A few days ago this space blog-o-fied about Mitt Romney’s non-defense of his Mormonism at the George H.W. Bush Library in College Station, Texas, describing the moment as the candidate’s JFK-lite moment.
The entry prompted this response from Bob McDarby of Valrico, who wrote the reason John Kennedy mentioned his Catholicism some 19 times during his speech in 1960 before the Houston Ministerial Association was “… because he was courting the Catholic vote in addition to allaying fears about his Catholicism. A Democrat cannot be elected president without the Catholic vote. JFK made sure to emphasize his Catholic faith.
“On the other hand, Mitt Romney was trying to allay fears about his Mormonism. He emphasized common ground with other Christians. Since he is seeking the support from all Christians there would be no point in mentioning Mormonism repeatedly.”
Thanks Bob. You’ve just explained, probably unwittingly, why Romney will lose the nomination.
For the record, let’s correct some of your history.
In 1960, John Kennedy received a staggering 78 percent of the Catholic vote. The other 22 percent, were probably people like my Catholic Republican parents, who wouldn’t have voted for a Democratic Catholic if the candidate had been Bishop Sheen. I should mention though that when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, I arrived home from school to find my mother sobbing.
So when JFK delivered his speech in Houston, it certainly wasn’t to court a Catholic vote he already had well in hand.
After all, why would Kennedy have traveled to the heart of the Bible Belt, to talk to a large gathering of Protestants (whose vote he really did need) in order to appeal to a constituency he was assured of winning? Duh.
Rather Kennedy was willing to stand up to a group of skeptics to repeatedly remind them of his faith, in order to show he didn’t have horns, he wasn’t about to become a pawn of the Vatican and most importantly to demonstrate they could trust him.
Romney, by contrast, failed to deliver on all those counts.
Rightly or wrongly, Mormonism remains a strange, misunderstood faith. Romney had a chance to address those issues and instead ducked them.
Glad to clear up the history for you Bob. Thanks for reading the blog.