Public image of Mitt Romney

Former U.S. 2008 Presidential candidate Mitt Romney

The public image of Mitt Romney concerns how Mitt Romney was, and is, perceived by others over the years based on his election numbers, poll numbers, religiosity, family, and by what major figures have publicly stated about him. Special attention is given to Romney's 2008 "Faith in America" speech.

Politics

Support

Despite losing the 2008 Republican nomination, Romney raised more money than any other candidate, including John McCain.

In February 2008 Rush Limbaugh endorsed Romney saying:

"I think now, based on the way the campaign has shaken out, that there probably is a candidate on our side who does embody all three legs of the conservative stool, and that’s Romney. The three stools or the three legs of the stool are national security/foreign policy, the social conservatives, and the fiscal conservatives. The social conservatives are the cultural people. The fiscal conservatives are the economic crowd: low taxes, smaller government, get out of the way..."

Ann Coulter endorsed Romney in January 2008 saying:

"One clue that Romney is our strongest candidate is the fact that Democrats keep viciously attacking him while expressing their deep respect for Mike Huckabee and John McCain. This point was already extensively covered in Chapter 1 of 'How To Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)': Never take advice from your political enemies. Turn on any cable news show right now, and you will see Democratic pundits attacking Romney, calling him a 'flip-flopper,' and heaping praise on McCain and Huckleberry -- almost as if they were reading some sort of 'talking points.'Doesn't that raise the tiniest suspicions in any of you? Are you too busy boning up on Consumer Reports' reviews of microwave ovens to spend one day thinking about who should be the next leader of the free world? Are you familiar with our "no exchange/no return" policy on presidential candidates? Voting for McCain because he was a POW a quarter-century ago or Huckabee because he was a Baptist preacher is like buying a new car because you like the color. The candidate Republicans should be clamoring for is the one liberals are feverishly denouncing. That is Mitt Romney by a landslide."

Criticism

See also: Political positions of Mitt Romney

Critics have alleged that Romney has shifted his positions on social issues such as abortion, gun control, and affirmative action. Because of this, opponents have labeled Romney as a flip flopper, Republican in name only, liberal, and a phony. Mike Huckabee attacked Romney for leaving office of Governor with a $1 billion deficit. McCain also attacked Romney on his position on timetables for withdrawal from Iraq. When Romney copied the Democrats' message of change, a spokeswoman for McCain said

“It is laughable that Mitt Romney would think anyone buys his latest act as an agent of change, when the only thing he’s ever changed are his positions on every issue of importance in this election.”

Also, New York Times columnist and liberal commentator Frank Rich claimed:

"Romney is trying to sell himself as a leader, but he is actually a follower and a panderer, as confirmed by his flip-flops on nearly every issue."

Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts Barney Frank once said:

"The real Romney is clearly an extraordinarily ambitious man with no perceivable political principle whatsover. He is the most intellectually dishonest human being in the history of politics."

Polling

Nationwide favorable rating

In January 2008, Romney's favorable rating was 36% while 50% unfavorable rating. In the same poll, he received 41% of the vote against Hillary Clinton and 37% against Barack Obama. Overall, Romney has polled at least 40% against Democrats in most of the polls.

After the primaries in August 2008, Romney's favorable rating was 47% with 41% unfavorably. He's viewed favorably with 80% of Republicans, including 53% very favorably.

In April 2009, 38% of voters nationwide trust Romney, while 39% don't. In the same month, Romney's favorable to unfavorable rating was 40%-35 in a CQ Politics Poll and a 55%-36% rating from Rasmussen Reports, including 82% of Republicans, while just 12% have an unfavorable opinion of him.

In May 2009, a PPP poll showed by a 40%-36% Americans have a favorable opinion of Romney, while he gets a weak 35%-42% rating among moderates and 37%-42% rating among independents. He also polled just 35% against Obama, which is a little bit lower than his head-to-head numbers in early 2008. Only 30% of independents and 24% of moderates would vote for Romney in the general election.

Mormonism

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.

Approval rating as Governor

Romney maintained positive approval ratings through the majority of his Gubernatorial tenure. His approval dipped into negative territory however in the wake of the legalization of gay marriage and the fall of President Bush's approval ratings. After Democrat Deval Patrick succeeded Romney as Governor of Massachusetts, Patrick's approval rating was 49% in September 2010 and in April 2009 49% said Romney did a better job as governor than Patrick.

Mormon Identity

Background

Mitt Romney's religious background has been extensively covered by the mainstream media, especially in connection with his 2008 presidential campaign. 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. In accordance with LDS doctrine, As Bishops and stake presidents are lay positions in his church, Mitt Romney received no compensation or money for his years of service as a bishop or stake president. As part of his religious beliefs, Romney abstains from alcohol and smoking.

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. Subsequent generations of Romney's paternal lineage have been monogamous, and none of his mother's Mormon ancestors were polygamists. Mitt Romney's father, George W. Romney, was a patriarch of LDS Church. Mitt's wife Ann converted to Mormonism before they were married in 1969.

Mormonism was not an issue in his father's presidential campaign in 1968, for several possible reasons: 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.

Views on polygamy

Romney, along with some other Mormons, has defended polygamy among early Mormons by claiming that there were more women in Utah than men. Census figures for the period, however, report equal numbers of men and women.

Regarding the present day, Romney is a proponent of contemporary monogamous, heterosexual marriage:

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.

During 2008 election

Main article: Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2008

Romney on Mormonism as campaign issue

“I found that finally addressing it in a speech and drawing people’s attention to the fact that the nature of our country is one of religious pluralism was in my view a very effective way of bringing attention to this issue and settling it for the great majority of Americans." "I think for most Americans they’re not terribly concerned about someone’s religious beliefs, unless of course it relates to their love of the country or something like that. I think we dealt with that in our [2008] campaign in a relatively effective way for most people."

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. Among other criticisms, some evangelical voters view the LDS Church as a cult. However, some social conservatives and evangelicals criticize Romney for not being Mormon enough, regarding social policy. He has avoided speaking publicly about specific church doctrines, and has pointed out that the U.S. Constitution prohibits religious tests for public office. Declining to discuss details about his religion also reduced the risk that doctrinal differences will alienate evangelical Christian voters. 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."

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.

"Faith in America" speech

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 that 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.". 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.

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.

While the speech received wide praise, Eugene Robinson has argued that Romney implied that non-religious people cannot be proper Americans, and called that assertion "a form of bigotry;" MSNBC's Keith Olbermann called the speech a "shameful and shameless self-comparison to the thirty-fifth president." Olbermann also noted that Romney called secularism a “religion”, only to then call it “wrong”, while ostensibly giving a speech on religious tolerance.

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."

After the speech, one of the two other Republican front runners, Rudolph Giuliani said that Romney had done "what he had to do." Said Giuliani. "It would be better if he didn't have to do that."

On the Today show, Huckabee used Romney's speech as an opportunity to emphasize his own "authentic" views as did Fred Thompson in a radio interview in Iowa. Sen. John McCain acknowledged in an interview with ABC News, being locked up with atheist POWs, who, nevertheless, were 'patriots'.

On Fox News Sunday, Huckabee said it was inappropriate for voters to consider the tenets of Mormonism in judging Romney's candidacy, but rather should judge Romney on his record.

Republican candidate and ideological libertarian Ron Paul released a statement saying that while Paul feels uncomfortable talking about his faith in the political arena, he supports religious tolerance, comes to his own faith through Jesus Christ, and believes any attacks implying Romney unfit to serve only due to Romney's faith "fly in the face of everything America stands for."

"Mormon question" in Boca Raton

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."

Focus on the Family Voting Guide 2008

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."

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.

General

Family life

Romney's family, past and present, played a partially prominent role in his 2008 campaign for the U.S. presidency. Romney's father, George Romney, was also a presidential candidate in 1968. Romney's five sons were visible on the campaign trail as was his wife Ann Romney.

Several anecdotes from the Romney family have appeared in a Boston Globe series of articles about Romney's life. One of the stories regarding Romney's treatment of the family dog during a family vacation in 1983 attracted some outrage from the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals because Romney reportedly strapped the animal's kennel to the roof of a car for 12 hours.

Vancouver Olympics incident

On February 15, 2010, Romney had an altercation with electro-hop group LMFAO member Sky Blue, or by his given name, Skyler Gordy (grandson of Berry Gordy), on an Air Canada flight from Vancouver to Los Angeles following Mitt and Ann Romney's attendance at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Romney's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, stated "The passenger became physically violent. Governor Romney did not retaliate, but instead let the airline crew respond to the incident". Fox News Channel reported that "A passenger became "physically violent" when the former Massachusetts governor asked him to move his seat upright for take-off."

Skyler Gordy claimed, despite earlier press coverage suggesting otherwise, that Romney had attacked him first, putting a "vulcan grip" on him. Gordy is quoted as saying "He grabs my shoulder .. and I just react BOOM get off me! He put a condor grip on me. What am I supposed to do?" LMFAO published a video online which shows Sky Blu being escorted off the aircraft by authorities. Sky Blu said he was not arrested, while the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said he had been arrested, but was released after Romney declined to press charges.

See also

• Latter Day Saint political history
• No Religious Test Clause
• Inauguration of John F. Kennedy

External links

• Mitt Romney's "Faith in America" speech (Google video)
• "Tabernacle on trial: Mormons dismayed by harsh spotlight," by Suzanne Sataline
• "When Romney was a bishop," by Philip Barlow
• "Romney and JFK: The difference" by Garry Wills
• "What does Mormonism mean to Mitt?" by Matthew Bowman
• "What is it about Mormonism?" by Noah Feldman
• "Should Mormons hate Huckabee?" by Russell Arben Fox
• "Why the Religious Right is stuck with McCain: The lukewarm support for Mitt Romney left a void that evangelical preacher Mike Huckabee was only too happy to fill. The result: A GOP nominee who strays far from the flock" by Daniel Gilgoff
• "Almost human" by Robert Draper