going to be more enthusiastic in the primary process.

while Democrats and moderates try to spin Huntsman as, at the least, an alternative to Romney, a large number of conservative Republicans are plotting to torpedo any of the establishment picks. I think that those at the South Carolina debate that was ignored by most of the media are going to be the true front runners this time around. The winner, I believe, will be a dark horse (like Obama was for the Democrats) that isn’t going to be a moderate.

I agree arJ. I liked Huntsman as a governor and he was very popular, despite being quite a bit left of the usual Utah republican.

Republicans often make a lot of noise about selecting a “real” conservative in the primaries, but Republicans, more than anything, like to win. And no tea party ultra right winger has a chance in the general election. Not now or ever. Republicans know this as well as anyone and they will calm down and choose someone electable when the smoke clears.

The way I’ve always seen it, if you were baptized and have never asked to have your name removed from the church rolls,or been excommunicatede, then you are Mormon, no matter what your level of activity (which I don’t define strictly by church attendance). Therefore, I find Huntsman’s “That’s hard to define” answer very strange.

Please explain how Huntsman is a moderate? It seems to be purely because he (a) supports immigration reform (b) supported a cap and trade market in the west which he’s now backed off from and ( c) supports civil unions. When those three things makes one a moderate despite having a vastly superior economic conservative background than most other candidates something is fundamentally wrong with the activists defining what a Republican has to be to be more than a name.

Whoops – forgot McCain. So I’ll give you that one.

I just read that Time article on Huntsman all the way through for the first time today. He comes across as very likable. Some highlights:

He is described as a moderate, Clark, based on his support of civil unions, environmental causes and sanity on immigration. He is conservative fiscally and on abortion and guns.

He had an approval rating of 80% when he left office in Utah.

He speaks both Mandarin and Hokkien.

He told the graduating class at the Univ. of South Carolina “Never forget to rock and roll.”

He and Romney are distant cousins.

He says there is something to admire in every president he’s known, including Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes and Obama.

It still seems odd to me that he is choosing to run against Romney, when Romney has such a head start, but it may very well be that he is really aiming at 2016 and is using this race as a setup for that one.

Clark,

What MCQ said about Huckabee coming in second. Romney withdrew when he was in a strong second place. At the time Romney left the race Huckabee didn’t have a chance. Huckabee continued running simply gather enough delegates to surpass Romney. Why do this when he had no chance? Because he wanted to come in (an artificial) second to set himself up 2012. Even if you consider him the 2nd place finisher for technical reasons he’s still the exception that proves the rule, as it was the rule that kept him running.

Even before this weekend’s announcement that he wouldn’t run he was still seen as a less serious candidate than Romney, though frankly the field is pretty wide open at this point. Huntsman might come in 1st by accident and really screw things up for himself. :)

John Harvey,

I’m not on the bandwagon of any of the LDS candidates and actually donated to Obama last week.

That said, and without discussing specifics that would be improper, I don’t see the contradiction. If there were one, then no endowed Mormon would be able to function in the wider society. We’d have to spend all our time trying to build up the kingdom of God. That, and starving to death, right?

Besides, what could a president do to use the office to benefit the Church? The argument I’d make is that the Church shouldn’t be a factor in any decision, because if it were a factor and that got out it would do enormous damage to the Church. So for the benefit of the Church (and keeping your covenant) you’d ignore the Church.

The only possible benefit I can think of would be that some countries might look more favorably on letting missionaries in if an LDS president served admirably. But again, that would require they not be seen as a tool of the Church. The only way it would work is if the president were not influenced in political decisions.

OK, a bunch of them have violated one or the other or both, but I mean violating one specifically in the service of the other.

It seems to me that building up the Kingdom of God can reasonably be understood to include faithfully executing whatever office one might hold, and preserving, protecting, and defending anything that ought to be preserved, protected, and defended.

John Harvey,

What on earth is the relevance of your #73 to this discussion? “Look! A Mormon did a bad thing! QED! Ha!”

I’m sure even you can see that what you did there proves nothing about how any particular Mormon would perform in the office of President.

MCQ’s #77 is correct. This is settled territory already. 100 years of precedent.

RE: #77 and #78 Settled territory in that Mormons have been admitted, certainly not settled territory with respect to what a “good” Mormon should do when the principles actually do conflict. An example, Mormons are generally told to serve in armed forces if required, and to be the best soldiers they can be while living the principles of the Gospel. However, during all of the conflicts since Utah was admitted as a State the Church has supported and supplied the requested documentation to individual members who asked for Conscientious Objector status from active military service in the U.S. armed forces.

Also if you want an interesting read, then review the minutes/records of Senator Smoot’s confirmation hearings. The practices described with respect to Church governance don’t actually reflect what is (or was) done. The answers given both by Senator to-be Smoot, and the then current Church President Joseph F. Smith are incredibly parsed/nit picky and legalistic. The goal was to seat an apostle as a Senator, not to explain the Church system in full detail. In fact the goal sure seemed to be to *not* completely explain the Church governance nor the obligations the temple covenants placed on the latter-day Saints. The Senate voted 43 to 24 to unseat him (but since this was not the required two-thirds he retained his seat, but obviously it was a squeaker). Note: the committee vote was 7 to 5 against him.

See: http://signaturebooks.com/2010/08/reviews-the-mormon-church-on-trial-transcripts-of-the-reed-smoot-hearings/ for an interesting review of a book on the hearings.

Also, here is an interesting quote and commentary from a review of the above noticed book explaining President Smith’s own view of the need to obey the government’s laws. “One is struck when reading the transcript by the brevity and noncommittal nature of Smith’s responses. For page after page, Smith’s terse responses are two or three words long and often simply yes and no answers. He chose to provide his interrogator, Mr. Tayler, with as little declarative information as possible. Still, during his testimony Smith startled the committee with his declaration that he had continued to cohabit with all of his five plural wives since the 1890 Manifesto, and by them had fathered a total of eleven post-Manifesto children. He acknowledged that his continued cohabitation was his own choice, not the church’s, and that he and only he was culpable for choosing to break the law. In response to a question from Senator Beveridge, he responded: “I wish to assert that the church has obeyed the law of the land, and that it has kept its pledges with this Government; but I have not, as an individual, and have taken that chance myself” (93). Smith therefore took the position that the LDS Church had kept faith with its commitment to the government, but that he, an individual who happened to be church president (and doubtless other individuals), had chosen to follow what to them was a higher law.”

The law doesn’t require anyone to have an abortion, and the Church does not require any polititian to prevent abortions, so no conflict there.

The Smoot hearings are an interesting read, but I’m not sure why you think that the Church should have been eager or even willing to “explain the Church system in full detail” (by which you mean what exactly?) It wasn’t and isn’t required to do so.

Do you not know, or do you choose to forget that many people at that time (including President Smith) had plural wives of longstanding and children by those wives? The Church eventually ended the practice of performing plural marriages, but that did not require men to abandon their wives and children, plural or otherwise, and the law did not require it of them either. Are you suggesting that they should have?

Upholding the law of the land means enforcing the law, it doesn’t mean you have to personally agree with every law on the books. No polititian agrees with every law, and many presidents have been very opposed to some things about our government. Clearly, our current president disagrees with DOMA, which is the current law of the land, and he has chosen not to enforce it. There may be many conflicts of conscience that arise such as this, but I don’t see why Mormons should be particularly singled out as having such conflicts. The temple covenants don’t require that anyone not enforce any laws. Thus, though conflicts in enforcing laws do arise in some political offices, they don’t arise any more often because of the temple covenants, or because of being a member of the Church.

Sorry. Only “defend” was supposed to be bold.

RE: #81 I don’t think Mitt had any trouble enforcing or supporting the law, what I’m trying to get people to think about is the ethical implications of being the executive who enforces laws which are in direct contradiction to God’s rules.

RE: #82 In his testimony President Smith stated he father 11 children with his polygamous wives *after* the manifesto. And yes the laws of the day did require all polygamists to cease the relationships. So any Mormon who continued existing marriages was breaking the law everyday. That the President of the Church continued to do so suggests our current obsession with being “law-abiding citizens” is a slightly more recent development.

RE: #82 Mormons are somewhat unique in that we take on actual covenants requiring obedience to the *Church authorities* (and thanks to apostates and the internet any journalist can read exactly what those covenants are); so while any politician could have a crisis of belief, Mormons politicians in some sense promise to have them regularly — and by definition (according to those covenants) when they do have them they will have to chose between not just a dearly held belief and the interests of their country, but what they view as a eternal promise to God and their country.

JH: I don’t know what temple you went to, but you must’ve taken very different covenants than I did. I didn’t covenant to obey church authorities, or to do whatever the church says.

MCQ,

Sorry to continue the threadjack (OK, not very, since the thread is dying anyway) but I think you are totally off base on the enforcement of DOMA issue. Enforcement happens when same-sex couples, legally married in their respective states, apply for federal benefits as a married couple and are denied them. That is still happening (properly, in my opinion). Same-sex couples are not eligible for their spouse’s Social Security benefits, they are not filing joint tax returns, they are not keeping their spouses whose visas have expired from being deported, etc. If the president were truly not to enforce DOMA, he would recognize those couples as married in the eyes of the federal government and grant them benefits. (Even the recent brouhaha over Navy chaplains perhaps performing same-sex weddings in base chapels located where same-sex marriage is recognized reinforces my position, because it was made explicit that such marriages still would not be recognized by the federal government because of DOMA.)

“I don’t know where you get your batty opinions” Mcq, this cracked me up. I was going through our spam and deleting stuff and saw this comment in there, so this is a delayed reaction.

As far as Huntsman, it’s a gut feeling. Guess that could be batty. I believe Governor Herbert used his influence to get his son off some criminal charges–stalking. That makes him a crook. Plus–batty opinion alert!–I think he looks like a crook. Something about him bugs me.

“You should shut up. Seriously.” No, YOU should shut up. Seriously.

Dammit arJ!

Don’t worry, it’s all good. We’re still friends. Luckily, it’s incredibly hard to insult me. I thought it was pretty funny, actually. Really.

I should chime in here. I was in fact asked to delete the comment, and I believed that I did so. Perhaps I didn’t do it right, but I thought I had confirmed that it wasn’t there anymore. In any case I apologize that the comment is visible.

I don’t actually look at you that way annegb. And I’ve never had a cougar girlfriend but I’m willing to learn.