POV: Mormon and Evangelical Christian discuss life and politics of MR
Bias: Pro-Romney
Reason for Source: Honestly books on Romney were slim. This was the only book I saw on my search through Amazon that didn't actually have the word Mormon in the title. This book has a chapter on his religion rather than the entire book. I found this more appealing than my other options.
Health Care: As Governor of MA, Romney put into effect the 2006 Health Reform Statute that grants health insurance to every citizen of the state. Ironically while Hillary (seemingly the most vocal supporter of public health care) praised his success in creating a public health care system, Romney seems to strongly oppose her plan. Details of both plans are probably worthy of a separate post.
Iraq War: Romney is, as statistically speaking most of America is, unhappy with the place the Bush administration has put on us. However, he acknowledges we are in this particular situation regardless of wither we should or should not have started it. Romney supports additional troops in Iraq given presentation of an intelligent placement and political focus.
Economy & Budget: Turner and Field stress that this is his strongest asset. They both argue that when Romney took office in MA, the state was in bad shape financially. Romney turned that around without any raising of taxes (more on this under Education).
Environment: My primary source provides a direct quote on the subject of Global Warming which is very descriptive of this view on this matter.
I want to make sure we don't do something which costs hundreds of billions of dollars in this country and make us less competitive with China and India. If carbon-emitting manufacturing moves to other countries, we've done nothing for the planet and we've hurt ourselves immeasurably.
Globalization: As you can probably guess from the previous two sections, Romney sees economic globalization as key to our own economy. National investment must be made in order to stay competitive with other nations.
Abortion: There is no straight yes/no answer here. Romney has flip flopped on his stance on this issue and has taken heat due to this. Originally pro-choice despite his own strong religious opposition and known dedication to family values that were in directly conflict to a pro-choice stance. His original support for the pro-choice stance came from his support in stem cell research that could also greatly benefit his with who has been diagnosed with MS.
Currently Romney is pro-life. The change of heart came for a new understanding of the uses of research that benefits from abortions. This was in regards to research in cloning, which he obviously does not support.
Immigration: Simply, or immigration needs to be reformed. Romney is for immigration, but believes our current system is letting in illegal immigrants, while making it increasingly difficult "to bring in more of the brains from around the world." He believes this is the exact opposite of what we should strive for and needs to be corrected.
Education: Romney seems to frequently mention education along with economic globalization. He believes our financial competitiveness with other countries is heavily dependent our turning out educated workers and researchers. It is also notable (and neglected by my primary source) that Romney has cut a great deal of education budget of Massachusetts for secondary and higher education while governor.
Civil Rights: Civil Rights is mostly mentioned along side education (and thus is also tied to his interest in economic globalization). In mentioning poverty, he seems to constantly segue to the need for better education in poor areas, and then lead into the need to stay financially competitive.
Other Notables: Romney's religion is probably the hottest issue revolving this candidate. The Mormon religion isn't very well known. There are several issues that are worth consideration. Mormon's believe in polygamy, the marriage of a man to more than one woman. This brings his family values under fire as being unconventional and certainly askew with most of America, however, cannot provide any proof that Romney has any other wife than Ann Romney. However, Fox News reported Romney's Grand-father did have more than one wife. If interested I will certainly mention this in the Personal Opinion section below.
The other most notable issue that arises from his religion is their belief in a living prophet. There is a fear in exactly how much power would such a person actually have over Romney. The issue is if this prophet were to say he had a vision regarding a national policy or international politics, would Romney blindly follow. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has releasted the following statement to this effect.
Elected officials who are Latter-day Saints make their own decisions and may not necessarily be in agreement with one another or even with a publicly stated Church position. While the Church may communicate its views to them, as it may to any other elected official, it recognizes that these officials still must make their own choices based on their best judgment and with consideration of the constituencies whom they were elected to represent.
Personal Opinion (section to extract my emotional commentary out of the above as best as I can): I feel like I've been pinching my own lip to stay objective in writing the previous post. I couldn't wait to get to this section.
Honestly, I like Romney, but I'm not sure I want him for president in 2008. I see global warming as a bigger issue than he seems to make it out to be and I believe we should at least take some initial steps toward correction against environmental abuse. Romney's concerns for taking action in favor of correcting global warming in that it could negatively effect our economy is actually a real threat. However, Romney prides himself as an excellent economist. If he's anywhere near as good as he and his supporters say he is. He's a perfect post Global Warming reform president. We need to elect a president who will take some major steps in favor support of global warming and then Romney would be a great cleanup man. It seems to me he could very well be an ace up our sleeve that I don't think we should play yet.
I also respect Romney's stance on abortion and stem cell research. In the near future I plan on making a post in regards to religion and politics, but I admire Romney's realization that his own religion should not be legally forced upon others though legislation. I see his flip flop as merely showing he's a candidate that is possibly always researching the issues and isn't afraid to change his mind. Its actually refreshing to hear a pro-life argument that doesn't involve religion (directly at least, as cloning could still be a religious issue obviously). Frankly, after Bush, shouldn't we have had our fill of a president who isn't willing evaluate new evidence to reform his opinion? I know I am.
Originally I considered Romney's religion of little concern to me, until I read my primary source and I understood where the opposition was coming from. The polygamy doesn't bother me. At least the possibility of having 3 first ladies is probably on par with having a first gentleman should Clinton be elected. At best, having 3 first ladies could be like having a first congress in charge of... well its not like the first lady has a defined job anyways, so I guess 3 ladies can just sit around and have undefined jobs as well as one can. Regardless, as I said previously, Romney's one and only known wife is Ann Romney. As far as I'm concerned, until presented with evidence to the contrary, he only has one wife.
The realization that the LDS's believe in a prophet did raise an eyebrow. However any concerns of a possible religious conspiracy I may have shared were completely disarmed by the official LDS statement I quoted above. Mormons are very pious people as I've come to understand. I believe they would release an official statement lying about their beliefs about as much as I believe the Vatican would do the same as the Catholic that I am. In other words, I don't believe the heads of a church would probably not lie about such a thing for the sake of politics.
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