From the opinion pages of
the WP:I look for the "September surprise" to be Mormonism on trial. At first the attacks will come from marginal surrogates, then the reliable half-cocked usual suspects among Democrats in Congress. (Somebody cue Debbie Wasserman Schultz.) Next, a member of the left's apologencia from the MSM will write a cerebral, somber piece saying the tenets of Mormonism are fair game, and then we will be off to Slimytown. Romney will be confronted with this or that Mormon practice or theological position, the late-night comics will weigh in and Obama will have a distraction that could linger while he hopes for a break or something external to change the trajectory of the race.
I predicted this eventuality four years ago when the Romney fan boys were saying how he was the perfect candidate. I pretty much described how it would go down and the above quoted paragraph isn't much different than my analysis (if I remember correctly). And the fact is, it's true that Mormonism is low hanging fruit for any non-Mormon opponent. My personal belief is that Mormonism is a cult. It is every bit as weird as the Jehovah's Witnesses and nearly as manipulative and controlling as scientology. Comparing Mormonism favorably to Christianity is, for Christians, heresy. I could go into the details but it's pointless for the purpose of this discussion. But then we nominated McDullard and the rest is history.
What I want to say is that four years ago I was totally convinced that a Mormon stood no chance against an opponent who held to a more traditional mainstream American religion. I still believe that to be true...for the last election. This election, though, I do not see it as a deal breaker.
And that's because we are saddled with something far worse than, what was for most of the voters four years ago, an unknown quantity. O'Bongo is a known quantity and he is a, well...he's a stuttering clusterf**k of a miserable failure. And everyone now knows this.
This is a referendum election. That is why virtually none of the negative personality attacks that O'Bongo has scripted have worked. They have been cranking them out for months now and nothing, I mean nothing has taken Romney out. With each new negative attack the voters, and especially the precious independents, have been able to discern the truth: O'Bongo has no game and this is all he can do. It looks pathetic because it is pathetic. The economy is in the toilet and most voters (even Democrats) are willing to acknowledge that the blame for it rests squarely with President Gutsy Call.
So my belief now is that any attack on Mormonism will suffer the same fate as the other attacks on Romney...they will go nowhere. Romney will not suffer in the polls and O'Bongo might begin to take a hit for using these ever more desperate tactics. I believe that we could have nominated anyone without a felony record who's religious beliefs were somewhere south of kook central and they could beat the Dingus.
And, if O'Bongo enlists surrogates who are seeking re-election to do this particular bit of nastiness there might even be enough of a backlash to take a few of them out. That would be a bit ironic. Democrats defeated over a lack of tolerance. Destroyed by the monster they created. Well, we can hope.
