“MORMON ISSUE”
STILL HANDICAPS ROMNEY
Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, June 12, 2011
MUCH HAS CHANGED since Mitt Romney last ran for president. The economy has gotten worse, the Phillies assembled the best starting rotation in baseball, and the United States killed Osama bin Laden.
Sadly, one thing that hasn’t changed is the reluctance of a significant number of Americans to vote for him because of his Mormon faith. In a nationwide poll last month by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 25 percent said they would be less likely to support a Mormon for president, compared with 30 percent in February 2007.
Who are they? It seems that reluctance to vote for a Mormon is about the only thing on which many evangelical Protestants and liberal Democrats agree. The former, of course, present a significant stumbling block for Romney and fellow Mormon Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor and potential presidential candidate, given the number of evangelicals in early caucus and primary states such as Iowa and South Carolina.
Romney was optimistic earlier this year during an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan. He said:
I can’t judge the politics. I don’t know the answer to that. My experience so far, in Massachusetts running as a Mormon guy in a state that’s overwhelmingly of other faiths, is it didn’t seem to get in my way there. But most people in the country recognize that, in fact, the nation itself was founded on the principle of religious tolerance and freedom.
My interaction with radio callers tells me he is overly optimistic. I’ve heard from many voters willing to state their hesitancy to vote for a Mormon, including “Sean,” a self-described Catholic from Indianapolis.
“I’m in that group that won’t vote for a Mormon,” he told me. Why? “Because I think it implies poor judgment and critical-thinking skills.”
Sean’s critique didn’t surprise Anthea Butler, a religion professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “Most Americans don’t know the basic history and beliefs of their own faith, let alone any of the major religious traditions,” Butler told me.
Sean, and those who make up the quarter of the country unwilling to elect a Mormon, believe the followers of Mormonism are insufficiently dubious about their own religion.
How else to explain Mormons’ adherence to a faith founded by Joseph Smith, who told his followers that he had been visited at age 14 by God the Father and Jesus, who instructed him not to join an established church? A few years later, Smith would translate the Book of Mormon, based on inscriptions on gold plates buried in the ground, with a “seeing stone.” Today, participants wear special undergarments to remind them of the tenets of their faith and to protect them. They also refrain from consuming coffee or tea, which the sect refers to as “hot drinks.”
Sean’s group knows better than to believe this, as well as whatever might underpin the faith of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and even Scientologists.
Take Scientology. This church is predicated upon events of 75 million years ago when an intergalactic warlord released millions of soul-like beings into Earth’s atmosphere. Those beings, called thetans, harbor confusion and conflict, which they use to wreak havoc on the individuals they come to inhabit. In 1951, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard introduced the electropsychometer, or E-meter, to aid in detecting the unhealthy and potentially damaging subconscious memories these thetans carry with them.
No doubt Sean can just imagine what the Buddhists say about the Scientologists. These thetans were reincarnated from what, exactly? When did they go through their cycles of birth, life, and death? And how did they learn to release their attachment to desire and the self so they could attain Nirvana?
And no way Sean would be comfortable with all that Muslim stuff. Islam’s holy text includes reference to Allah’s creating man from a clot of blood, not to mention angels adorned with as many as four pairs of wings. Muslims believe it takes unwavering belief in God and a lifetime of good deeds to reach Paradise.
Perhaps Sean is more comfortable with Jewish beliefs. Jews readily understand that the Earth was created in six days (and that God rested on the seventh). And they appreciate Noah’s survival of a great flood after building an ark big enough to hold two of each animal, the drowning of the oppressive Pharaoh’s army after Moses parted the Red Sea, and the conquest of Canaan, complete with walls toppled by shouts and the sun standing still in the sky.
Still, they, too, can learn a few things from Christians.
Chalk it up to a sense of logic and common sense that comes from understanding a virgin birth, complete with a star over Bethlehem that served as a marker to three wise men, not to mention how decades later, this son of God would walk on the water of the Sea of Galilee, convert water into wine, and rise from the dead after being crucified in front of scores of witnesses.
Critical thinking is, after all, in the eye of the beholder. Amen.
AFTERWORD
I thought the point of the column was pretty obvious; reread the last line if you have any doubts. Still, I should have known from experience that I would receive backlash from readers who either didn’t get my point or hadn’t read the column in its entirety. A few years earlier, on January 24, 2008, I published a Daily News column in which I similarly attempted to employ satire to point out the hypocrisy of people of any religion judging Scientologists and Mormons, by restating some of the beliefs of my own religion, Catholicism. (Specifically, my brand of cafeteria Catholicism!) The backlash to that column was also swift, sure, and once again, oblivious to the point I was actually making.
I wrote this column the year before Mitt Romney captured the Republican nomination and, in retrospect, I think his Mormon faith limited his potential only to the extent he allowed. I think he should have tried to use it more as a campaign asset. If viewers of the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa remember any of the speeches that week, chances are it’s the Clint Eastwood improv with a chair at about 10 P.M. on the night Romney himself spoke. Eastwood’s meandering moment made for a disjointed finale and overshadowed what happened earlier that night when fellow Mormons provided testimony about how Romney had impacted their lives with his caring and faith. They were remarkable. Their stories legitimate tearjerkers. Especially the story of an older couple from Massachusetts, the Oparowskis, who recounted how Romney, then the pastor at their church, had befriended their 14-year-old son for the seven months that he fought cancer before his death. At the boy’s request, Romney sat beside his bed and wrote his will to ensure that his property went to friends of his choosing. When David Oparowski died of lymphoma, Mitt Romney delivered the eulogy at his funeral.
The only trouble for the Romney campaign was that they had buried the Mormon testimonials out of prime time, and after Eastwood spoke, he, and not Romney’s faith, became the story of the night.
9/11 GENERATION IS HIGHLIGHT
OF SPEECHES
Philadelphia Inquirer, Friday, September 16, 2011
I WAS INVITED to deliver several 9/11 10th-anniversary speeches in the last two weeks. I accepted them all. Two stand out.
One week ago today, I spoke to nearly 3,000 students in two local suburban high schools. In the morning, I spoke to the entire student body of Central Bucks East in Buckingham, and in the afternoon, it was the entire student body of Central Bucks West in Doylestown.
The speeches came just after I’d completed a full week of guest-hosting for Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, and yet I found it more intimidating to speak to local high schoolers than go live on a national cable channel. I graduated from C.B. West in 1980. The thought of returning to my alma mater, as well as visiting our crosstown rival, was thrilling and daunting.
How do you say something meaningful about a day teenagers have heard a great deal about but only vaguely remember themselves? After all, the only current high school students you’d expect to have a clear recollection of 9/11 are those who were then in Sandra Kay Daniel’s second-grade class at the Emma E. Booker Elemen
tary School in Sarasota, Florida, with President George W. Bush when he got the news.
The early-morning program at C.B. East was marked by approbation and patriotism. Principal Kevin Shillingford choreographed a moving 90-minute presentation that featured students and local dignitaries. Red, white, and blue—the school colors—were everywhere. Many students were wearing “We remember” T-shirts that they’d been selling in support of the Garden of Reflection, Pennsylvania’s official 9/11 tribute in Lower Makefield. Representative Mike Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.) delivered a video presentation. Grace Godshalk, who lost her son William in the twin towers, thanked the students for their concern. A steel artifact from ground zero was presented by an honor guard.
At both schools, I tried to deliver a message focused on the role of individuals on a day remembered for its enormity. I also wanted to highlight the way in which judgments made in a matter of seconds had monumental consequences.
At C.B. West, my remarks came at the end of the day when Principal Kevin Munnelly introduced me in the school’s auditorium, which was packed with the 1,400-member student body. Football players anticipating a game that night against William Tennent were wearing their legendary black-and-gold jerseys.
The vibe was less formal than at C.B. East but no less respectful. Feet tapped and bodies swayed as two guitarists and a drummer warmed up the crowd, then played a stirring rendition of the national anthem. I asked Munnelly about his current crop of students and listened as he made a bragging reference to the wholesomeness of Lake Wobegon.
What I learned was that West students had something in common with their rivals at East. Each student body seemed eager to listen and learn about a seminal day in American history. They were respectful, reverential, and intellectually curious. All of which made me think about the difficult climate for both students and teachers. Too often both are underappreciated, while the aberrant get all the attention.
I was happy that John Marmor, my junior high school football coach, introduced me at C.B. East. It gave me the opportunity to tell him privately that I think about him often and now value the lessons he instilled many years ago—even if I didn’t appreciate them at the time.
Unfortunately, at C.B. West, I did not realize until I was finished that Regina Wild, now Mrs. Franchois, was in the audience. She was my high school speech teacher more years ago than either of us cares to count, and I have never forgotten her advice about giving an address: Tell them what you are going to say, say it, and then tell them what you just told them. I’ve been following her advice for years. I hope I did so in her presence.
Mostly I keep thinking about the students. Too often we’re quick to judge future generations based on things such as their use of social media. But looking at their faces, it occurred to me that the only thing that has changed is the technology.
Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the Pentagon on Sunday and referenced “an entire new generation of patriots—the 9/11 Generation.”
Many of them were just kids on that bright September morning. But like their grandparents on December 7, 1941, they courageously bore the burden that history had placed on their shoulders. And as they came of age, they showed up—they showed up to fight for their country, and they’re still showing up. Two million, eight hundred thousand of that 9/11 Generation moved to join our military since the attacks on 9/11, to finish the war begun here that day.
He’s correct.
The kids are all right.
AFTERWORD
I do a great deal of public speaking all across the country, primarily through my affiliation with the Washington Speaker’s Bureau. These are paid gigs. I’ve had many productive encounters with large groups that have engaged me for my analysis: business leaders in Orange County, California; government relations executives in New York City; the bar association in Erie, Pennsylvania; health care executives in Kansas; trial lawyers gathered in Montreal; farmers in Illinois; reinsurers in New Jersey. You name the type of group and, chances are, I have spoken to them. I generally enjoy the experience, and I never mail it in. I take each event seriously and try to be timely with my stories and commentary. But of all my speaking engagements, this column concerns the two that most stand out. And while my only payment for those appearances was personal satisfaction, in that regard I was overcompensated.
To return to my high school alma mater and our crosstown rival on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 was deeply moving. At each, I told the story of Jose Melendez-Perez, the immigration inspector who denied the presumed 20th hijacker admittance to the United States a month before 9/11 and spared the Capitol a strike that fateful day. I noted that he’d had only seconds to make a gut decision about Mohamed al Kahtani when he first saw him at the Orlando International Airport on August 4, 2001. And I cited other instances where a difference of seconds determined life or death on 9/11, like the actions of the passengers on Flight 93. And then I said:
The question now is what you will choose to do with the seconds, the minutes, the hours, the days, and years of your lives, to best honor those we lost on 9/11.
We hope you will never be called upon to make split-second decisions like Mr. Perez, or Mark Bingham and the other passengers confronted aboard Flight 93.
But choices will confront you. As students, you may view the future in terms of years and decades. But ultimately, those years and decades are simply made up of seconds.
When you think about 9/11, consider how every one of those seconds counted. Realize that an individual’s actions—and inactions—can at a moment’s notice have serious consequences for yourself and others.
And always make it your goal to maximize those chances you do have left. In so doing you will honor those we lost on 9/11.
IT’S TIME TO BREAK THE MOLD
ON TALK RADIO
Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, September 18, 2011
ON FRIDAY, I delivered the keynote address at a convention of the National Association of Broadcasters in Chicago, the people who own, run, and program the nation’s talk-radio stations. And unlike the spontaneity required to work in the business daily, this invitation afforded me plenty of time to plan what I wanted to say.
I started by tracing my career path back to the old WWDB-FM (96.5), where the lineup of talkers then included Irv Homer, Frank Ford, Dominic Quinn, and Bernie Herman. Back then, it wasn’t necessary to have ideology in common. What these headliners shared were engaging personalities. “Evil” Irv was an acerbic libertarian. Ford was an unabashed liberal. Quinn was erudite and had an unparalleled command of the English language. And Herman was billed as the “gentleman of broadcasting.”
Sid Mark, the Philadelphia broadcasting institution who is about to celebrate 55 years on the air, recalls delivering his own talk program immediately after Ford. “I was worried that I would have to pick up on a new topic that was outside my realm, and he would say, ‘Don’t worry, I will leave you a full board of callers,’” Mark told me. “In other words, I could continue a conversation but not with the same perspective. There was collegiality.”
Gentlemanly? Collegial? I can’t imagine either being a winning brand in today’s climate, which was the issue I addressed at the NAB.
Media polarization based on a faux ideological and partisan divide is having a horrific effect on Washington, where collegiality used to be commonplace but is now kryptonite. Before, politicians raised a glass with one another at the end of the day. Today, they raise their voices as if they’re on a perpetual split screen.
And they get rewarded for it by each party’s respective base—in the form of campaign contributions and increasingly important primary-election support. The more doctrinaire the view, the more likely it will be encouraged with campaign funds and interview requests.
That individualism is dead in D.C. is not subject to debate. The National Journal recently detailed how Congress is more divided today than at any point in the last 30 years. Gone are the days when Jesse Helms of North Carolina and New York’s Jacob Javits were
both Senate Republicans.
Today, every Senate Republican is more conservative than every Senate Democrat, and every Senate Democrat is more liberal than every Senate Republican. The elected middle has vanished.
There are many reasons for this, including the diminished role of seniority, which allows telegenic ideologues to rise to positions of power.
Gerrymandering robs us of competitive races, while closed primaries cater to each party’s base, further isolating moderate voters.
But the media are also big contributors insofar as they give voice to the extremes while ignoring the middle. That’s because the loyalty derived from partisan listeners (as well as viewers or readers) is thought to outweigh the benefits of seeking to expand the listening tent.
It’s time to change that business model, I argued to the NAB. A Wall Street Journal–NBC News survey conducted at the end of August found that 40 percent of Americans said their general approach to issues is “moderate.” Indeed, the only people whose politics align perfectly with the right- and left-wing litmus tests are those discussing current events on radio and cable television. In my experience, most people are conservative on some points, liberal on others, and haven’t reached an opinion on the rest.
But you’d never know they exist from listening and watching the media today, which extend themselves not to the middle but to the extremes.
Delivering the keynote address to the National Association of Broadcasters in Chicago on September 16, 2011. Photo courtesy of the National Association of Broadcasters.
It’s a vicious cycle that robs us of substantive dialogue at a time when it is desperately needed, and political deal-making has been replaced with deadlock. There are even fights over which night the president will speak to Congress.
Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right Page 26