(freshrant.com) Fair or not, Mitt Romney's religious beliefs remain teetering on the edge of Christian legitimacy for the GOP's large evangelical base. It is unfortunate for Romney that America's other most famous Mormon is Glenn Beck. Fox News had no recourse but to boot its most infamous ranter from its star GOP infomercial lineup to clear the decks for the 2012 election and what I would argue to be the GOP's only viable candidate for the general election. More on that in a minute.
Of course, it was not just Beck's close association with the church of the GOP's front runner that got Beck the boot. While FOX management was perfectly content to have Beck trash all Obama policies all the time, it was a lesser publicized statement Beck made about Bush I and II and "the coming caliphate" that brought heat from the GOP establishment.
Earlier this year, Beck revealed that both Bushes did not prevent the bombing of the ruins of Babylon out of concern for historical preservation. Beck came out with the claim that the father and son presidents were in on a worldwide conspiracy to supplant Western culture with a “global, evil empire.” While Republicans are more than willing to think Obama a Muslim with terrorist sympathies, seeing Bush, Inc. as one and same was too much for the low-information voters of the GOP.
While Beck's Tea Party quackery had gone beyond the pale, FOX propagandists knew Beck's many followers are dumb enough to believe such tripe. Too harsh? Not when the majority of Tea Party ditto heads now believe Obama is both Muslim and Kenyan.
Call Obama a racist on Fox and Friends, but bash at your peril the Bush Blue Bloods, the closest thing the GOP has to royalty. Beck made the fatal error of forgetting what power the sullied Bush brand still holds for the GOP Chamber of Commerce/Country Club faithful with another Bush princeling patiently awaiting his turn to ascend the throne in 2016. (Apologies to GOP darling, Chris Christie. All the Bush horses and all the Bush men couldn't allow you in 2016 to ascend. Eying the results of the 2010 census, Jeb won't pick the roly poly Christie as his running mate, but will opt for fellow Floridian pretty boy, Marco Rubio, giving a much needed boost for the Spanish-speaking Bush to trick millions of Hispanic-Americans into voting against their own self interests. Si Se Puede!)
But why all the love, or at minimum, deference to Mitt? Key independent voters will never support the Obama as Birther/Muslim myths that have been shamefully exploited by Gingrich, Huckabee and Trump. While Huckabee seems to be dropping hints that he likes his high FOX salary too much to make a run, Trump's and Gingrich's serial adulteries and multiple marriages would not withstand the test of the religious right any more than they could with Gulliani back in 2008.
And what of the GOP's noisy second string? Smart money says Sarah Palin also likes her smart money, so will stick to mouthing off on Facebook and Twitter while pulling in big bucks making speeches.
As for Michele Bachmann, her ignorance continues to trip up her self-proclaimed narrative of some sort of keeper of the flame of historical and constitutional legitimacy. Yes, she may score big in Iowa and even South Carolina, but telling a New Hampshire crowd just where Concord isn't will fail in bringing out the sea of Don't Tread On Me flags required for Bachmann to score big with the GOP electorate.
Chris Matthews, among others in the media, need to stop chatting up Haley Barbour as a viable candidate, not withstanding Barbour's deep political background within the bowels of the Republican Party. Coming from the lower intestines as a behind the scenes operator to stink up the race with insensitive racist-tinged comments and a sleazy tobacco lobbyist past is not going to win the hearts and minds of the voters. Adding negatives like presenting as the quintessential mush-mouthed archetype of a pudgy good ole boy would do Barbour no favors against a fit and still youthful Obama. Since the televisual John F. Kennedy, appearances do matter and do win votes.
Finally, take Tim Pawlenty. Please, someone take Pawlenty. Pawlenty, the mercy fuck of the GOP. Pawlenty makes Walter Mondale come across like Halle Berry at Mardi Gras. Pawlenty's herky-jerky campaign videos do not an exciting candidate make nor make us want to see his boobs. His attempts at some form of hep cat humor only serve to make him seem all the more lame and out of touch. And as of late he is trying to get attention from the right, not by joining the vulgar birther bandwagon, but talking up bringing back Don't Ask Don't Tell. While it is still early in the polling in an anything-can-happen election run up, Pawlenty continues to have great difficulty making it out of single digits with oxygen wasters Trump and Bachmann to shock and amuse.
With Beck's loud-mouth, inflammatory histrionics out of the picture, Mitt won't have to worry about his guilt-by-religious association with Beck. That is not to say that if it is the telegenic Romney that Republican choose for 2012, questions will still remain about the position of the The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints within the pantheon of the Christian faith. Will the vast numbers of Republicans who identify themselves as conservative Christians be bothered as they learn more about the multiple appearances of Jesus in the Americas, of the church's polygamist past, of it's founder's checkered past and the bizarre discovery and mode of transcribing the Book of Mormon supposedly found on gold tablets in a cave in upper New York?
It is hard to imagine that these questions would not come up within the religiously intolerant branch of the GOP that maintains a very narrow definition of acceptable Christian doctrine. But if Romney's Mormon faith doesn't discourage Republican primary voters, there is another reason they might stay home on Election Day.
RomneyCare. Good thing for Romney that Beck won't be on FOX to have Mitt to kick around any more after saying of Romney's health care plan passed when serving as Massachusetts' governor, "he opened the tent and gave you government health care that is now bankrupting the state." Sound familiar?
Viable GOP candidates for 2012? What does 1 x 0 make?