A Different God: Mitt Romney, the Religious Right, and the Mormon Question

Might, Right, and Mitt.
     In the contested terrain of American politics, nowhere is the conflict more intense, even brutal, than in the territory of public life also claimed by religion. Mitt Romney’s 2007–08 presidential campaign is a textbook example.
     Religious historian (and ardent Republican) Craig L. Foster revisits that campaign with an astute focus on the never-quite-contained hostility that Romney triggered among America’s religious right. Although no political campaign is known for its sweetness and light, the back-stabbing, mean-spirited attacks, eruptions of irrationalism, and downright lies exploded into one chapters of recent American political history.
     Foster readjusts rosy views of America as the tolerant, pluralistic society against the context of its lengthy, colorful, and bruising history of religious discrimination and oppression against many religious groups, among them Mormonism. Mormons are now respected and admired--although the image hasn’t tilted enough to work for Romney instead of against him. Their turbulent past of suspicion, marginalization, physical violence, and being deprived of voting rights has sometimes made them, in turn, suspicious, hostile, and politically naive. How much of this pattern of mutual name-calling stems from theology and how much from theocratic ideals?
     Foster appraises Romney’s success and strengths—and also places where he stumbled, analyzing an intriguing pattern of “what-ifs?” of policy, personality, and positioning. But perhaps even more intriguing is the anti-Romney campaign launched by a divided and fragmenting religious right who pulled together in a rare show of unity to chill a Mormon’s presidential aspirations. What does Romney’s campaign and the resistance of the religious right mean for America in the twenty-first century?
     In this meticulously researched, comprehensively documented, and passionately argued analysis of a still-ongoing campaign, Craig Foster poses questions that go beyond both Romney and the religious right to engage the soul of American politics.