Mike Allen at Time magazine asks the provocative question- “Can a Mormon Be President,” and then answers his own question:
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. The Southern Baptist Convention lists the LDS church under Cults and Sects, along with Scientology.
The answer then, is no. At least not right now. Notwithstanding Romney’s recent pandering to the right with his war on gay marriage and K-LO’s childish crush on Romney, the base is not going to vote for Romney in a primary. Not when there are good Christians like Sam Brownback out there- and Brownback has never been fuzzy on the issues of teh gay, stem cells, and abortion.
But who really knows what will happen, or how the religious right will contort to support the GOP. After all, we learned over the past few years that torture is a Christian family value, so maybe the evangelical base is ready for a Mormon president.