[Herimoisige]

[eliniaguilefp7m]

I think Mo' might be twins. Hard to tell them apart

[appleiphoneees]

Motive being, when elected setup immediate offshore account...

China needs more LD-Saints

[vosteglog]

Gross! Buying a presidency by selling kids is just wrong.

[Herimoisige]

I think Mo' might be twins. Hard to tell them apart

Twins - confusing agreed so she labels them with big letters and still fucks up... sheesh. Them kids gonna have issues in life.

[Sipewrio]

Gross! Buying a presidency by selling kids is just wrong.

Everything is run on the buck apparently even kids.

[bQXHsKzS]

(whose kids are those, OMG ! cuz he has 5 boys, too--all grown.)

Relax !!
Our Rich Republican
Mormon Money Grubber
Nominee
Embraces
Yiddishkeit !!!!




Why Jewish Voters Might Like Mitt Romney: His Religion

by Michael Medved Apr 7, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
Romney’s religion may turn off evangelicals, but it draws high marks from many Jewish voters.
Michael Medved on why Mormonism could help him with this generally liberal group.




Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, so often described as an impediment to his political prospects, might work to his advantage with one crucial segment of the electorate: Jewish voters.



Mitt Romney speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition annual leadership meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada on April 2, 2011. (Julie Jacobson / AP Photo)
The very fact that his Mormonism makes him less popular among evangelical Christians almost certainly makes him more popular among American Jews. Academic analysis of the intersection of religion and politics suggests that Jews maintain a distinctly—and surprisingly—favorable view of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.



This doesn’t mean Romney stands a chance of winning an outright majority in the Jewish community: no Republican presidential nominee has achieved that feat since William Howard Taft in 1908. Moreover, recent surveys indicate that most Jewish voters back Barack Obama for reelection, though his level of support has declined. Exit polls in 2008 showed Obama carrying 78 percent of Jewish votes, while a new poll by the Public Religion Research Institute (Jewish Values Survey, March 2012) shows that number falling to 62 percent if the election were held today.

Among the 30 percent of Jewish voters who say they plan to vote Republican, Romney emerges as the big winner, crushing Rick Santorum by a margin of 57 to 17 percent. When comparing these figures with the exit polls from major primaries, Romney fares much better among Republican Jews than he does among any other religious group in the GOP, except for his fellow Mormons, of course.

This outcome reflects a surprising study by two prominent professors, Robert D. Putnam of Harvard and David E. Campbell of Notre Dame, concerning public attitudes toward various faith communities. As expected, Mormons scored poorly in terms of their overall popularity, ranking below evangelical Christians, Catholics, and Jews, and ahead of only atheists and Muslims.

Among Jews, on the other hand, Mormons ranked at the very top of the approval list—and Jews viewed Mormons more warmly than did any other respondents in the survey. For those who speculate that this positive attitude might connect with the fervent support for Israel by members of the LDS church, Putnam and Campbell point out that evangelical Christians similarly love Israel, but American Jews in no way love them back. Indeed, in their study, Jewish participants gave evangelicals an even lower rating than they gave to Muslims. For those who like to think of Jews as savvy and insightful about our self-interest, it’s tough to explain why we offer less approval to a faith community that overwhelmingly wants to support us than we do to a religious tradition that has spawned tens of millions of angry adherents who say openly that they want to kill us.

Concerning Mormons, Campbell and Putnam wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “We suspect that Jews’ warmth toward Mormons stems from solidarity with another group that is small and subject to intolerance. Jews and Mormons are the two American groups most likely to report that other people disparage their religious beliefs.” If this analysis accurately describes Jewish sentiments, then every time some born-again clergyman attacks Romney for his Mormon faith or describes the LDS church as a “cult,” Jews probably look at Mitt more favorably, especially given the irrational, unjustified—but undeniable—Jewish hostility to evangelicals.

There’s also a special historical affinity between Jews and Mormons that may play a role in Romney’s relative popularity in the Jewish community. Joseph Smith, the prophet and founder of the LDS church, qualified as a committed “restorationist”—eager to facilitate the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland. In his fascinating book Power, Faith, and Fantasy [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...thedaibea-20]], Michael B. Oren, who is Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., writes of the first Mormon pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In 1841, Smith sent his “personal apostle” Orson Hyde to the ancient Jewish capital. “Climbing the Mount of Olives, Hyde erected an altar and beseeched God to ‘restore the kingdom unto Israel—raise up Jerusalem as its capital, and continue her people a distinct nation and government.’ Mormons would later integrate that prayer into their liturgy and, on the site of Hyde’s altar, build a branch of Brigham Young University.”

That handsome and impressive facility has become a well-regarded fixture in the life of modern Jerusalem, overcoming resistance from many Orthodox Jewish leaders at the time of its construction in the early 1980s. According to nearly all accounts, the Mormons have carefully kept their promise to avoid using the BYU center as a base for missionary activity, and this “good neighbor” policy has greatly enhanced their popularity in Israel. My late father, who chose to spend the last 20 years of his life in Jerusalem, regularly attended the outstanding series of classical-music concerts graciously hosted at the Mormon campus on Sundays.

Back in the United States, Mormons and Jews frequently laugh together at our common use of the word “gentiles” to describe the multitudes outside our minority religious communities. The first “gentile” governor of the state of Utah was, indeed, Jewish: Simon Bamberger served between 1917 and 1921.

Mitt Romney’s business career brought him into close collaboration with Jewish communal leaders in Massachusetts and around the country. As a young graduate of Harvard Business School, he took his first full-time job at the Boston Consulting Group, where he worked alongside a young graduate of the MIT Business School, Benjamin Netanyahu, who later went on to win a more prominent job as Israel’s prime minister. Romney, naturally, likes to tell that story on the campaign trail. Last year, he offered his prestige and contacts to a fundraising banquet (where, in the interests of full disclosure, I was also a featured speaker) for the Jerusalem College of Technology, a dynamic institution that combines Orthodox religious study with world-class training in engineering.

Of course, most evangelical leaders similarly show their love for the Jewish people by backing Israeli institutions, leading tours of the Holy Land, and even defending our religious liberties when they’re threatened in the United States. When aggressive efforts to ban all infant circumcisions were undertaken last year in San Francisco and Santa Monica, evangelical Christians provided crucial backing to turn back the assault on our right to our rite.There’s a special historical affinity between Jews and Mormons that may play a role in Romney’s relative popularity in the Jewish community.But the prominent, powerful involvement of evangelicals in conservative politics alarms many in the Jewish community, which remains overwhelmingly liberal; 64 percent of Jews describe themselves as Democrats. Since most Jews also count as decidedly irreligious, shunning synagogue or temple membership and avoiding traditional patterns of observance, the chief sense in which they see themselves as distinctively Jewish involves their rejection of the core claims of Christianity. This means secular, liberal Jewish voters react with particular horror to any mixture of Christianity and politics. John Marttila, a pollster for the Anti-Defamation League, told the Jerusalem Post that “he believed that the rhetoric of the Republican primaries, particularly on religious issues, was alienating moderate Jews who might otherwise consider voting for the GOP.”

Romney has been a victim of that rhetoric far more than the source of it; he recognizes the lingering doubts about his own faith and has tried for the most part to avoid combining preaching and politics. This may not build his popularity among evangelical voters in the upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania or Texas, but it makes him far more viable in the Jewish community than his remaining Republican rivals.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-religion.html















Could Mitt Romney Be the First Jewish President?

By Timothy Stanley
Dec 7 2011, 2:15 PM

The shared experience of Mormons and Jews as religious minorities in America has led to some surprising affinities
On Wednesday morning, Mitt Romney received a giddy reception at a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington, D.C. The audience was clapping before he even set foot on stage, and the applause only got louder as his speech went on. Denouncing President Obama's Middle East policy as "appeasement," he pledged to make Israel his first port of call should he win the 2012 election. "I will reaffirm as a vital national interest Israel's existence as a Jewish state," he said. "I want the world to know that the bonds between Israel and the United States are unshakable."

It's inevitable that Romney's foreign policy views should win him some fans among Jewish Republicans, but he also draws a surprising level support among Jewish voters in general when compared to his Republican competitors. The socially conservative Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would seem likely to be as alienating to Jews -- one of America's most liberal demographics -- as the evangelical Christianity of a Michele Bachmann. But September's annual American Jewish Committee poll of political attitudes found otherwise. If Romney were nominated by the GOP, he'd attract 32 percent of Jewish voters to Obama's 50 percent, it found. That figure doesn't sound big, but it's larger than Rick Perry's 25 percent or Bachmann's 19 percent (the survey did not ask about Newt Gingrich). It's also way ahead of the votes drawn by John McCain in 2008 -- 21 percent. Were it replicated on election day, 2012, it would be the most impressive showing by a GOP candidate in 24 years.

Of course, Obama's slide in the polls and Romney's moderate politics and comparative popularity among all voters might explain those numbers. But it's also possible that -- consciously or subconsciously -- Jewish voters feel more of a kinship with a man whose ethnic and religious experience in American has a surprising number of parallels their own.
In April 2011, Romney's wife told a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition that she felt at home with the group because, "Mitt and I can appreciate coming from another heritage." Certainly, Romney's biography touches upon classic Jewish themes of cultural "separateness". As journalist Benjamin Wallace-Wells observes of Romney's early career as a management consultant at Bain Capital: "Romney wasn't a Wasp. He never really talked to his co-workers about his Mormonism, but he sometimes joked with Jewish colleagues about how their religions made them all outsiders." The former Massachusetts governor has even picked up some lingo from members of the tribe, as Jews sometimes refer to themselves. In a speech at Yeshiva University in April 2007, Romney said will to succeed at Bain despite his outsider status was pure "chutzpah."
The faith that Romney grew up in has many fundamental differences from Judaism, to say the least. The LDS Church is more authoritarian; its members emphasize conformity, submission, evangelism, and religious hierarchy. In contrast, the Jewish rabbinical tradition favors debate and rejects efforts to convert others. Unlike Mormons, Jews also don't ask for secrecy to their rituals and don't attempt to bar nonbelievers from their places of worship (even if they don't exactly welcome them, either).
But there are intriguing similarities. Both groups theologically define themselves as "chosen" by God to fulfill certain prophesies. Mormons believe that they are descended through biblical Israel (usually through the tribe of Ephraim), making the Jews their "cousins". Like their "cousins," they refer to outsiders as "gentiles." Both cultures value education, oppose marriage outside the community, have strict dietary rules, and place an emphasis upon observing the Sabbath. They even share a sartorial tie: the devout in both faiths wear special undergarments.


But the most crucial similarity is the two communities' historical story of suffering. In the 19th century, the Mormons were chased across the U.S. by Protestant mobs and even subject to an "extermination order" in Missouri. The Church's founder, Joseph Smith, was murdered by vigilantes in 1844. From 1857-1858, the U.S. Army actually occupied Utah. Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, is reported to have told future LDS President Ezra Taft Benson, "There are no people in the world who understand Jews like the Mormons do."
Of course, the Mormon experience comes nowhere close to the Jewish history of persecution. But what's more important is that the average Mormon thinks it does. There is scattered evidence of anti-Semitism in LDS history, but the sense of a shared theology and history has translated into a genuine fondness on the part of Mormons for all things Jewish. The fourth elected governor of Utah was a Jew (Simon Bamberger, elected 1916) and the LDS Church provided funds to build the first Reform Synagogue in Salt Lake City. Mormons are discouraged from proselytizing in Israel and, since 1995, Mormons have stopped posthumously baptizing Jews who have died (an act they continue to perform for everyone else).
For Romney, all of this history translates into a profound admiration for the state of Israel. The candidate has promised to up aid to Israel and has accused Obama of throwing the country "under the bus." These foreign policy views help explain why he has attracted so much high-level Jewish Republican support to his campaign.
Another reason might be Romney's willingness to push certain buttons on the issue of the separation of church and state. The historical persecution of the Mormon community has taught it the value of keeping the state away from religion and vice versa. The eleventh Article of Faith of the LDS Church reads: "We claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may." In an 1865 declaration, the Church also stated, "We do not believe that human law has a right to interfere in prescribing rules of worship to bind the consciences of men, nor dictate forms for public or private devotion." The skeptic might ask how such apparent respect for separating church and state squares with the LDS campaign against gay marriage in California. One answer is that Mormons draw a distinction between faith and morality, seeing matters of religious freedom as different from sexual identity and behavior. Either way, there's room for Romney to be legitimately perceived as a supporter of the separation of church and state -- it's a position he has defended more vocally than his other serious competitors in the GOP field.


At the Las Vegas Republican presidential debate a few days after Pastor Robert Jeffress called Mormonism a cult, Perry argued that men like Jeffress, a supporter of his then more formidable candidacy, were free to consider a man's religion when deciding how to vote. Romney angrily countered with what could have been a speech by Ted Kennedy: "That idea that we should choose people based upon their religion for public office is what I find to be most troubling, because the founders of this country went to great length to make sure -- and even put it in the Constitution -- that we would not choose people who represent us in government based upon their religion, that this would be a nation that recognized and respected other faiths, where there's a plurality of faiths, where there was tolerance for other people and faiths. That's a bedrock principle." Many Jewish viewers might have cried, "Amen to that." Its occasional moments of mainstream sanity like this that continue to make Romney such an attractive pick to swing voters and Republicans desperate to win.


In 1998, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the African-American novelist Toni Morrison suggested that Bill Clinton was "our first black President." Putting aside his skin color, Morrison argued, "Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas." The analysis remains deservedly controversial, but it did offer a plausible cultural explanation for why so many African-Americans identified with -- even loved -- Clinton. Over time, one can imagine a similar dynamic developing between a substantial minority of Jewish Americans and the first Mormon major-party presidential nominee. In a country where race and religion remain politically divisive, such a surprising synergy would only be a good thing.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...sident/247882/