Broken Thumb Blog

I know that Romney has some political qualities which are objectionable to my peers, though I’m not sure there is a better candidate in this election. McCain wants to send 100K more troops to the Middle East. Guiliani is nothing less than a Nero untroubled by constitutional “nuisances.�? Clinton will govern from a place to the right of Goldwater just to make her bona fides in foreign policy and to prevent the appearance of weakness as a woman in the Oval Office. Obama’s greatest competency is making nice speeches. John Edwards has the unfortunate problem of believing in two Americas but choosing to live in only one of them.

I fully expect that Romney’s candidacy will destroy the hold of the religious right on the Republican Party. Jesus-soaked fundies hate nothing more than Mormons. They will be chased from the party if it backs him, allowing his pro-business backers (who will overlook his religion in favor of his resume as governor of the nation’s most liberal state) to reform it.

As for his opposition to gay-marriage and the like, I fully believe the highest office will temper his personal preferences in favor of precedence confirmed by the practice of the wealthiest businesses in the county. Lyndon Johnson, when asked by Martin Luther King Jr. how he would be able to politically support the Civil Rights Act of 1964, responded “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I am free at last.�? What he meant was that as President he no longer had to respond to the narrow bigotry of his Texas constituency.

I am not a single-issue voter. As important to me as universal marriage rights are, I think it would be irresponsible to cast a vote on that alone. Of more pressing concern is the Southern-based, oil-centric, Baptist cabal that has infiltrated the federal apparatus—the military, the bureaucracy, and the judiciary.

Ultimately, Mormons are too thin a slice of the population to sustain a religiously-motivated, socially conservative orthodoxy within the government. Such ideologies will be opposed by a (surprising) coalition of Ivy-educated citizens and their less-educated Christian fundamentalist compatriots. Born-agains will oppose any such measures because a Mormon President will be suspected of bowing to the will of Salt Lake City. Others will oppose them simply because the measures are wrong-headed. In all events a Romney administration will be hamstrung by political expediencies beyond his control. I think he knows this, but he will never concede as much during his campaign.

In re isto, multus venitus est.

For years I've avoided getting too actively involved in Presidential politics. Frustration drove me from it; no candidate standing for election was a candidate I could stand behind. That's changed today. Mitt Romney formally announced his candidacy and I am going to join his campaign.

Over the next 20 months I'm going to wear a button, put a sticker on my bumper, and ask others to support Mitt. I know there will be reservations about whom and what he may represent, but I have none. Any deficiency he may have is dwarfed by the disingenuousness of the other frontrunning candidates.

I hope for the best from his campaign and am glad to be a part of it.