Word: romney
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...official and a public relations executive shuttled recently from the Fox News Washington bureau to the Washington Post to the online political digest the Hotline. The two were engaging in a little pre-emptive rearguard action, gearing up for the impending Republican presidential campaign of Massachusetts Governor (Willard) Mitt Romney, 59, whose family has long been part of the church's élite...
...church officials are wary of the impact Romney's candidacy could have on them--and on the portrayal of their faith. Yes, his campaign will bring attention and credibility to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), as the Mormons are formally known, and give them a chance to demystify their theology and customs. But church officials also calculate that Romney's bid to succeed George W. Bush could remind some mainstream Christians just how different Mormonism is from their faith and perhaps expose their flock to more of the sort of discrimination that drove their founders...
...church used a similar strategy successfully when Romney, who became wealthy building a venture-capital firm in Boston, was brought in as president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee when it needed to rescue the 2002 Winter Olympics from a bribery scandal. Some critics wondered if the games would become the "Molympics," and Otterson says he met with a stream of sports reporters to try to "put some of the myths to rest--polygamy being the most enduring...
Even if the church succeeds in its public relations offensive, Romney still has some explaining of his own to do, particularly to the Republican evangelical base, which now makes up nearly a third of the party's electorate and can wield huge power in primary states, most notably South Carolina. That's because some Evangelicals hold the view that Mormonism is not a Christian faith. Because Mormons acknowledge works of Scripture that are not in the Bible, believe that their prophets have received revelations directly from God and teach that God has a physical body, Evangelicals consider them heretics...
Still, when it comes to managing the message about Romney's relationship with his church, his team has already shown vulnerability. The Boston Globe reported in October that Jeffrey R. Holland, one of the church's 12 apostles, had discussed the campaign at church headquarters with one of Romney's sons as well as with a key Romney donor and a paid consultant to his political action committee. The church says it was just a courtesy call, one of many such meetings Holland holds. But the Globe also described e-mails from two administrators of the business school at Brigham...