Barack Hussein Obama

As the Presidential campaign has heated up, I have followed with interest the political candidacy of Mitt Romney. My first feelings were mixed about an LDS candidate. While impressed by his work with the Winter Olympics, I really didn’t know that much about Mr. Romney. While I still don’t know that I fully embrace him as a candidate, I don’t know that there is anyone on the Republican side of the fence which really speaks to the needs of our nation today. McCain seems too old to me and working to take an old-school approach to the future. In my mind, Huckabee is in the race as an anti-Mormon candidate and his response to international events seems to indicate a lack of ability on the foreign policy matters. The rest of the Republican field don’t stand out either.

Looking at the Democrats I don’t want Hillary, she’s too far left and had her day when Bill was in the White House. John Edwards has generally impressed me, but his boyish image doesn’t fit being the stately image I see as a president. As I read the news tonight, I think the reality is that Barack Obama has put forth the right strategy to win over the minds of the swing voters and thus propel him to the top of the pack. At this point I don’t see anyone else who has the presidential image, the 'real' optimistic strategy of hope and a chance at making it all the way. I guess we'll see where things end up.

Enough about Mr. Obama et al. The reality is that if I had a chance to vote in Iowa or NH right now, I’d much rather put my vote behind Romney, mostly to support him for a reason I think is totally wrong--his religion. In the wake of the good, bad and totally off the wall press which has followed his campaign related to his religious preference, I think the public are being short changed an opportunity to see who he really is as a candidate.

I have read a number of posts and articles of late which say things like, religion shouldn’t matter, and it’s the Mormon’s time to have a president. The fact is that there are so many people who don’t have a clue about what the LDS people believe who are posting information about who Mormons are, how Mormons think, and so forth--it is a little frustrating. There are also a good number of people who are working hard to provide accurate information about the Latter-Day Saints.

I think the reality is that like anything, there are truly a number of perspectives about what Mormonism is. The frustrating part is that it seems the loudest voices in the blogs and online comments seem to be mostly the ardent anti-Mormons. As someone who sees himself as a fully-active member of the Mormon faith, I wish to lend my voice to the mix.

I was impressed by the following blog posting. The author, a BYU professor, rates various news articles about Mormons. I found his view accurately filters the articles noted through an LDS lens which provides insight into what we really think.

Here’s the link to the article: “Mormon Media Monitor: Time to grade LDS coverage,” Joel Campbell, LDS Newsline blogger, Published: December 31, 2007, Online: http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695240109,00.html

Another starting point for basic facts is the LDS church web sites. The NewsRoom page on www.lds.org provides good general news information about Latter-Day Saints. This video was produced for the Olympics to try and help overcome some of the misconceptions about Mormons. While informative, I think it fair to say that it is difficult to really get a good understanding of LDS beliefs and practices in a 10min video and further discussions with a member of the Church would more fully provide perspective into current LDS thinking. http://www.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/media/mediaplayer.swf?media=http://broadcast.lds.org/newsroom/video/flv/12-10-2007_13_Million_Newsroom.flv&type=FLV

Finally, there are sites such as www.Mormon.org.