Ed FirmageJon Huntsman, Al Smith, and God
Realizing the risk to my friend Governor Jon Huntsman by my endorsement of Jon for President of the United States, in 2012, given that most Deseret News readers want my scalp right now, here’s my offer, and bet:
Mitt Romney will end up without a Republican Party nomination for President. That, indeed, may be the country’s loss. I know Mitt. All my family thinks he’s a great guy. He was my dad’s counselor in a BYU ward when dad was bishop, in Provo, Utah (my home town).
But John Kennedy needed an Al Smith. Smith, Governor of New York in 1928, was a Catholic. And a great governor of a great state. (Franklin Delano Roosevelt was his running mate, for Vice President.) Of course, Al Smith lost, due largely to a vicious attack on his Catholicism. I’m not at all sure we’re any better off today, on the issue of bigotry. We simply change victims every now and then. But Al Smith’s savaging by our Protestant folks finally shocked even the shockers. Over time. And by the time John Kennedy ran, in 1960, a Catholic could and did make a great church and state speech, saying the obvious, that his allegiance, as President and not parishioner, was to the American people, not the Pope. I don’t doubt that Mitt would say the same, about Salt Lake City.
Intriguingly, George Romney, a man I liked a lot, and governor of a political powerhouse of a state, especially back then, Michigan, just might have been his own son’s Al Smith. Had Romney not self-destructed by telling the truth in time of war, like J. Ruben Clark, Jr., years ago (the only time truth matters, this much, is during the war, not after…the others are simply cowards in sheep’s clothing), he might have been president. He said simply and eloquently, ” I was brain-washed.”
But my point is this: George didn’t last long enough for critical mass. Had he been in the field a little longer, he would have drawn the anti-Mormon vote to a head, and lanced it. Maybe, likely, by falling on his own sword. He would have done this, with grace. And then, in Zen-fashion, his son, Mitt, could have made the speech he will undoubtedly make, and most surely, fail. The Bible Belt, and the South, will kill Mitt, even if he gets that far. Mormons, to many, aren’t even Christian, let alone presidential.
So: Mitt will be Jon Jr.’s Al Smith. He indeed will last long enough to draw the anti-Mormon vote to a head. And probably too late for him, it will be lanced. By a more mature church, by then (I mean, folks, we’re a pretty monolithic force….try saying, “peace” at your next sacrament meeting. War’s OK. Peace is out, in Mormonland. Just try it. I’ve been trying that, for about 70 years. Except for MX, in our backyard, quoting Jesus just won’t do.) God says: “renounce war and proclaim peace.” Doctrine and Covenants 98:16. So what. What does God know about fighting terrorists on state street. Mitt will make a great speech. He’s brighter than his dad, but he couldn’t be more honest. George Romney was a great man. I would have loved to have voted for him.
And by a more mature country. They will indeed learn a bit about Mormonism. And, after slicing and dicing Mitt, there will be repentance, or penance, of sorts, for a while, until another skunk at the garden party shows up, and again we make good Constitutional law, by protecting the victims of society’s wrath. Like gays. And polygamists. Same case law. Scalia gets it. He’s just going the wrong way for the wrong reasons. He’s a bigot. Bright. But I’d choose Romney. Either father or son. Any day. Easy choice. But Mitt ain’t got no Al Smith.
Fast forward. 2012. Jon Huntsman runs for president. A penitent nation knows it made a mistake. A bad one, at least, for the wrong reason. Religion. Jon Huntsman steps up, steps in, and becomes the President, or at least Vice-President, of the United States of America. Nothing would please me more, unless I could vote for his father, mother, or a sister. I would be pleased to serve Jon, from heaven, or more likely hell. And I’ll vote, as a Democrat, in the old Cook County, Chicago, Illinois way, whether or not I’m alive (in Cook County, that doesn’t really matter), early and often.
Ed Firmage, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
December 18th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Just for historical reasons, I’d bet that neither pary will nominate anybody from New York or Massachusetts. Religion is a side issue. BTW, did you watch Senator Harry Reid on ABC News with George Stephanopoulos yesterday? He dealt with the “Mormon question” deftly, like the practiced pol he is.
December 19th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Yes, but the reality, not just the public perception, that Mormons take orders from on high, and I don’t mean god, is too true. The ”Mormon question” persists, beyond the point of the religious bigotry, du jure. I do not see this as a PR problem, as Stephanupoulos would. I profoundly believe that the Mormon leadership do. I see absolutely no reason to believe that Mormon leadership only see public relations “spin,” where I see huge ethical lapse. On any issue of meaning. Any issue of human and civil rights. Public relations is after all, the training my friend Gordon B. Hinckley brings, along with a vast amount of very good church service he’s given, over time. That’s what he was doing, that is, PR, when we met. And in a sense, sadly I believe, now. As we speak.
Utah, and the Great Basin grandpa Brigham settled, are hugely Republican. Only 14 percent of Mormons are Democrats. In the entire United States. And that’s not because Mormon theology mandates that. Quite the contrary.
Mormon theology, all the ‘good books’ in Mormonland, the bible, the book of mormon, the doctrine and covenants, and the pearl of great price (except for some racist babble), give a social gospel message as consonant with the great liberal political gospel of compassion, as if it came directly and conclusively from the bible alone (which in fact, it largely did).
BUT the “church,” choosing people like themselves, namely, the most reactionary leadership in the Americas, are simply mirroring each other, cloning each other. It has absolutely nothing to do with biblical or textual precepts. This, not sexual incest, this intellectual and spiritual incest, is much more damaging to the Mormon people.
Not being stupid, they pay absolutely no notice to the meaningless drivel that comes each election time: “the Mormon church does not support any particular political party.” Horseshit. they do it every time they clone another Mormon version of George the Less, to preside over this mission or that; or as stake president; or as a member of any body of general authorities.
Of course there are exceptions. Someone might have been a great surgeon. Or a (very conservative) lawyer. But the surgeon’s surgical skills are huge, while his theology stinks to heaven. Since he marries twice, in a Mormon temple (his first wife being deceased) therefore, his is alreadly a polygamist. He is then chosen, by the President of Mormondom, as the spokesman who tells the world that “one man, one woman,” should be in the United States Constitution.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, could be less mandated than that assinine idea. The huge joke in that statement, by that spokesman, reveals the totalitarian mind-set that is afoot in Mormonland. My point: there is a very real threat to democratic government, if a Mormon, particularly a male Mormon active in his faith, is elected to any office. We pattern ourselves after human beings, not theology, per se. That’s why religions often incarnate at least one diety. Jesus, I can try, hopelessly short, to pattern my life after; and st. Paul, et al. Or, my friend, the Dali Lama. But God, as such, I don’t get. I just have faith. Mormons look to their leaders. And try to follow. And they’re all, essentially, playing out of the same antique ultra-conservative, almost John Birch-like hymnal.
So: it’s not just that the country must grow up. So must the Mormon Church. Or, the nation would be damned fools to elect one to truly national office. Or appoint one to the Supreme Court as, for example, some Republican successor to George the Less, might just do, by annointing Orrin Hatch from senator to justice. There’s a scary thought. If I know a particular person, say, John Kennedy. And I know that he’s sufficiently politically and religiously mature to know who he is; and he is a person consciously trying to be like Thomas Jefferson, or Abraham Lincoln, I will vote for that person, regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, gender, and religion. And for that matter, regardless of her or his political party.
But that Enlightenment-like person, depending on his or her own intellect, must be present. If on the other hand, like George the Less, he tells me he’s following god’s plan, and is attacking another nation, who didn’t attack us, he not only is not following the rules of just war, upon which I have written dozens of chapters, articles, and etc. But he or she is nuts. And I wouldn’t touch them, let alone support them, with a ten-foot pole.
The criteria I would choose, if as is not likely, I were to be alive in 2012, whould be the following (as seen now). l. how many liberal people of every land, color, and clime are there in the Mormon establishment? A good balance? No balance at all, all being at one or the other pole ?; 2. Has the Mormon Church, really, come clean on the nineteenth century, even though they never got it right in the twentieth, on the matter of the Mountain Meadows Massacre? 3. Have the rightful owners of the Tribune, the people the Mormon leadership connived with the new owner to steal, been returned to the ownership they are entitled? Or is the Mormon church still demanding to be the only game in town?
If they are, don’t ever vote for a practicing Mormon. It’s just too dangerous, unless you know them personally, and trust them implicitly. 4. As you look to the outrageous statements of the Mormon church on gays, polygamists, and many other groups, why pray tell, should I vote for a Mormon? 5. The choice of Joe Cannon as editor of the Deseret News doesn’t full my heart with good thoughts for the future of Mormonism, such a great thing in the nineteenth century, and such a pitiful remnant now. So: we work out our own salvation, in fear and trembling. One by one, one step after another, praying and thinking, and never never stop the latter, or the former.
I have no such qualms if I were a Roman Catholic. Even the “one true church” bit exists in that faith, just as in the Mormon Church, historically. A truly unversal church has within a universal breadth of people, colors, and thought. The differences are huge. The post-Vatican II church that I know, recognizes, world-wide, that the huge tent of Christianity; and for that matter, the huge tent of the human race; and for that matter, the huge tent of life cosmically, is the real show. The only show, in town.
My frustration, like so many who have faced their church of birth, is that in my own mind only, obviously not in reality; but in my own pain, is that if I inhale hugely, the structure trembles, and threatens either to kill me or to collapse; and if I exhale, I blow it away, so much so that it can’t help me, and I really need it’s help; and I can’t help them, since I’ve tried so very hard to do so, and I’ve had success only once, in MX.
To all, Happy Hannuka. Oh, do we all, especially me, right now, need the light. The real light. A very Merry Christmas. Shalom. Salaam, pace e’ bene. May the peace of Christ be always in your, and my, heart, always. And May Peace Be With You, This Day, and Always.
Ed Firmage
December 19th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
[...] In response to Richard Warnick Just for historical reasons, I’d bet that neither pary will nominate anybody from New York or Massachusetts. Religion is a side issue. BTW, did you watch Senator Harry Reid on ABC News with George Stephanopoulos yesterday? He dealt with the “Mormon question†deftly, like the practiced pol he is. [...]
December 5th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
[...] written before on Mitt’s Mormonism and presidential politics (here and here). The comparison with John Kennedy is obvious: Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic to [...]