Mary Mostert
A surge for Mitt Romney?
By Mary Mostert
Events totally outside the realm of politics may have created a Romney surge that could dramatically change the overall results in the Super Tuesday Presidential Primaries. Nearly the entire media and most polls have already announced a win for John McCain in the Republican races. However, nearly all those predictions are based on polls taken prior to February 1st. The Zogby poll, which was taken on Sunday, February 2, shows Mitt Romney leading with 40% of the California Republican vote to McCain's 32%.
Other polls, however, continue to show McCain leading with 38-40% and Romney trailing by 7 to 9 percent. How could the polls be showing the exact opposite? I believe it is because the other polls were taken by January 31st and a sudden move to Romney has taken place.
Mitt Romney entered the Presidential Primary race with three issues that has led most of the media and the pollsters to assume he would not be able to beat John McCain. First, he lacked John McCain's name recognition, which is an important part of getting votes. Second, a well orchestrated campaign to totally misrepresent his stand on abortion and other conservative issues was launched to undermine his credentials as a conservative and, third, his membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
No Mormon, so we have been told repeatedly, could EVER get elected in the USA due to the opposition of the "Evangelical Christians." So, what could Mitt Romney have possibly done that could have changed enough votes to explain the new Zogby poll?
I don't think it was anything Mitt Romney did. It appears to be something the media did on Saturday when they gave extensive, nationwide news coverage of the funeral in Salt Lake City of the LDS Church prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley. Hearing the talks and the prayers of family members and seeing the thousands of church members who packed the 24,000 seat Convention Center and the renovated Tabernacle gave a misinformed public a totally different view of the Mormons.
Those who watched the funeral on TV or who read the reports following the funeral might also have caught a glimpse of a familiar political figure - Mitt Romney, who was in the audience, although he was not mentioned from the podium. Romney cancelled his political campaigning schedule to come to Salt Lake to pay his respects to the family of President Hinckley.
At the funeral Thomas S. Monson, the First Counselor to President Gordon B. Hinckley, said of the deceased leader: "'Here and there, and now and then, God makes a giant among men.' President Hinckley was such a giant — a giant of knowledge, of faith, of testimony, of compassion, of vision."
That statement, and others made by members of the family, were heard and read over the week-end by millions of people, many of whom had only heard negative misinformation about "the Mormons" previously. The love, sense of humor, energy and optimism of the 97 year old prophet and president of the much maligned "Mormon church" was remembered and a key doctrine of the LDS Church, the importance of family and the belief that family ties can continue after death, were repeatedly mentioned. Almost every speaker noted that now, Gordon B. Hinckley, was with his beloved wife of Marjorie, whom he had married for both time and eternity in the Salt Lake Temple in 1937 and who died in 2004.
Later , many people learned that presidential candidate Mitt Romney had changed his campaign schedule and flown to Utah to attend the funeral and pay his respects to the Romney family. Some in the media commented on the "sacrifice" of his time so close to Super Tuesday, when his opponents were campaigning.
On Friday, January 31st, over 25% of those polled in California said that they "might" change their mind on their choice for president by February 5th. It appears from the newest polls that many people may have done just that in only a couple of days based on a totally different picture of "Mormonism" that they saw on the TV screens and in their newspapers on Saturday.
© Mary Mostert
Events totally outside the realm of politics may have created a Romney surge that could dramatically change the overall results in the Super Tuesday Presidential Primaries. Nearly the entire media and most polls have already announced a win for John McCain in the Republican races. However, nearly all those predictions are based on polls taken prior to February 1st. The Zogby poll, which was taken on Sunday, February 2, shows Mitt Romney leading with 40% of the California Republican vote to McCain's 32%.
Other polls, however, continue to show McCain leading with 38-40% and Romney trailing by 7 to 9 percent. How could the polls be showing the exact opposite? I believe it is because the other polls were taken by January 31st and a sudden move to Romney has taken place.
Mitt Romney entered the Presidential Primary race with three issues that has led most of the media and the pollsters to assume he would not be able to beat John McCain. First, he lacked John McCain's name recognition, which is an important part of getting votes. Second, a well orchestrated campaign to totally misrepresent his stand on abortion and other conservative issues was launched to undermine his credentials as a conservative and, third, his membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
No Mormon, so we have been told repeatedly, could EVER get elected in the USA due to the opposition of the "Evangelical Christians." So, what could Mitt Romney have possibly done that could have changed enough votes to explain the new Zogby poll?
I don't think it was anything Mitt Romney did. It appears to be something the media did on Saturday when they gave extensive, nationwide news coverage of the funeral in Salt Lake City of the LDS Church prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley. Hearing the talks and the prayers of family members and seeing the thousands of church members who packed the 24,000 seat Convention Center and the renovated Tabernacle gave a misinformed public a totally different view of the Mormons.
Those who watched the funeral on TV or who read the reports following the funeral might also have caught a glimpse of a familiar political figure - Mitt Romney, who was in the audience, although he was not mentioned from the podium. Romney cancelled his political campaigning schedule to come to Salt Lake to pay his respects to the family of President Hinckley.
At the funeral Thomas S. Monson, the First Counselor to President Gordon B. Hinckley, said of the deceased leader: "'Here and there, and now and then, God makes a giant among men.' President Hinckley was such a giant — a giant of knowledge, of faith, of testimony, of compassion, of vision."
That statement, and others made by members of the family, were heard and read over the week-end by millions of people, many of whom had only heard negative misinformation about "the Mormons" previously. The love, sense of humor, energy and optimism of the 97 year old prophet and president of the much maligned "Mormon church" was remembered and a key doctrine of the LDS Church, the importance of family and the belief that family ties can continue after death, were repeatedly mentioned. Almost every speaker noted that now, Gordon B. Hinckley, was with his beloved wife of Marjorie, whom he had married for both time and eternity in the Salt Lake Temple in 1937 and who died in 2004.
Later , many people learned that presidential candidate Mitt Romney had changed his campaign schedule and flown to Utah to attend the funeral and pay his respects to the Romney family. Some in the media commented on the "sacrifice" of his time so close to Super Tuesday, when his opponents were campaigning.
On Friday, January 31st, over 25% of those polled in California said that they "might" change their mind on their choice for president by February 5th. It appears from the newest polls that many people may have done just that in only a couple of days based on a totally different picture of "Mormonism" that they saw on the TV screens and in their newspapers on Saturday.
© Mary Mostert
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